She Ran Callin' Wiiiiiiildfire...

So the Boundary Waters Canoe Area is on fire. How do I know this? Not because the news or weather bothered to report on it in a timely fashion. No, it's because our entire area was blanketed by smoke as of yesterday afternoon. I was eating lunch outside with some co workers, and we couldn't figure out where the strong smell of smoke and eye-burning haze was coming from. Did the ceramics department get carried away with the outdoor kilns again? Is a farmer's field on fire? No...just a giant fire over 400 miles away. !!

I had ridden my bike to work, so was a little worried about the commute home. Our nurse gave me a mask to wear though. By the evening, it wasn't so bad, so I could have probably gone without the mask, but I didn't want to aggravate the old asthma any more than I needed to. My glasses only fogged up when I stopped, which I did at a couple of intersections, and to help a little Hispanic woman who was exclaiming, "DO YOU HAVE KEY TO MOVE MY CHAIR???" I surmised the translation to be, "Do you have a wrench so I can raise my bicycle seat?" Alas, I did not, but she thanked me for trying. :)



THEN...totally unrelated, really, but still noteworthy, I had an unfortunate treadmill accident in the fitness center. What happened was ... I fell! This was not a little stumble and catch yourself fall either. I tripped over my shoe or something (?!), somehow landed on my side (instead of my face), curled up to protect my head (my mad Ninja Karate reflexes kicked in!) and shot off the back of the treadmill and almost into the wall behind me! Funny, I thought of Lenore's cat, Xena (who had a similar experience)! I noticed a white skid mark of sorts on the treadmill belt and thought maybe it was from my shoe...but then realized it was probably skin! Yikes. So now I have three little "burns" on my leg and my ankle kind of hurts. Sometimes pride goeth after a fall, not before. It was really kind of funny – makes me laugh when I think of what that must have looked like! Scott, the attendant/trainer guy, ran over to see if I was OK, then after I got back on and resumed my workout (like, you know, I MEANT to do that!), he came back and asked, "Are you SURE you're OK?!" Then when I was lifting weights, he asked me again, "Did you hurt yourself anywhere?!" Very sweet. I didn't hear any laughing, so all the people hid it well, haha. Yes, first I thought of Xena, then George Jetson, then my coworker, Craig, whose answer for everything is, "Walk it off!" so I did.

Prior to all this excitement, Roland, Amy, and I (or, Roland and his sister wives, as I like to say), went to Wilton, WI to ride the Elroy-Sparta bike trail and do a little paddling in Ontario. (We did get separate hotel rooms, though I had this vision of me between the two of them in bed, maybe watching a movie and eating popcorn.)




I'm trying to figure out a way to link my photos of a Wilton Biking-Bobbing weekend from Facebook to here. Any ideas? I think there may be too many to post, and I'm fed up with Flickr. Stay tuned...

Later that same evening...
Maybe this will work?

Anyway, it was a gorgeous weekend -- could not have asked for more perfect weather, and I really enjoyed both the biking and paddling. I wanted to see how it felt to ride that trail when I had good biking legs from the summer, and it really made a difference. Even though I've been on that trail several times, the tunnels are still very cool (literally!). The longest one is 3/4 of a mile long, so you need a jacket and a light.

The Kickapoo River is one of my favorite places to kayak. It's really scenic and winding, and the people we rent Kayaks from (Titanic Canoe Rental, in case you're in the area), are super nice. Beth was on her way home from a whole week of hard-core camping and canoeing up in the Boundary Waters, but she was willing to stop off in Wilton Saturday evening and then join us for kayaking on Sunday. What a trooper!

On the way home from Wilton, we took a very scenic route (no thanks to my retarded GPS lady) and stopped in Janesville for some New Glaris beer that apparently you can ONLY get in WI. I did sample some, and it's very tasty.

I do need to post this picture here, a shot of the interior of Hardware Hank's, the coolest hardware store ever. They have at least one of EVERYTHING in that tiny store. I could spend hours in there.

