Beat The Heat!

Summer is here and while most folks enjoy that bright sky and warm temperatures, I'm not most folks. I like images of the sun, but the real thing is a bit intense. I don't do well in heat. Heat to me begins around 60 degrees with the brutality multiplying by 10 for every five degrees above that.

There are some things I enjoy a great deal about summer; ice cream, outdoor music festivals, fresh tomatoes, men with nice bodies strutting around half naked and now this new beverage favorite that I created after having something similar at a Happy Hour a few months ago. I had to use the Power of Google to give me some ideas, but really it is just kind of an improvised drink, because anything that requires more than improvisation in the summer heat just isn't going to happen.

Here then is a step by step on how to make a Watermelon Margarita

Start by chopping up a fresh watermelon into cubes. If you want it to be slushy, freeze those cubes, but if you want to serve it over ice you can just get right to it. I like the taste of the frozen ones, but I'm one of those folks who get the dreaded Ice Cream Headaches, or Brain Freezes, so I prefer over ice most of the time.



Stick the cubes watermelon in a blender. You just have to kind of eyeball how much you want. Easy Math - The more watermelon = the more drink.



Next up comes Lime Time. One or two, freshly squeezed, should do you. Hold on to those squeezed limes for the glass later.





Add a little sugar to taste.





Now add a little kick. I use a jalapeno, avoiding most of the seeds so as not to overpower the drink, but it all depends on how lively you like your refreshments. Chop the sucker up and toss it in the blender.



Now GET THE PARTY STARTED. You want to add some Tequila and some Triple Sec. Probably two shots of Tequila for every shot of Triple Sec, so say three shots of Tequila and one and a half of Triple Sec. Or double this.







BLEND!

You can just gulp it straight from the blender, but it pays to get a tad more fancy. First get out that box of Kosher Salt you have up in your cupboard, and if you don't have Kosher Salt, why do you have a kitchen?



Take one of those limes that you squeezed a minute ago, and coat the rim of a glass with the juice. Then dip the glass in the salt (which you've placed on a plate for ease with this step).





Add the Watermelon Beverage and you have just made one of the true delights of summer! Congratulations and CHEERS!
(Best served with a plate of nachos or ceviche)



Of course you can not freeze the watermelon, as I mentioned above, and pour this over some ice. Still delicious. I'm going to try a Strawberry version soon. Really any fruit plus booze plus ice equals good summer fun! Enjoy your summer!

My America

I hear it singing, too. I hear it in my blood and in my experiences. I hear it in my heroes and from the earth and from the sky. It is a place, but not a place, a thought but not just one thought. It is not made from boundaries or a period of time, but a constant shifting and constant revolutions, some small and some large. It belongs to no one and it belongs to everyone.



Walt Whitman, Olympic Mountains, Yellowstone Scrabble, Cornel West, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Woody Allen, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Washington D.C., The New York Times, Loraine Hansberry, Zora Neale Hurston, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gil Scott-Heron, White Night Riots, Mattachine Society, John Coltrane, Daughters of Bilities, Gay Sunshine Press, The Croatan, Broadway, John Rechy, Alice Waters, Edgar Allan Poe, Moby Dick, To Kill A Mockingbird, Badlands, Truman Capote, Barack Obama, Cesar Chavez, Marlon Brando, Tupac Shakur, Stonewall Riots, Bessie Smith, Boston, Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka - Kansas, Tucson, Yosemite, Breakfast Cereal, Divine, WAR, Woolworth’s Lunch Counter Protest, State Fairs, Candy Corn, Radical Faeries, Hippies, Planned Parenthood, Bubble Gum, Mount Rainier, Drive-In Theaters, Smithsonian Institute, Lassen, National Geographic Society, Andy Warhol, Spike Lee, National Audubon Society, Roadside Attractions, Film Noir, Life Magazine, Suspension Bridge, Westerns, Jazz, Charles Mingus, Harry Hay, Benjamin Franklin, Saguaro Cacti, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Cage, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington Carver, Joe Coleman, David Foster Wallace, NPR, Greil Marcus, Stan Brakhage, Paper Moon, James Brown, Howard Zinn, Patti Smith, The Grateful Dead Carlsbad Caverns, Henry David Thoreau, Edward Hopper, A Streetcar Named Desire, Draft Card Burning, Feminist Movement, The Ramones, Grand Canyon, X, Odetta, Sweet Honey In The Rock, Mark Twain, Petrified Forest, Miles Davis, Ernest Hemmingway, Tom Waits, Postcards, Mason Jars, Candy Darling, Bruce Springsteen, Al Green, Executive Order 9981, Rosa Parks, Little Rock Nine, Lena Horne, Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Letter From a Birmingham Jail, NAACP, Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Black Panthers, Huey Newton, William Burroughs, Roe vs Wade, Julia Child, Tyler Florence, Gumbo, Grinders, Apple Pie, Bourbon Whiskey, Bob Dylan, Bobby Seale, Pecan Pie, The Beats, Dan Savage, Delicatessens, Bagels, Mickey Newbury, Waylon Jennings, Burt Bacharach, Irving Berlin, Elliott Carter, R. Crumb, Janis Joplin, Morton Feldman, Woody Gutherie, Lou Harrison, Velvet Underground, Harry Partch, Mission Style Burritos, Allen Ginsberg, Harry Smith, Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, Stevie Wonder, San Francisco, New York Marriage Equality, Cinderella Liberty, Taxi Driver, Robert Altman’s Nashville, Charlie Chaplin, The Wizard of Oz, Sonoran Desert, Dan Clowes, City Lights, Midnight Cowboy, Jack Kerouac, The Chicano Movement, New England Clam Chowder, All In The Family, Tex-Mex Cuisine, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Timothy Leary, The Civil Rights Act of 1968, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Gregg Araki, Anna May Wong, Immigrants, John Cassavetes, Women’s Suffrage, Boudin, The Emancipation Proclamation, Declaration of Independence, Ratification of the Constitution, ACLU, The Marx Brothers, La Raza, BBQ, ACORN, William Faulkner, Bless the Beasts and the Children, Jambalaya, Tabasco, Langston Hughes, John Steinbeck, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Herman Melville, Route 66, Jasper Johns, Rebel Without a Cause, Austin, Texas, Baretta, I Love Lucy, Cape Cod, Modern Times, The Harlem Renaissance, Georgia O’Keeffee, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning, Pop Art, Man Ray, James Broughton, Hernandez Brothers, Charles Schultz, Eightball, Adrian Tomine, Woodstock, Human Be-In, Evergreen Review, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Susan Sontag, Charles Bukowski, The Whole Earth Catolog, Back-To-The Land Movement, Southern Poverty Law Center, Van Jones, Gone With The Wind, The New York Times, Home Colony, Oregon Country Fair, Angela Davis, Love and Rockets, Frederick Douglass, Freedom, Equality, Happiness

