Last of the BBQ pics

1. The boys from LeBare
2. Check out the belly at 9 o'clock. Couldn't get a better shot, but I
swear it looks like she has dropped....


3. Proper footwear for walking at the Rodeo - NOT!
4. Check out this pathetic guy holding his "entrance exam"
Do you think any women actually put their breast in those holes?
This booth was right across from our First Aid station, and yes,
a number of women put their bare breasts in there. I really
liked the lady who faked them out and put her rear end in the top
holes. No, she didn't take her pants off - she was offering her
opinion. One of the girls on our Safety team drew a similar exam
on a napkin (for boys) and took it over. The guy was pissed and
tore it up! Insecure?

5. Couldn't resist a photo of these adorable girls. They were the best dressed and the cutest of all out there Saturday night. Of course that's because Retta and her friends weren't there.

Hruska's Rocks!

Half way between Houston and Austin, if you are traveling on Highway 71, the little community of Ellinger has a couple of gas stations that half of Texas visits regularly. On this last drive through, I was able to experience their newest update. COMPLETELY touch-free restrooms. They updated them with a gorgeous tile floor, new stalls, paint and decorations. The hall curves going into the restroom and there are no doors. The toilets, water faucets, soap dispensers, and paper towels are all touch-free. They still have fabulous shopping and snacks. I picked out this camo hat with bling for Suzy. It is resting on top of her birthday present. She has to return to Texas to open it.

See It On The Big Screen

So I went to the movie theater after my late breakfast and the only movie that was starting within an hour was Ghost Rider. I was tempted to come back later, but knew I wouldn't. So I went in. It was just starting and I didn't have to sit through all the previews, which I hate doing. If you ever read comic books, you'll like it. If you like a little corn and some low key humor, you'll like it. If you like a good v. evil story, you'll like it. If you like to watch just to be entertained without thinking about what the hell the movie is about, you'll like it. If you like scarry, but not frightening, you'll like it. If you don't like death and gore, you'll like it (a couple of charaters die, but not grossly, and they are evil anyway, so it doesn't count) Mostly, though, if you like some cool-ass graphics, you will love it! Which is why you should see it on the BIG screen.

More Bare BBQ

My three shifts at the BBQ went off well. We were busy Friday night and busier Saturday. The nice weather helped. I took a few pictures, which I will post when I return to Austin. Thanks to a quiet Sunday morning, I am doing laundry, drinking coffee and updating this blog at the Sugar Land Holiday Inn Express.
While sitting at our first aid booth, I noticed a group of handsome young men walk by. I was sorry that I missed them, so I grabbed my camera and kept it with me just in case. Sure enough, they returned a while later and were very obliging, one of them baring a very nice chest. They asked me if I would email the photo to them. They were from Le Bare. Unfortunately, my flash was on, so they were pretty washed out. Hopefully, I can darken it before I publish.
It happens every year, numerous times. Imagine the BBQ: acres of pavement, a long hike from any parking to the main event, a crowd that is often shoulder to shoulder, loud, boisterous, booze, long lines. Now fill in the blanks. A person comes to us and says "I need a ride to my car because I can't walk anymore." My _____ (feet/back/knee/sciatic/neck) hurt/s. I had _____ (surgery/cardiac arrest/hospitalization/transplant/a baby/due date is tomorrow) ________ (yesterday/2 days ago/3 days ago/last week) and I take ________(morphine/Norco/Soma/Codiene/Welbutrin/Zoloft/
Propanolol/Cumadin/Lasix/Nitro/Albuterol/Viagra/Insulin/ - chose any five) and my ______ (cardiologist/pain management doctor/psychiatrist) says I shouldn't _______ (exert myself unduly/walk). I have had _____ (2 beers/2 drinks). Mind you, a person can barely walk through the crowd, let alone drive a cart. We like to reserve our "cart" (it holds a stretcher, backboard, oxygen, etc) for the people who fall and are unconscious and really can't walk. I can't print the language these people use when we politely tell them that we cannot give them a ride to the parking lot. All the while, I bite my tongue and don't say: "Uh... you knew you had these issues before you came out here, right?"

Rodeo Time - In Houston That Is

Heading out to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo for the BBQ, right after my noon Group Cycle class. Got the house clean and ready to come home to nice clean sheets. BBQ ought to be jumping tonight since the weather is quite nice. The BBQ is a great place to watch people who come to walk around acres of booths in brand new boots. The Hoochie girls still wear their stillettos and short skirts, even when it's cold. Pregnant women come to see if they can go into labor early. Asthmatics like to see how much smoke and dust they can breathe in and how many hits can they do with their inhaler before they need us. Diabetics leave their meds at home and go waaayy off their diets. People who never drink like to see how much they can drink before they stop breathing. The cooks try to slice off body parts into their special dishes because they forget that the BEER was the secret ingredient and was supposed to go into the recipe, not them. And people run into knives and do other silly things. It's gonna be fun. I'll let you know.