Better Homes and Envy

Had a fun Labor Day weekend that involved putzing around the kitchen hiking and biking with Odie, kayaking with Roland and Amy, and ... eating.

Odie and I went to Lake Geneva one fine day and hiked for four hours or so on the lakefront path. It resulted, as it always does, in me having severe house envy. Not to mention garden, birdhouse, porch, and, oh yeah...fancy-ass boat envy too. What am I doing wrong?

Lots of great memories in this little spot -- this is where Nee and Bob kept their dingy, which they used to get out to the sailboat. We used to set up camp right on shore by the boats and spend the whole day there either picnicking on shore or hanging out on the sailboat. Good times.







Anyway...it was still quite pleasant. My favorite stretch is along what's called The Elgin Club, and one of the houses along there is among my favorites.



I don't need a mansion -- this one is perfect.


OK, I like this one a lot too. Cool porch and weather vane!



This was Odie's favorite. I like it too...



Also had a nice float down the Fox River -- I know I keep taking these same shots, but it's new every time!




There were lots of egrets congregating just south of the Algonquin dam. While this shot below is not all that impressive, there were at least 15 right here, and all told I'd say we saw at least 25 egrets, plus turkey vultures, great blue herons and a green heron. I'm dreading the day when they start building that Bolz Rd. bridge, because we can kiss all this wonderful wildlife goodbye, not to mention the serenity of the river. Progress sucks sometimes.


A rare decent photo of a great blue heron...


I almost forgot to post the resurrection lilies -- better known as "Wunderblumen" in my family.




Here's the last of the August nosegays, and a nosegay for my co worker Donna's birthday.

Harvest Update

I think my green pepper broke last year's record! Some of my friends have expressed garden envy, but really, people, 3 peppers and 2 stinkin' eggplants isn't really much to brag about.





Is there any vegetable that's prettier than an eggplant? No. I think not.



Basil and Swiss chard though...now that's another story. I borrowed mom's food processor and put a sizable dent in the basil field I've got growing behind the shed. Though all those many, many leaves only made about one cup of pesto. I left out the cheese so's I could freeze it for another day.

End-of-August nosegays:




Odie came home for labor day weekend and his b.day.


We of course had meatloaf in lieu of cake (but there was cheesecake...), and the two of us went on a nice bike ride. Here's a picture he took with his phone of me sitting on the South End Park bridge.

Maybe This is Why Eve was Tempted

My favorite Chinese co worker gave me this apple. I wonder if she's trying to tell me something.

Flash Mob!

Today was convocation day at MCC -- which meant free food, a free shirt, and a belly dancer. What's not to like? This was the first time we held convocation, and, though I was initially cynical, I have to say it was a great time. I got to participate in a flash mob dance, write a skit for our branding campaign, write and help direct a funny video (which will hopefully be put on YouTube soon) and ... did I mention the free food?



I put most of my pictures on Facebook, but here are a few of my favorites from the dance and the skit. We did the same dance that was billed as the largest flash mob ever (?) on the Oprah show to the Black Eyed Peas. The Oprah version was kind of cool, because it started with one crazy woman, then eventually the entire crowd was dancing the same dance. I think ours was the largest ever done at MCC. Haha.







This is the only shot where I can be seen flashing...dancing...flash dancing. Or is it flash mobbing? Moves like Jagger, no?


(just added!)
Someone did tape the event, so hopefully this will stay up on YouTube despite the use of copyrighted music. We started it off kind of the same as Oprah, with one person suddenly starting to dance, then slowly everyone joins in. What we lacked in coordination, we made up for in enthusiasm.



This is my boss, Christina, and Jay Geller, who teaches theater and speech, during the skit. It's kind of a long story why Jay is dressed as a cow. Suffice it to say, though, it was a hit, and Jay gets the "other duties as assigned" award...for the decade.

