Signs of Spring?

It's never a good idea for The Crew to get too excited about spring this early. Up here in the north it's at least another month away. So, they have been looking for ways to pass the time, like getting the birdhouses ready to go up as soon as the snow melts. It may be snowing like a YouTube ASMR video but enough is enough, it's time to ignore winter and move on.

To remind ourselves that this winter wonderland is not a permanent, we started a count down to the vernal equinox with a party on Pi Day. It's not wise to ignore the importance of math, science or pie.

Then there was St. Patrick's Day, always a good excuse for a party.

Before getting into the serious celebrating and still keeping to the green theme, The Crew opted to start some micro greens. It was a good way to scratch that spring planting itch and fortunately, all the necessary stuff for it came in a kit.

Since they grow in water they are ridiculously easy to start with the added bonus of no messy clean-up! The hardest part was deciding which ones to plant first.

It's basically just seeds scattered on little jute pads that are floating on water. They grow to about an inch tall and you cut them off and sprinkle them on bruschetta or salads or whatever you want.  

Okay, that was way too easy.

I'm wondering if these may be just Chia Pets in disguise.

After the pseudo gardening it was time for some authentic Irish beer and cheese.  

It was a low-key celebration but I did manage to pour a couple Half and Half pints! 

His Madness always approves of beer.

Then we settled in to watch The Banshees of Inisherin.

It's been nominated for a lot of awards and got great reviews but we had no idea what it was actually about. Not to give anything away but I don't recommend eating and drinking while watching it. The scenery was gorgeous though.

Today, I noticed that the seeds have sprouted! They don't look like anything a person would actually want to eat yet but at least they did something, ha! 

Happy Spring!

Hope everyone had a good weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday, Andy!

Winter Doldrums

The weather here has been particularly annoying lately and we've all been stuck inside way too long. To cheer us up, The Crew decided it was time to whip up some treats and have a spooky movie night.

Burt can always come up with great excuses to experiment within the spiritual realm and indulging in fancy snacks. Who could resist an old-timey whiskey concoction with a name like Downtown Toodeloo, not to mention that handsome cyclist on the label? 

Locally, our weather has been very strange this year. Yesterday, it rained all day on top of the nine inches of snow recently deposited by the "historic three-day storm". It was the same one that caused so much grief across the country. In this neck of the woods it was just another blizzard but it still caused a lot of extra work and anything fun was cancelled. Not that it really mattered because no one wanted to be out driving in that!  

Having a foot of snow on the ground isn't really a bad thing. It's the perfect cover up for trashy eyesores like empty planters and all those leaves that magically appeared as soon as we thought we were done raking last fall. As far as I'm concerned, it's welcome to stay around until it warms up, provided it stays off the streets and sidewalks and remains white. A good covering of snow is great at keeping everything bright on these endlessly overcast days, too.    

Since there was no running to the store last night, the refreshments for this spur of the moment movie night were limited to whatever we had on hand. Kib googled the booze and discovered it was actually made in Wisconsin using local maple syrup, honey, cranberries and cosmic elixirs (probably from Elmwood, our state's UFO Capital). In the nineteenth century pharmacists and tavern owners served this sort of concoction as medicinal liquor to treat colds, allergies and depression. Hmmmm.

 

After a lengthy search for a suitable cocktail recipe and discovering they only had two of the four ingredients, a dried up orange and some questionable cherries, they settled on drinking it neat.

Kibitz did not approve.

 

(True to it's historical description, it was fruity, very sweet and did taste a little like medicine.)    

 For snacks, The Crew opted for baked brie topped with fig spread. 

Burt sliced up a baguette and an apple for dipping. The carrots and tomatoes came along for the ride because what veggie doesn't taste better after being dunked in cheese? 

Why is it impossible to find a tray when you need one?

 

After all that preparation the movie we'd decided on wasn't streaming ANYWHERE! So we ended up watching Hallowe'en Party, based on one of Agatha Christie's Poirot novels, through PBS. It was very entertaining, packed with jack-'o-lanterns - and dead bodies, but then it was a "cozy mystery".

Overnight the rain turned to snow, temperatures dropped into the mid 20's and the storm passed on to the east to mess up New England and Canada. While checking out the current conditions/possibility of getting out of our driveway this morning, I noticed an extra-terrestrial looking object down the block. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a snow plow attachment for a truck that someone had probably had to abandoned because it was frozen to the street, ha! Good thing the snow is over for a few days.

I hope you are all doing well and having a good week - no matter what your weather is like!

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon.

Happy Valoween

This winter has drained all the life out of the Skeleton Crew. Not that they had any in the first place but now they're really bored to death, as well.

As for Spenser, there's only so many hours a cat can spend watching YouTube.

He's taken it upon himself to plead with The Crew to rally themselves.

It's time for them to wake up, shake off the cobwebs and celebrate! 

Ivy bought herself some flowers. Haven't we been hearing a lot about that lately?

Kibitz read something (that wasn't on his phone).

Naturally, Burt found a silly box of chocolates.

