THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

Well, gosh, how are you all doing?

I hope your week has been better than mine.

Except in the food department.

I can't complain about the food department.

The mercury is set to climb into the high 90's for a few days.

Just in time for the Fourth of July celebrations.

Kinda makes one wish he lived in England.

But you don't want to hear all that so let's get on with the business of the day.

And those are the jokes, folks.

Have yourselves a wonderful weekend and ALWAYS remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

(. . . oh, oh . . .)

AN IDLE THOUGHT

4:20 p.m. today

 Prescott Valley, Arizona - 89 degrees F.

Phoenix, Arizona - 104 degrees F.

THE NEXT DESSERT

So I said to my lovely wife this morning "I just ate my last piece of the Blueberry Kuchen."

Then to wipe that sorrowful look off her face I added "I saved the crunchy corner piece for you."

That made her happy.

A little later I was picking up her scraped clean plate and she asked "how many blueberries did you have left over?"

I guessed about a cup and a half and showed them to her and she immediately said "A clafoutis!"

Yikes, I thought, back to the kitchen again?

But I dug up my recipe for a clafoutis with any kind of fruit and soon had it into the oven.

Here's what made SWMBO happy when it came out.

Oh, I know what you're thinking.

It looks like a blueberry pizza!

But it's actually in a glass pie dish and it's deeper than a simple pizza.

See?

It's another blast to your (actually her) sweet tooth!

GARDENING STILL LIFE

 

The tomato plants await fresh water.

The Monja and the Blue Cat keep watchful eyes on the scene.

Heat, serenity, an Arizona summer.

KUCHEN!

 Very early (6:30 a.m.) this morning I began quietly assembling the ingredients and tools to make a blueberry kuchen (coffeecake).

You may ask why in tarnation I was at it so early.

And I would explain.

Yesterday evening I told my beloved wife that I was going to make the kuchen the next day.

"Oh", she said, "will it be for breakfast?"

"No", said I, "it would be for after breakfast.

So then I spent half the night worrying about the sad look that came over SWMBO's face.

And so I was hard at it at 6:30 this morning, even before she had wakened.

First, of course, I had to feed Sweetie-Pie (the cat) who begins demanding her breakfast at 5 a.m.

Now you'd think a pet cat, having filled her belly, would go lie down somewhere and take a nap.

But no, she is SWMBO's cat and once she is fed she thinks her lady should be awake and so she goes in and sits on her bed and stares intently at her, willing her to rise from the Arms of Morpheus.

Now the mistress is awake and aware of the pesky cat but is pretending to be asleep until said cat reaches out with one tiny paw and taps gently twice on SWMBO's mouth.

And that's all it takes.

So the two of them come into the kitchen where I'm trying to be quiet and SWMBO says "My, aren't you being ambitious!"

And so I turn on ALL of the lights and get on with my baking project making as much noise as I want.

Now I wasn't satisfied with the look of the blueberry kuchen but the taste of it was "ta die for"!

And where the sugar had hardened around the edges it became a crispy treat that both of us enjoyed.

So, here it is, the Early Sunday Morning Blueberry Kuchen, Catalyst Version.

BREAKFAST BREAD

Yes, I still bake English Muffin Bread.

Judy's supply ran out this morning so I hied myself to the kitchen and put together a couple of loaves.

If I must say so myself, they turned out pretty good.

I rarely have a slice but Judy loves it so I shall continue making them for her.

Now, let's see . . . what's next?

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

 'Twas the day before Saturday and all through . . .

Oh, drat, I never wanted to be Dickens.

I'd rather make you laugh like the dickens anyway.

Huh, I just Googled that (like the dickens) to see where it came from and learned that it is a euphemism that may mean "like the devil".

I tell ya, the things you learn on the Internet.

And I didn't even need A.I.!

But enough philosophy.

Let's instead repair to laughology.

It's Friday after all.

So that's all for this week, my friends.

I hope you've enjoyed yourselves.

Now try to continue that enjoyment throughout the next couple of days.

In other words, have an enjoyable weekend.

And always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

SUMMERTIME

 Summer has landed!

The forecast high temperature here today is 84.

80 miles to the south of us, in Phoenix, it is supposed to be 104 today.

But remember, folks, we live in Arizona and it's a dry heat!

So this is the longest day of the year and tomorrow we shall begin our descent to winter.

But let's enjoy this season any way that you can.

LIFE IS GOOD

My life is good.

My computer is new.

It's not fixed, as an A.I. ode that was sent to me tried to say.