One Big Dumpling

Here is a great recipe for chicken and dumplings. I will write the instructions so you don't make "one big dumpling" - I'll explain later.
Chicken
Season nice (as opposed to naughty) pieces of chicken (I remove the skin from mine), flour, and brown in 1/4 inch oil in dutch oven (yes, another nationality will work, but not as well). Drain on paper towels, pour off oil and return chicken to skillet. Cover with water or chicken broth and simmer until tender, about 20 - 30 minutes. Have liquid just to top of meat, but not covering and drop in dumplings in slightly larger than golfball size spoonfuls.

Dumplings
1 1/2 cup of flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 3/4 teaspoon salt - sift these together
3/4 cup milk and 3 Tablespoons oil - mix these together
Pour liquid mixture into flour mixture and beat the heck out of it. The mixture should be light, probably a little sticky, definitely not one big lump. Drop, by spoonfulls onto meat with liquid boiling hard. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes. Then cover and cook 10 minutes more. The chicken and dumplings are now done. You have tender chicken and fluffy dumplings with tasty gravy.

Three weeks ago, we worked with the "B" shift at our M31, AFD's E43. This was the same day that Jaime came to our station with her play group. We offered to cook the "wagon". The wagon is community dinner. One person cooks, everyone eats. So I made chicken and dumplings. I left detailed instructions for every step of the way in case we got a call. We did get a call at about the time I had put the chicken in the pot covered with liquid. Once we had our patient loaded and were on our way for a veerrrrry long transport, I called the station to check on things and let them know we wouldn't be back for a while. It was like this:
FF "I mixed the stuff up, but it was just one big clump."
Well, add a little more milk.
FF "Too late."
You already put the dumplings in the pots?
FF "Yeah, but it's just one big clump...well, I divided it in two, between the two pots."
They needed to be dropped by spoonfuls.
FF "I gotta go." Click.
Fortunately, our commander had stopped by the station at that very moment and helped them break up the clumps. They still turned out tasty, just not fluffy. We got back about 2 hours later, ate one bite and left on another call. Returned about an hour and a half after that. Cold chicken and dumplings are good, but do try to make them when you can sit right down to dinner, because that is when they are fab - u - lous!

The Departed...leave it alone

Five minutes after posting that the Kitty hadn't used her new litter box, my fastidious feline gave it a wizzzz, so to speak. All is well.
Just finished watching The Departed. Yeah, it is a good movie, but don't watch it Suzy, you won't like it. I could have done without all of the gratutitous (sp?) violence. I've seen plenty of the real deal, but still don't like movies that graphically depict it. What's the point? We all have imaginations far worse than anything "they" can produce. I like a good story line, but it loses it's punch when I have to cover my eyes every 5 minutes (that's 20 times for just one movie), and covering my eyes doesn't block the sound effects. Nuff said. Watch at your own risk.

Automation

So I got the kitty a new automated litter box so I won't have to worry about it filling up while I'm gone for a few days. But she is very suspicious of it. She hasn't used the bathroom anywhere in the house, she's just holding it. She's got til Wednesday to figure it out...

Disturbing

Something very disturbing today and something to think about. On the way to pick up my new bike, I passed a car with it's blinkers on. It was on the MoPac flyover just before the top, while there are still two lanes. As I neared, I wondered if I should pull behind, turn on my blinkers and see about pushing the vehicle to the crest so they could coast down. But I didn't because I thought it wasn't a very safe place to be at all. So, an hour and a half later, on my way to teach a class I passed the closed intersection. The flyover and 290 were closed. I am not going to tell you the rest because I haven't been able to find any news reports on EXACTLY what did happen. I will say that I wonder what would have happened had I stopped. Something entirely different maybe and maybe I wouldn't be writing this now. Makes you think about how a few seconds, a turn, a stop, a fill-in-the-blank, can change everything.

New Bike

My new Bike. A triple beauty. I picked this up today as I had levers added to the handles. The nice folks at the new Performance Bike store in town gave me some goodies to take to my cycle participants. I know they will love a little something extra, but I hope they like the music more. I ripped 6 CDs today, about 120 songs and created ONE playlist for tomorrow morning!

Easter Pumkins?

Did a bunch more cleaning today. These beauties have been sitting in front of my door since Halloween. There was a trio, but one went rotten fairly quickly. I think these are going to last a couple more months. My plan is to keep them cool and protected so that Retta and Cliff can make some Easter Pumpkins when they get here.

Random Things

Listening to NPR, I heard about Johnny's Kabob Sounds like the place to visit for Persian food in DC. Maybe we'll be able to swing by on that 600 mile bike ride in May. We do stop in Emmitburg and visit the National Fire Academy which I actually got to attend for two weeks a few years ago. It is only an hour or so from DC, a few minutes from Gettysburg and just 8 miles from Camp David.

Just how long does it take an astronaut to drive to Florida??? Depends....

CSI online. Did you know you can watch CSI Miami and New York past episodes on line? This is totally cool, because I cancelled my cable TV. Now I can watch CSI while I play an on line word game like the daily Sudoku. A more efficient way to waste time!

