Pentimento

Thomas the Six Toed Cat

Thomas is a very sweet boy and very gentle...although, he is a hunter. This looked like a bird, and sounded like a bird, but it didn't smell or taste like a bird. Some kitties are very patient with us humans.

Hmmm...what is this? A disembodied hand and something peeping...


With one swipe of my paw, I could have you for lunch little cheeping bird...


Gotcha!

Thomas belongs to my brother Dave and his wife Kathy. Oh, wait, it is probably the other way around! They belong to Thomas. Thomas was a stray that showed up one day at their house and kind-hearted souls that they are, they took him in. He was kind enough to let me take his picture on Thanksgiving Day. The cardinal is from Wild Birds Unlimited and makes sounds like a real cardinal. Thomas was only mildly interested, as you can see.

How To Get Your Firefox 3 Scrollbar Back

Admittedly, I am pretty slow sometimes. OK, much of the time. It takes me hours to figure out things that would take the rest of you a nano-second. Like tonight...I spent hours trying to get my right side scrollbar back so it was visible. Yes, I can scroll with my mouse, or using the arrow keys, but who wants to go to all that trouble when you can just move a page up and down quickly using the scrollbar?

I Googled my question to see if anyone else had a missing scrollbar after the recent upgrade to Firefox 3, but the results were not what I was looking for, so I went to the FF support page and did a search there. No luck. I even downloaded a new Firefox theme, thinking it was just a problem with the default one they use. But that didn't fix the missing scrollbar problem either.

As it turned out, the fix was pretty simple. All I had to do was clear my cache. Sheesh! 

By the way, if you aren't already using it, you might want to try CCleaner. The original name was Crap Cleaner, but I guess the PC police made 'em clean it up or something. Just kidding. I have no idea...Anyway, check it out. It's a free download and really does a slick job of cleaning up your computer. Enjoy! (No, I am not an affiliate. Just a fan).

Carol's Holiday Clam Chowder

This is the recipe I use for my clam chowder that we usually have on Christmas Eve. Jim's dad likes to make oyster stew, as do some other friends, but I prefer the clam chowder. It's very easy to make, with a thick, rich, mild smokey flavor that would please any seafood lover. Feel free to tweak it to suit your tastes. I buy the big cans of clams from Costco, but you may have to buy them in smaller cans.*

Carol's Clam Chowder

1 51 oz can of clams
1 onion, diced
6 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
3 T butter
4 strips bacon, or 2 T real bacon pieces
3/4 C. flour
3 C. milk (I use half and half)
2 T chopped parsley (optional)

Open and drain clams, reserving the nectar (I rinse my clams thoroughly to get out some of the sand). Peel and dice the potatoes; cover them with cold water until you are ready to use them. Combine milk or half and half in a large bowl with the 3/4 C. flour. Use a mixer or hand blender to make a smooth mixture.

In a large kettle, cook the bacon until almost crispy; drain. Or, add diced onion and bacon pieces to kettle with the butter and cook the onions until opaque. Carefully add the clam nectar and diced potatoes; bring to a boil. Lower heat to simmer potatoes for 10 minutes until they are tender.

Slowly add the milk/flour mixture, and stir until it thickens a little. Add parsley, salt and pepper to taste. Add clams and stir just until incorporated; turn off burner. Add additional butter if you prefer, stir and serve. This chowder should turn out very thick. Add more milk to thin it if necessary.

*Try adding about 6-8 small 6 oz cans of clams if you need to substitute for size.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Rocky: He Knocked Out The Whole Phone System

Mr. Rocky has some pretty wild habits that seem to invade his body around 1 AM when I am sitting here at the computer. What he is really doing is trying to bug me so I will go to bed. He is very controlling and likes me/us to adhere to his routine: Up at dawn to feed him his wet cat food (with meds in it), lap sitting with Dad until I get up. Then, he rushes right in to the edge of my chair mat and sits there until I come to give him some Greenies. After he has us both up and he has had his morning needs met, then he runs off to go have a morning snooze!

As I said, he doesn't like me staying up too late, and so he runs in between my legs and under my chair, under the computer hutch and out, with a mad dash up and down the hardwood hallway. As you can imagine, that running up and down the hallway makes a lot of noise in the middle of the night. Rocky's just having "fun" but last night his fun caused a major outage of our phones.

That little stinker undid the cable phone line behind the desk as he was making his way through the snarls of spaghetti back there. I knew the phone was working fine at 11 PM last night, but this morning when Jim went to call his dad in Iowa for their weekly chat, the only phone that was working was the corded phone by the computer.

After mulling it over for a while, and using our common sense, I finally remembered the late night strafing run behind the desk. Jim crawled under the desk and made sure the lines were tight in the wall. I guess when the cable guy was here he did a haphazard job of tightening all the screws.

Rocky's not in real trouble or anything. He was just being a wild kitty on the savanna chasing imaginary gazelles, or something like that...