It's new, as in a different machine, brain, box.

I appreciate the effort but 12 seconds is not enough for truth with A.I., apparently.

But the "brain" is better and today I figured out that I needed a new driver to get my audio working and I got it and it did.

So I went searching for something to show you and this happened . . .

I hope your Monday is as good as mine has been.

Rock on!

RESTORATION

 They said it couldn't be done.

Or maybe that was me that said that.

My big ol' computer apparently had contracted a terminal illness last week.

In spite of many turnings off the power and back on and trying to reload, it kept telling me it had lost a kernel (whatever that means) and it was just not going any further.

I told all of you Oddball followers . . . no, no, I'm not calling YOU oddballs, I'm just abbreviating followers of Oddball Observations.

Any way, I told you the blog was going to have to go on hiatus until I figured out what to do.

But 24 hours later I was back.

Sorta.

I had dug out an old laptop and managed to get it working.

But, as I said then and have said many times before and perhaps I should stop saying it, I hate laptops!

The little screen, the little keyboard, the damnably maddening touchpad.

But it rescued me.

Sorta.

But then like a message from above, or somewhere, came word from old friends that they had a couple of newish computers because they had upgraded at their business and I could obtain one at a bargain basement price.

Not only that but My Favorite Computer Geek would try to get my pictures and docs from my old beast and transfer them into the new computer.

Well, he succeeded, dear friends, and once again I am back with my big (16 inch or somesuch) screen and a computer that could have fit in My Old Beast's body 5 or 6 times, I think.

And it's faster.

Much, much faster.

And late today I found all of my old pictures and documents!

I am one happy camper.

So without further ado, I will show you a photo taken yesterday by Crosstown Lori, who just happens to be the wife of My Favorite Computer Geek, who will now be known as Ruthless Rick.

And just to show you the full picture . . here he is with your contented customer.

There are many things one can aspire to in life but tops on the list is a category I have been blessed with: Good Friends.

Thanks, Rick!

COOKIES

 Just to let you know that I am not suffering too much in my Days of Computer Dismay, let me show you what the real kitchen master produced yesterday.

Those are a batch of her very special Bacon Fat Gingersnaps.

The recipe (click here) came from Julia Moskin at the New York Times who wrote that she got it from a fashion critic at the newspaper, Cathy Horyn.

And Ms. Horyn based it on Swedish ginger cookies from her hometown of Coshocton, Ohio.

And in true Master Chef tradition, my partner amended the recipe to toss in sliced candied ginger and to roll the cookie balls in "Sugar in the Raw" (Turbinado cane sugar).

The finished product is, I can say with absolute honesty, addictive.

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

 Call it hilarity.

Or jocularity.

Or mild amusement.

It's what I need after a week like this one, what with computer problems and weed chopping-digging-poisoning.

If your week has been anything like mine, you're ready for some laughs too.

So let's see what we can find.

Okay, friends and neighbors, that's the best I can do.

I hope you got some laughs (and some groans) from them.

And I hope you won't give a thought to my computer guru as he struggles to extract my files from the now-defunct computer.

I hope instead that you all have an absolutely stupendously wonderful weekend.

And never forget to KEEP LAUGHING!!!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . . warning: groan ahead . . .)

WELL THAT WAS SHORT

 I'm talking about my hiatus of blog posting.

I have a damaged, somehow, desktop PC sitting next to me, useless for now.

But I revived a laptop from a closet and got it running.

It's fairly old; I think the battery is dead; so I can only run it plugged in.

Did I ever tell you how much I hate laptops?

But I have managed to plug my keyboard into it and after some finagling around I got my wireless mouse to work with it so it's just about like having a PC again.

The only problem is all that stuff I had on the PC is just sitting there, inaccessible for the time being and maybe forever.

So we struggle along, trying to pretend nothing is wrong.

But there is one, or actually three, other problems with this day.

Special thanks to Comical Carol for sending me that just this morning as I was gnashing my teeth and fouling the air with various epithets.

I'll try to be a better boy.

TROUBLE IN RIVER CITY

I have serious computer problems which force me to put Oddball Observations on hiatus until I get them fixed, one way or another.

With apologies, see ya later.

MONDAY MARIGOLD

 

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye!

Court is now in session!

Wait a minute.

That was a dream.

It's what comes from dozing off into a nap in the middle of the day.

So with that, I bring a respite for you from this week's gaiety.

And just in time for you to adventure forth in pursuit of good fun and a GREAT weekend!

And never forget to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . . wanna go outside . . . ? )