Fill 'er up, please...

refitted gas pump, Lauragh, County Kerry, Ireland

Now this is how to reuse, recycle, repurpose.

A rare glimpse inside...

The old Briggs mansion, Detroit, MI.   Need a spare bedroom?  This one has 11.  And 7 bathrooms.
Its current value is hard to pin down though Zillow pegs it as ranging from $225,000 to $465,000.

One of the Motor City's grandest manor houses has come on the market.  It was

built circa 1914 for carriage-maker-turned-auto-body-manufacturer Walter O. Briggs,

who by the way,  also owned the Detroit Tigers from 1920 until his death in 1952. 

(Can you say Briggs Stadium?)

This nearly 10,000 square-foot manse is located in the historic Boston-Edison District 

of Detroit.  For more details about one of the one of city's most  magnificent properties

(it's just down the block from Motown founder Berry Gordy's old residence, another
gem), click right

HERE.  

But wait, there's more...

In conjunction with the sale of the home, there's an estate sale this weekend, giving

the curious masses an excuse to weasel their way inside for a first-hand peek at

a bygone era of splendor and opulence...        . 

Click  HERE to check it out.  



"Purdue keeps hittin' from the line..."

1987

A little levity as March Madness revs up... Sarah Heath (later Palin, AKA,
The Woman Who Would Be President) reports da sports in Anchorage,
including highlights from a pertinent Big Ten game...

Click HERE.

Let the games begin. You betcha.

A new-fangled old-fashioned contraption (part III)...

Santa Catarina Palopo, Guatemala, August 2011 - An early morning smokey haze hovers above the
village as the women fire up their wood burners to prepare breakfast.  This is the equivalent of Main St.
(and one of just two roads in town).  Back in 1977, Linda I lived in a one-room casita right about
where the red storefront is in this photo (center-left), and the road was hard-packed dirt.

Can you imagine having to build a fire everytime you wanted to
cook something?  Me neither.  But that's what millions of people
around the world have to do each day if they want hot food (and
who doesn't prefer their food good and hot?).  Count the
indigenous people of Guatemala -- including our friends in Santa
Catarina -- among those millions who, knowing nothing
else, still cook everything with wood as their primary fuel.

If you have a few minutes, check out this VIDEO.  It will
help you appreciate all the more just how amazing your trusty
electric or gas stove really is....

Rush to judgment...

The Great Sperm Whale himself, excreting once again
through his shameless blowhole.

Click HERE for Jon Stewart's take on RL's latest blowhardedness.

(The stupidity of it all is no Fluke.)

In with the new (part II)...

Back on February 25th, I wrote about the family in Santa Catarina that we've
known since we lived in that village during the summers of 1977 and 1979.
Our good friend Sra. Petrona died nearly two decades ago, but her daughter,
Susana, and son Luis still reside there.  Susana is a single mother with four
children ranging from 6-18 years old.  Luis never married and lives with his
sister and her kids.  We try to help them out when we can, and recently were
able to arrange the installation of a new stove in their casa overlooking Lake
Atitlan.

I explained in Part I that back in the old days (when we were there), the women
cooked on open fires inside their casitas, the most inconvenient, dangerous
method possible since they had to build these fires from scratch each time they
cooked, and there were always toddlers around and about, accidents just
waiting to happen.

But cooking like this was tradition, all they knew. And of course, few had the
resources to upgrade to a proper wood burner or propane stove. They were so
poor, in fact, that they had to go out and find their wood, almost every day, an
arduous task that meant making their way up the mountain, finding a source,
cutting down a tree or just its branches, trimming, stacking, harnessing, then
transporting it all back down the mountain.  This would take hours, and was
a beastly task.

Linda and I met this muchacho on our way up the mountain
late one morning in the summer of '77.  He had ascended
early in the cool of dawn and collected this supply of
wood-fuel.  It looks like a lot, but actually, his family would
run through this in just a couple of days or so.  Then it would
be back on up to repeat the process.  Linda gave our friend
 here the nickname Adidas (she pronounced it Ah-dee-DAS)
which made him break into a broad smile whenever we'd
run into him. Note his "capri-style" pants woven in the
 Village colors and patterns. They were often worn
with a shirt of identical colors and patterns, but by then,
 western-style clothing, especially t-shirts, had made
 their way into everyday use in the village for many men.

(Stay Tuned for Part III)

Oh, by the way...

Was briefly gchatting yesterday with Amira (just back from a long

weekend in Italy with Pierre), and at the very end, as we were about
to go our separate ways, she came out with this...

Amira:  oh btw pierre proposed to me!

hehe

(officially)

you can tell mom

 me:  Holy shhhhh********T!  SOO happy for you two!

 Amira:  proposal in front of saint peters basilica at night v. romantic

ok g2g!

 me:  BYE!!!!!

 Amira:  BYE!

xoxoxo

Artist's rendering of Pierre proposing to Amira. Except that the
 proposal took place in Rome. In front of St. Peter's Basilica. At night.
  But insofar as the artist is Gustave Caillebotte, I mean, seriously, what
 can you say to the guy?

Pierre, seen here in another artist's rendering by
 Gustave Caillebotte, weeks earlier in Paris rehearsing
 his lines. He ended up speaking them in Italian (of course).
 Note: Soon  after he'd uttered them, a Vatican security
 team booted the newly-betrothed couple out of the Square.
  Didn't they know that it was closed!?  And that Pope Benny
 was  trying to catch up on last season's dvr'd episodes
 of Glee for godsakes?!) 