Miles To Go

This headline refers to both my recent attempt to bike commute (fantastic) and preserve Swiss chard from the garden (not so great).

First the commute. I eased into it by stuffing my bike into the back of the Mini (no small feat) on Monday and then riding my bike home. I discovered a route via Google maps (love their bike route feature) that almost completely avoids busy roads and gives me a safe route to the bike path, which is about 80% of my trip. I've been wanting to do this ALL SUMMER while we had Fridays off, but it was either raining or 100+ degrees...or I forgot to plan ahead. So, anyway, the ride: it was great!! It's just under 15 miles and takes me just over an hour. Going home, I enjoy a slight (2%) downgrade for part of the way too.

The next day, I biked to work, which was also enjoyable, even though I was stressing a little about keeping up my pace. But I finished just a few minutes over my going-home time and had plenty of time to put my bike back in my car and take a shower. I had packed an extra change of clothes in my gym bag Monday, so it was all good.

The only part I don't like is an off-road portion I have to traverse to get from Oak Street to the bike path that takes me right to the college parking lot. It's all overgrown by weeds and the path itself is basically a dirt rut in the ground. There's *supposed* to be a path (where the white arrow is below), and it's even shown on Google maps, but it's most definitely not there. So I had to take a dirt path of slight resistance (red arrow) to get to the road.



Anyway, I'm so psyched, I may do the same on Friday and then ride back Saturday to get my car. Then next week, maybe I'll do the bike ride 'round trip a couple times.

On the chard front...oy vay. I had this brilliant idea to puree fresh chard with a touch of apple cider and then freeze it in Dixie cups for use in smoothies throughout the winter. First of all, do you know how much room Dixie cups full of chard puree take up in the freezer? Second of all...what a freaking mess chard makes when you blend it with juice and neglect to put the top on tightly. Talk about going green... So I have a smallish supply of Dixie cup chard, but I ain't doing that again. Also, I read that not blanching the chard before freezing can cause it to go a bit "off" if you store it too long. Greaaat.

So then I tried to blanch a buttload of it, but that was also a wet, sloppy, time-consuming mess, and I wasn't sure how to portion it adequately for freezing in food saver bags. Note, you can't use a food saver with freshly blanched chard, because it's so wet, it sucks all the liquid out and into your machine. So I froze wads of soggy chard first, then attempted to food saver them.



Nothing like a ball of blanched chard to make your mouth water. And the end result was just stupid and, again, I don't have enough room in my freezer to really store a winter's worth, so I may just forget the whole thing. These frozen lumps don't blenderize too well -- they kind of ping around in the blender, the action of which forms a nice round ball of green ice. Delicious! I know I can buy chard in the store, but I don't like to use that stuff raw in a smoothie due to pesticides and who knows what else may be on the leaves.

However...I may try another round by "blanching" the leaves in boilable bags or in the microwave. I have to clean out my freezer first though. Right now it's full of rhubarb, freezer jam, bread and a layer or two of things I've forgotten about. I may have to invite Odie home to eat some of it.

All Better

On the hair front, I threw caution to the wind...and I'm glad. It's definitely more blond than I would normally have, but still, I like it a lot better. It's very Billy Idol. She fixed it for free, though I gave her 10 bucks. Jeeze, it's grown quite a bit in just one week.



Note, there's still one memorial strand of red. But I think it's jaunty.



Here's the first August nosegay!



And here's my latest shipment of delicious digestive biscuits! Yum.



It's hard to find them around here, or, if you do, they're way expensive. I remember buying these in Germany for what amounted to about 50 cents a package. Four bucks is a deal in the states, and I've found Amazon (with free shipping!) to be the best bargain, especially since they vastly improved their packaging technique. The only rub was the expiration date on this batch was a little too soon for my liking. I like to freeze and then ration them when I need a fix. I complained to Amazon, though wasn't really expecting much, but they credited me for the FULL AMOUNT! Sweet!