Orphan syndrome

It's known as "orphan syndrome" and I am to blame. I should have taken two kittens instead of one! Scuttle was born in the attic of a fire station, but the kittens weren't found for several days. The very wild mother had broken through ceiling tiles in the admin offices and was taken to kitty jail. We heard the kittens several days later. Their eyes were just starting to open. I took this one and had to bottle feed her and that's not all. (you don't want to know the rest). Anyway, according to the Vet, she has orprhan syndrome. But not the worst kind. She's just anti-social to everyone except her "parents". She is jealous of my children, grandchildren, anyone who smells like another animal and all other animals - except for the parakeet, which she looks at lovingly every day. So, she's really not Church in disguise...

The Vet says he can't wait to see that little black pug again and that adorable little girl.

Before After

Did some cleaning and organizing yesterday - what a difference!

Subbed a Body Pump class early this morning. "Why do you have that band on your arm?"

Because it's cool!

Last, but not least, I made my whole wheat sugar cookies. I used

all organic stuff, except the vanilla extract. The only problem with the powdered sugar was that I had to sift the heck out of it to make it not lumpy. Was it worth it? These are the best sugar cookies I have ever made and the icing is unbelieveable!

Beaman

This is Beaman. He is a lovely little plant left at my house by Kimberly, Cy's girlfriend. The picture doesn't do him justice, as he is about 6 foot tall and and all stem until the top. I hope to keep him alive and well. He is keeping Suzy's Norfolk Island Palm company.

King Cake

It's that time of year. Mardi Gras needs a King Cake. What is a King Cake? Not really a "cake", more like a fancy cinnamon roll. The tradition was for someone to host an annual party. A pecan or bean was hidden in the cake. Whoever got the slice of cake with said bean or pecan had to host the next year's party. Today, it's a plastic baby and these cakes are seen almost every day at offices around the city of New Orleans. Whoever gets the baby brings the next cake. But these everyday cakes are a sad imitation of the real thing. (One can get a really good or fancy variety at an upscale bakery, but it will cost you). You can get them here in Texas at the local HEB and other stores, but still pathetic compared to the homemade version. So, in preparation for next week, here is a great recipe I copied from a neighbor's cookbook. She bought her cookbook at the 1984 World's Fair, the year it was held in New Orleans.

King Cake - Makes 2 9 X 12 inch cakes

Cake
1 stick, plus 1 Tablespoon butter
2/3 cup 99% fat free skim evaporated milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 package yeast
1/3 cup warm water
4 eggs
1 Tablespoon grated lemon rind
2 Tablespoon grated orange rind
6 cups flour

In a saucepan, heat the milk until butter melts; add 1/3 cup sugar and salt. Cool to lukewarm. In a large mixing bowl, combine 2 Tablespoon sugar, yeast and water. Let stand until foaming, about 5 to 10 minutes. Beat eggs into yeast; then milk mixture and rinds. Stir in flour 1/2 cup at a time, reserving 1 cup flour for kneading surface. Knead dough until smooth, about 5 - 10 minutes. Place in large greased mixing bowl, turning to grease top. Cover and let rise in warm place until doubled, about 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours.

Filling Topping
1/2 cup dark brown sugar Make butter or cream cheese icing, divide
3/4 cup granulated sugar into 3 parts and color green/yellow/purple
1 Tablespoon cinnamon 2 plastic babies, beans or pecans
1 stick butter melted

When dough has doubled, punch down and divide in half. On a floured board, roll half into a rectangle 30 X 15. Brush with half of the melted butter and cut into 3 lengthwise strips. Sprinkle half of sugar mixture on strips, fold and seal each strip. Braid the 3 strips and make a circle by pinching ends together.
Place each cake on a 10 X 15 baking sheet, cover with a damp cloth and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Bake at 350 about 20 minutes. Remove from pan immediately. While still warm, insert pecan/bean/baby. Let cool. Ice - alternate colors.

Procrastination Over

At last, I have begun my blog. I teach Body Pump. Today, I couldn't seem to keep my brain ahead of my mouth and kept cueing what seemed like three moves ahead of everything. I always try to mix up the music and have a goal for each track. I thought today was just awful, but SO many people came up afterward to say how much they appreciated/liked/loved a wide variety of things. Either they really did like it, or they realised how bad it was and were trying to make me feel better. I LOVE MY PEEPS!
We also had a big meeting for our 600 mile EMS Memorial Bike Ride in May. There are seven of us from Austin Travis County EMS who will be riding. The group wants to stand on street corners begging for money. I have mixed feeling about this. I have done this for MDA (fill the boot) and (secretly) it is fun when perfect strangers, trustingly give you money. On the other hand, I abhor the panhandlers begging for money (even the honest ones that say, "need money for beer/crack/weed"). But, when one of the group suggested a stationary cycle and the involvement of a radio station saying we will be at a certain location.... well, I love a show!
The EMS Memorial Bike Ride is from NYC to Roanoke, Virginia. The memorial itself doesn't have a home and that is the point of raising money and awareness for the memorial.