 

Rocky: He Knocked Out The Whole Phone System

Mr. Rocky has some pretty wild habits that seem to invade his body around 1 AM when I am sitting here at the computer. What he is really doing is trying to bug me so I will go to bed. He is very controlling and likes me/us to adhere to his routine: Up at dawn to feed him his wet cat food (with meds in it), lap sitting with Dad until I get up. Then, he rushes right in to the edge of my chair mat and sits there until I come to give him some Greenies. After he has us both up and he has had his morning needs met, then he runs off to go have a morning snooze!

As I said, he doesn't like me staying up too late, and so he runs in between my legs and under my chair, under the computer hutch and out, with a mad dash up and down the hardwood hallway. As you can imagine, that running up and down the hallway makes a lot of noise in the middle of the night. Rocky's just having "fun" but last night his fun caused a major outage of our phones.

That little stinker undid the cable phone line behind the desk as he was making his way through the snarls of spaghetti back there. I knew the phone was working fine at 11 PM last night, but this morning when Jim went to call his dad in Iowa for their weekly chat, the only phone that was working was the corded phone by the computer.

After mulling it over for a while, and using our common sense, I finally remembered the late night strafing run behind the desk. Jim crawled under the desk and made sure the lines were tight in the wall. I guess when the cable guy was here he did a haphazard job of tightening all the screws.

Rocky's not in real trouble or anything. He was just being a wild kitty on the savanna chasing imaginary gazelles, or something like that...

 

Are You Using Technorati Faved Fans Yet?

It's been a while since I updated my Technorati Fans using Internet Duct Tape's handy-dandy program called Technorati Favorite Your Fans, so I fired it up today and guess what?! I was able to add 78 fans who had favorited me! Thanks to everyone who faved me, and I am happy to return the favor.

So, what is TFYF's, you ask? And more importantly, where can you download it?

This is a program that connects to the Technorati.com service, finds everyone who has favorited your blog and automatically favorites them back.

I love this program, and I think you will too. Technorati Favorite Your Fans download page.  Enjoy!

Three Free Guest Passes To Club Pogo - Want One?

First come, first served! As a member of Club Pogo, I have three free guest passes* I can give out to any registered Pogo member. Joining Pogo is free, and all you have to do is think of a screen name and sign up. When you sign up, let me know and I can send your pass to your screen name or email address. (Pogo doesn't use the email address for any other use but on their site.) You get to try out the site for 5 days free.

*It is possible to play games on Pogo for free. The downside is, the games might have ads and be slower . Club Pogo is a paid version of the site. I am not an affiliate, so I am just giving away the guest passes because I like playing games on Pogo and making friends.

My screen name on Pogo is webduck_  (note the underline at the end). 

See you @ Club Pogo!

Racisim Is Yet Alive And Makes Me Unwell

I have to speak out about this. It sickened me to get an email today from one of my husband's family members that compared Michelle Obama with a black widow spider. I replied immediately and told the person that I didn't think it was funny. In fact, I am appalled. Not surprised, just appalled. No, more than that. I am Mad.

Whether I voted for Barack Obama or not (I did), he is now my president and his wife is the first lady. I have always believed we should respect the office of President, even if we don't like the man (and someday, God willing, woman) or disagree with his politics. Respect is a very uncommon commodity in our country these days. How many times a day are you disrespected? At least once? Why do we put up with it? And, if you are being disrespectful, what gives you that right?

My feeling is that when the election was over and Obama was elected, our country took another step closer to coming of age. In 200+ years we took baby steps through indentured servants and slavery, wars and riots, depression and oppression, but in 2008 we took a giant stride forward and chose a man for his ability and not one of the 'good ol' boys'.  

That a man of mixed heritage would have the courage to take on a job of President of the United States says more than that he wanted to lead our country. In my opinion he truly does want to make our country better. When our country succeeds, the whole world can succeed, because like it or not, we are all in this together and the United States can lead the way.

You know, when I think of myself as a citizen of the United States of America I don't see myself as better than people in all other countries. It is like my own close personal relationships in that I see we all have strengths and weaknesses.  If we weren't so focused on greed and hateful behavior, we could really make our life on this lovely blue marble something better than what it is right now.

Do you remember the song in South Pacific about racial hatred? "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught"  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,  (accessed November 19, 2008). With every breath I take, I will endeavor to not be a racist. I want to be able to hold my head up and look you straight in the eye and tell you that I will never tolerate you being one either.

I Was Born And Then Stuff Happened

I saw this test on Comedy Plus and it looked pretty interesting. It sure makes me feel OLD! Oh wait, I AM old...Gah!

In 1950 (the year you were born)

Harry Truman is president of the US Masked bandits steal $2.8 million from Brink's in Boston 35 US military advisers are sent to South Vietnam to aid the anti-Communist government US Senator Joe McCarthy begins his crusade against suspected Communists in the US government North Korea invades South Korea President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb In South Africa, the Group Areas Act is passed formally segregating races Peter Gabriel, Jay Leno, Bill Murray, and Stevie Wonder are born New York Yankees win the World Series Cleveland Browns win the NFL championship Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup I, Robot by Isaac Asimov is published

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

I Have Elfed Myself - And Some Family Too

This is what happens when you have way too much time on your hands...and a computer with a JibJab subscription! Now, go Elf YOURSELF!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards