Puppies! lots of them.

Abby, a Great Dane our boss owns here at the office, had 12 puppies today. Lots of black squirming bodies with white spots here and there. We went in to see them for a while today after she had the last one.

Found a few neat sites today - put them up in the science news on the RLR site.
repeat them here -

Archaeologists find plate in Lebanon with cuneiform writing
Learning how Leukemia comes to life
China plans for 2nd manned space launch
Cosmic Rays could help measure time on Earth
Aspirin and Vitamin E, results show little effect on cancer

Kitten sitting and science news

We are kitten sitting a sibling of our two little terrors. ;o) So far so good. We will have her for half a week. They hissed a bit at each other even today (she met them yesterday for the first time in two months). Hopefully they will be playing soon as they were last night when she went to her home for the night.

I added a section of science news to the page, not rss.. but hand-updated. Stuff I find interesting. Strange vision of my mind it must give ;o) I've been doing the news in a different category for another site, so I can put up interesting stuff in another window as I go. I find genetics and microbiology have peaked my interest in the past few weeks. I was over at Nature's site reading (what they let you without a sub, which is hit and miss) about stem cells and how they have 'rebooted' some... interesting. Two tiny baby pandas were born in China, making five recently! National Geographic News is always great.

The geocities counter that was on the index page was loopy - registering every reload as a new hit. I found one that I was using on the Science Fiction Cookbook site that registers each isp instead.

Vegan cooking getting a little better. We used almost everything from our garden harvest today to make lunch. Rice with zucchini, pepper, cayenne, tomatoes, a small ear of corn and an added onion. Used balsamic vinegar and basil in it. Bought a block of cheese and some blackberry jam at home for between-meal snacks.

How to Live with a Vegan and not Starve

Warning : Vegan recipe and rant to follow

VEGAN RECIPE :

Anasazi beans - 1 cup soaked overnight
1/2 of a small onion
3 small tomatoes from garden and 1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 can of corn kernels
1 small green pepper from garden
1 garlic clove finely minced
lots of oregano, basil and rosemary
bottled chil powder, 2 tbsp (a lot)
garlic salt (a little)
4 tbsp of olive oil (yes, a lot)

I wokked all of that (beans first and longest(~30-45 min)) together until the beans were soft and the liquid reduced quite almost all the way. Dished it up in two bowls and served sweetened (him more than me) iced tea with it.

RANT
I am wondering today how I can continue to live with my vegan DH ;o) and not starve. There are no articles about it out there in the great web of the Internet, that I have found. Now that our garden is coming in we have plenty of food, but I have little weight to spare losing.

When JB became vegan (two years ago in October) I'll admit I weighed 25 more pounds than I do right now. I wasn't overweight then - and I am underweight now if you believe the height-weight charts.

That leaves me eating most of what he eats but not all of it -- and I must be lacking in something. I also naturally don't eat a large volume of food...never have. I wasn't the type of person who eats meat daily - but I did depend on milk, cheese, eggs and occasional small portions of chicken in my diet. The food we eat now is low in calories and high in bulk. He gets 3/4 of the pan of food, and I take 1/4. He is 6'4" and eats a whole lot more than I do. I would buy more high calorie or non-vegan foods, but our agreed-upon budget already contains allowances for the high cost of some of the foods he does eat. I also feel guilty buying something he can't eat. I do keep eggs in the house and go through a dozen in about two weeks.

Soy milk costs more than a gallon of milk for a quart. I drink it, but not a lot of it. It makes a good coffee creamer, okay over cereal. I learned how to bake all over again. The loss of butter for olive oil, milk for soy milk and flaxseed for eggs really changes the entire chemistry of cooking. Recipes have to be 'played with' until they work again.

To top it off he also won't eat other things that would be good for him, that I would eat. He dislikes peanut butter, bananas, eggplant, black beans, oatmeal and a certain type of squash.

I'm still trying to live with my vegan and not starve. We'll see if I survive the next wind that comes over ;o)

T-Shirts for the SFC

I have finally begun to put my little fork guys into images - starting with a very small one on a simple t-shirt for the Science Fiction Cookbook. I've been thinking of this for a while. When I get the font back on my computer I'll make a larger one with a larger bit of text. Maybe even a few t-shirts with recipes on them...? Which ones is a hard choice though ...

Languages, links and rain

We were rained out of the fireworks last night. Take two tonight.
Been trying to think up two more recipes for this months' Science Fiction Cookbook. Amazing how many different languages have comments on this 'pet' site of ours. JB(Bry) created it with me in college...many years ago now.

Thinking about an 'official t-shirt'... have to sketch what is in my head.

Our garden is producing food -- makes me want to cook. That might make me want to cook aliens ;o)
Are egglplants alien? The last one we cooked seemed to be... I don't remember eggplants looking like that inside. *grin*

Not much to say, coffee rules, miss playing Literati.

Fireworks Celebration

Its the 4th of July. Big fireworks tonight. We've been "practicing" all last week ;o)
Making coconut lime rice soon, then in the fridge until it is ready.

Saw War of the Worlds movie last night. Was not impressed. The local paper gave it 3 and a half stars... (and Batman Begins only 2 and a half). I was only remotely on the edge of my seat once, JB said the little girl screamed too much and the story was lacking much in continuuity between scenes. And the people... the herd instincts and curiosity-killed-the-cat was a bit much to see.

The ending could have used another five minutes and the whole movie could have used better details and dialogue.

Enough of that rant. Read two books this weekend too, Eve's Rib by Bryn Chandler and Folks on the Fringe by Orson Scott Card. Reccommend both as light reading.

Kitten attack squad and Bubble Bobble

"The only problem with a kitten attack squad is that they only attack each other and innocent bystanders.", me on Jun 28th.

I need coffee today, badly, but it is 90+ degrees out. Our kittens have a terrible habit of running over us at full speed in the early morning... hence kitten attack squad. I want to be able to play Bubble Bobble again.. have to look into that. I used to love that game as a kid.

Our cherry tomato is producing now, great! Tessa the goat is running around outside here at the office eating trees and bouncing about. Kittens are fighting in the house here. Website traffic at the Science Fiction Cookbook is up! Have to add more recipes to that again here soon. 3rd wedding anniversary yesterday ;o)

Still trying to get JB's sleeve on his shirt right. I really just want to make them short sleeves and not worry about this cuff thing at all.. but how else am I going to learn. More vintage patterns coming in the mail, some 1950s simplicity and an old (no date) vogue couturier(sp?). One new skirt made so far, have to make about 3 more to have enough for a week. Need to get more fabric, most of my cloth at home isn't large enough to make a longer skirt or dress without piecework.

Now to go get rid of my caffeine headache... This is what I get for being addicted to coffee in a hot climate.

News you want to use.

I linked National Geographic News up to my site today - love the paleontology and archaeology section. The robotics articles were really interesting today, a lifelike robot in Japan that 'breathes'... and modular robots that reproduce themselves.

Supreme court came through with an eminent domain ruling today that should shiver the bones of anyone who wants to live the American Dream (IMHO) of owning a house and business in an American city.

Picked green beans in the garden and zucchini. Making rice and broccoli right now for lunch. We are putting up panelling today.

Vintage men's shirt sewing pattern arrived today. Maybe I can do the sleeves right on JB's shirt now.

Also saw that at the Minnesota Zoo (my previous home state!) the fisher cat had kittens. They don't have pictures up yet but put a link to the news story up on Rhe Lynn's Rooms (RLR)

Sally cat is meowing in frustration because she is trying to catch a jumping spider that hitched in from the garden. She is trying her best acrobatics but can't get a good pounce on it.