PS  Yes.  He gave her a ring (he bought it earlier
 in the trip  in Naples). No.  It doesn't fit.  Yet.

Out with the old...(part I)

First there was this...

Our late friend Sra. Petrona and son Luis in their casita,

Catarina Palopo, Guatemala, circa 1977. (Not present above:

two-year-old Susana, la señora's daughter.)

 Back in the late 70s when Linda and and I lived in the

 village, the women cooked every meal on open, uprotected fires

 inside their huts. It was smokey, labor-intensive, polluting, and

 horribly unhealthy (not to mention dangerous).

Little Susana, back in the day

Then there was this...

This is the stove that Susana cooked our dinner

on (gnocchi!).  There's a hatch in front where

the wood goes. This particular construction was so 

poorly vented that everytime she used it (2-3 times

 a day), her entire house would fill with smoke.

  (Imagine grilling on a Weber in your kitchen or building

a raging fire in your fireplace...then closing the flue.)

Fast forward 35 years.  Little Susana now has four

children of her own ranging in age from 6-18 and just like her

 mother, she struggles day-to-day to get by.  When Amira and I

 visited the village in August 2011, she invited us for dinner, and

when we arrived at her casa -- a rudimentary cement block structure

high up on the mountain overlooking Lake Atitlan -- it was like entering

a smokehouse.  I was immediately alarmed. Was the house on fire!?! 

 No! Not to worry! was the sheepish, resigned reply...just cooking....

And finally...

This pre-fabricated wood burner (called an ONIL stove after its
inventor, an American engineer) eliminates the danger of burns

 and pulmonary illnesses caused by the traditional open fires and
inadequately-vented makeshift stoves still found in so many
Mayan homes. Known for its efficiency, the ONIL eliminates
 smoke from the interior and uses 70%  less firewood (thereby
 addressing another major environmental

concern in the area: deforestation).

(Stay Tuned for Parts II & III)

A photographic goldmine...

Chuck Manson, 1969

A few years ago, google digitized LIFE Magazine (published from

 1936 - 2000 in the form we knew it), and we gained access to an

 endless array of fascinating photos taken around the world, but most
 especially in the U.S., during the 20th Century.  Check it out...

 HERE.

Sense and Sensibility.

The Republicans' airing of their dirty laundry continues this

week in Michigan with the MI primary vote on the horizon.

Came across this arresting video of Mitt Romney.

(Note:  There are equally arresting videos of the other candidates

available as well.)

He DOES have a way with words....

Lunch -- fresh from your own backyard...

MMMM, MMMM, MMMMM... Nothing like a Squirrel Melt.
(This lady is the Julie Child of the wild game set...classic.)

A Taste of the Old Country...

Vintage Rose

found this on the flip side.

I've had this recipe taped to the inside of a kitchen cabinet for years.

Rose sent it to me in the mid-90s after I told her about a Polish

meal we'd just had that included dill pickle soup. We ate it

for the first time at the Polish Village Cafe (the PVC) in Hamtramck,

a struggling city in the shadow of Detroit that is also known as

"Little Poland" -- though if the truth be told, there are more Bangladeshis

living there now than Poles. (Jason and Mira reside in Hamtramck,
by the way, representing another trend, that is, a segment of young, white,
 formerly-suburban residents making their way back toward Detroit, no
doubt because of the PVC's dill pickle soup.)

The PVC is a classic neighborhood gathering spot, very old-fashioned

with ridiculously low prices and a warm ethnic atmosphere that

money just can't buy. (The last time he was in town, Steve Marion insisted

on eating here again, as he vividly recalled the first time several months

earlier. And we all know how picky Steven is about his food -- no doubt

more so than ever upon his return from India.)

Anyway, when I was telling Rose about the soup (which for us was a novelty --

dill pickle soup?) and how we had all (including the girls!) enjoyed it immensely,

she said that her mother, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, used to make it.
  In fact, when Rose was growing up on the  farm in Edinboro, PA, the family
 ate it often (which might explain why she no longer liked it).

She also said that she had a recipe and promised to send it me. She then

painstakingly wrote it out, mailed it off, and I’ve had it ever since.

NOTE:  Depending on one's dietary restrictions, other additions to

 this recipe include a T or two of butter and a half-cup of heavy cream
 or half-and-half added at the end (along with the sour cream) -- or not. 
Just depends on how rich you're willing to go.
 

Also, I often smooth it out with a stick blender or potato masher,
 leaving a few chunks of potato and pickle, but this is not necessary either.
Additionally, you can garnish with fresh dill, if you have it on hand.
And finally, for the hopeless carnivore, some slices of cooked
kielbasa can be tossed on top for that meaty finish.   

Smacznego!

Rose's Dill Pickle Soup

A Birthday Boost from Bunny...

Lyla Kettenhofen, AKA "Bunny," was first Martha's cousin, then her cousin/step-sister
when M.E. O'Brien married his late wife Nell's sister, Lyla -- Bunny's mother. 
 (Got that?) When she wrote this letter, Bunny was Mrs. John Doherty with a
 young family of her own....
PS  Happy B'Day to me, Happy B'Day to me, etc., etc., etc....

Amira's way of scaring us into getting our exercise...

MRI cross-section of leg muscles

 

"i hope you guys are working out!"
-Amira, 2/11/12



 

Click HERE to read the entire original post.

And to think that we once owned a Victrola...

MusicMeister JP passed this along for our edification.  

The question now becomes... what next?!  And then

there's this question:  What the hell do we do with

all those cassette tapes, including and especially

the homemade ones??!!

AKA, early ipod