The Thursday Ramble - The Asylum

Last week was a week that left me feeling like this old house.  Sometimes I need to vent, sometimes I need a full time shrink. I had a long nasty ramble written to post and I am deleting it.  Replacing it. I need to get my brain in a kinder place.  

17 months until I can retire.  Not that I am counting or anything.  

It has been hot and humid here.  Mid-90's F (high 30's C) with high humidity.  Washington DC was built on swampland, so it is always humid here.  The combination leads to early morning walks, or not at all.  The gym being open again, I try to get in some treadmill time 2 or 3 times a week.   

I don't drive much, I look forward to Saturday mornings when I put the top down on the little car and go visit market square in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia (not Egypt.) There are a couple of fruit and veg vendors that I buy from almost every weekend, tomatoes, yellow summer squash, cucumbers, the skinny french green beans are in right now. There is a bread bakery that always has something great, and the pastry boy. The market is in the high rent district of farmers markets, not a lot of bargains but a lot of quality.  

How little do I drive, about 125 miles a month.  At this rate, if my car lasts 100,000 miles, it will last another 33 years.  

I have made fresh dill pickles a couple of times this summer.  A dozen pickling cucumbers, gently washed and trimmed, 4 cups of water (not chlorinated - I use bottled), 1 cup white distilled vinegar, two tablespoons of kosher salt, fresh dill, garlic cloves, a few peppercorns, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.  Weight to assure the cucumbers stay submerged - I use a plastic disk weighted down with a zip-lock bag filled with the pickling solution.  In this weather and with the cucumbers I have been getting, 4 or 5 days on the kitchen counter and they are perfect.  Store in the refrigerator, eat within a couple of weeks, they never last that long around here.  

In retirement I would like to do more pickling and canning.  I am hoping the new induction cooktop will boil water faster and more vigorously. I think of that as nesting behaviour.  One of my grandmothers was a master at it.  I turned on the new refrigerator the other day, - how nice.  I am looking forward to it being in the kitchen and not the dining room.   

Last Saturday was national stationnaires day.  I went to my local, called the Penny Post.  It was busy, and I really didn't find anything I needed, but then maybe it was the heat.  I was in half a dozen shops and didn't buy anything.  I should send someone a card, just because I can.   

Blogger, I am releasing comments on a daily basis from Blogger - Comment- Jail.  It is also catching garbage, but it is far from perfect.  If you post a comment - and please do - and it does not post I will get to it as soon as I can.  If you are trying to sell something or invite me to an online cassino - FOAD - I will delete and report as spam.