Spring Chickens

Has it really been a half of a year since I posted on here? I intend to often, but waste time on Facebook or staring off in space or sitting in front of MSNBC far too often.

So far, the year has had more than an average chunk of musical events, the return of one of the boys whom we never thought would return, relationship counseling and issues, nine new chickens, aging dogs, weight loss/weight gain, money issues, above average number of books read, houseguests and a newcomer to the mid-life crisis (Papa Seed!).

Etta, Odetta, Yva II, Yoko, Nina, Aretha, Bobbie Gentry, Nico and Bessie joined our family as little one day old peepers along with eight of their sisters who went off to live with another family when they reached seven weeks of age. Our house was full of dust by the time the girls moved outside. They are now pretty big girls and seem different than the other chickens we've had. These are much more of a "pack" - they do everything together. They seem less afraid of dogs and humans, but hate being picked up. Pretty mellow girls so far, and any pecking order - which I know can still be coming down the pike - has been minor to date. I love having chickens again. I don't know if I will ever be able to enjoy life without chickens again. I've also lost the desire to eat chicken, which used to be one of my favorite foods. I still did it with the last two batches, but something about this one that has turned me off, at least for now, from having it as a food source.

Welcome Home

I get the best greeting when I get home. One, two or three of the dogs will be at the gate. I get the full on welcome. Then they run inside to be right at the door when I walk in. It is just the best welcome anyone could ever wish for and I get it daily, often several times within a day.

The snow is supposed to be coming in every second. I think there are a few flakes falling now. It should be gone - washed away by the rain - by morning, so I am going to stay up as long as I can. Tomorrow is my last day of work before we head to San Francisco, so I don't need to be that alert. They will understand.

And Now For Something Completely Different

There isn't any smooth way of returning to a blog after putting it on hold for months and months. It was an interesting little bit of time, however. Our son has moved on and is now living with his girlfriend and several other roommates, our nephews/de facto sons have been on various adventures most of which aren't legal and are possibly part of the roommate situation I just mentioned. Our chickens either flew off to their freedom or were killed by a predator. I think I know which one, but I know which one I'd rather believe. Two of our three dogs are now old enough to have serious problems with joints, arthritis and injuries. So am I. After working towards slowly getting healthier, I became overwhelmed by life and used that as an excuse for not being diligent when it comes to walking/exercise/food. I feel the difference. I really feel the difference.

But all is not heartbreak and misery. Oh no. Papa Seed and I have been able to get out and about now and then. We've done adult things, like stay up late and go to clubs to hear music and order cocktails in a bar on Christmas Eve and sit in a living room and read all night. Right now he is painting the former bedroom of Mancub as he begins turning it into a home office. We will be flying off to San Francisco in a few days to celebrate my 52nd year on the planet and to reconnect with friends I haven't seen in years - 33 years, 16 years, 8 years and one year for instance. We got busy. Time happens. I'm rectifying it finally. It is never too late for it to be today.

And while I'm not doing "Resolutions", I am all about new goals and adventures. I'm also all about the new amazon.com tote bag option. Find what you want and put it in the tote and it gets delivered once a week - no shipping, no handling, no fuss. They don't deliver to our home, but they do deliver to my work. I know this because I have experienced this for three weeks in a row now.



I've decided that, always late to a fad, I'd make this next year the year I learn how to make cocktails. I'm really not that big of a drinker, but there is always time to make that change. I guess the fancy cocktails either were or are trendy, depending on how au currant the source. I bought a couple of books to guide me on this new path. A journey of rum and whiskey, on the rocks.

I've never watched an entire episode of "The Biggest Loser". I watched a few minutes one season and it seemed humiliating. But the exercise DVDs are supposed to be pretty decent for bigger folks. I need something like that. I have a couple already - including what I call the fat person's yoga DVD. Even those are difficult for me. I have to use those exercise bands, thus that featured item in my shopping pleasure photograph.

And while we have 100's of cookbooks already, including many vegan and vegetarian ones (not bad for a couple of omnivores), I wanted to combine my love of Latin American food with my 2011 goal of eating something like 60% vegan, 20% vegetarian and 20% omnivore. That is a goal. It is not a label and I might not hit it and that is okay.



Although I have a library of unwatched DVDs and Blu-rays, I also can't resist a good bargain when Marlon Brando and the Marx Brothers are concerned, so I added a little something that will hopefully inspire me on an "art project" that I'll hopefully be posting about in the next year as well. Intriguing? Stay tuned.

Break

Took a little break from the blog world. Eruption in Family Land. The lava has cooled. Will be back soon.

Darkness

My old friend.