            

 Kib was just reading about a complicated Victorian fortune-telling practice in the Valoween Zine, a seasonal publication by Miranda from spookylittlehalloween.com. Since Burt decided to make apple pancakes for breakfast, Kib thought he would give it a try. Supposedly, if you can manage to peel an apple all in one attempt, then toss it over your shoulder, it will fall in the shape of the first initial of the person you will someday marry. Easier said than done, but he's not looking for a partner anyway.

So the celebrating got off to a good start. How handy were these strawberries for covering up Burt's not quite heart-shaped pancakes? It's the thought that counts. Wonder what he's making for dinner?

Have a Happy Valoween everyone or Valentine's Day, if you prefer the non-spooky version. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Poe, Restaurant Week and Storage Solution

The19th of January was Edgar Allan Poe's birthday and the first day of Restaurant Week in our town. They don't have anything in common apart from occurring on the same day - which happens to fall at a time of year when there's absolutely nothing else to do that doesn't involve nearly freezing to death, leaving the country or drinking yourself into an early grave. Hmmm, maybe there is a connection to the author after all.   

His Madness and I started out with Peking Duck and Ahi Tuna at the country club. Obviously, it's no longer a members only situation, these days they let anyone in. The food was great but the decor was so preppy it looked like a Ralph Lauren store had exploded. After the three course meal, wine, drinks, and being surrounded by too much plaid, HM and I decided to watch a movie. In honor of Poe's birthday we settled on The Raven, a movie we had been meaning to watch for about a decade. Since our expectations were low we were surprised when it turned out to be not that bad, although watching the gory details after a big meal was not a good idea.

A few days later we found ourselves at a new, hip, pizza place. The food was excellent but having grown up on a farm I can't look at industrial chic and not think about how painfully hot that galvanized roofing would get in the summer. (One of the most dreaded chores was having to nail the roof on the chicken coop back down after storms.) Then there's those metal chairs, they fit in great with the decor but why do they have to be so uncomfortable?   

Meanwhile, back at Chez Madness, Burt and Ivy along with one unhelpful kitty, were finally getting around to taking down the Christmas trees. This year we all agreed not to try to break our record of keeping the decorations up until Valentine's Day.

 

It did not get off to a good start. Spenser, decided he had a better use for the basket. 

Eventually, the reluctant kitty moved elsewhere and The Crew got to work.

Christmas ornaments, not only are they great earrings . . .

. . . but snotty noses, too. Yuck!

Apparently the Crew were trying Spenser's patience. 

Finally, all the ornaments were removed and it was time to pack up the first tree. Since Burt had disappeared, it was up to Ivy and Kibitz to wrestle it into the bag and down to the basement. 

 

Surprise! Burt was hiding in the bag, waiting for the chance to scare everyone.

He just can't help himself.

They weren't really all that frightened and agreed it was a pretty good prank.

 Since Burt was so happy in the storage bag, Ivy and Kibitz thought he might as well stay there. So they added the tree, zipped it shut and shoved it under the stairs in the basement. Then, after all their hard work they decided it was time to relax and maybe enjoy a glass of Amontillado.

They'll let him out, eventually.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

  

The Holiday Crazies

Normally, Friday the 13th would be the perfect reason to do a spooky blog post, right? Unfortunately, due to experiencing my second slightly disastrous Christmas in a row, my house is currently in full tilt Happy Holiday mode, without one creepy corner (outside of the basement) to photograph the Crew in. Oh, well, there's another one coming - in October, ha!

We're probably not the last people with our decorations still up, at least I hope so. In my defense, it seems like I just got it all done. When your friends and relatives are scattered from coast to coast, Christmas becomes more of a concept than a specific date on the calendar. For our family, it's been a fluid holiday for a long time and since I tend to be a serial procrastinator, that can be both a good and a bad thing. We've never managed to get together prior to the 25th, but usually we celebrate before New Years. Once it even stretched into late January, still all that really matters is that we get to see each other and have a good time. 

This holiday season started out pretty typically . . . for us. During last year's fiasco with my broken ankle and the non-existence of fresh cut trees, we bought an artificial one for our living room. No matter how much I wanted to go back to a real tree, it just didn't make sense. We did get a fresh wreath and garland for the front porch so at least our car got to smell like Christmas.

The rest of the decorating went smoothly and by Christmas most of it was done!

Ivy took the photos for the yearly card and even got them in the mail in time.

Burt and Kibitz were very cooperative and held really still.

There were still cookies to bake, presents to wrap and some complicated ethnic recipes to puzzle out, but the preparations were moving along. 

Then the first virus came down the chimney, followed by a few of its friends. They weren't serious and didn't take too long to get over (the worst parts, anyway) but they just kept coming. At least it did provided an opportunity to get the online shopping done.

Plus Spenser was happy to have someone to keep him company while he watched YouTube.

In the end we coughed and sneezed our way through to the New Year and had a good time, too. Then while driving back from the airport, it dawned on me that I didn't take one single photo! What? Apparently being so focused on what hadn't been done, made me forget about what was really important, duh! The lesson I've finally learned from the last two Christmases is that you never know what's going to happen so it's a good idea to plan for the worst. I think hope for the best, plan for the worst is the actual saying but maybe it should also include, and don't forget to take pictures!

A belated Happy Holidays to everyone who celebrates.

Happy New Year and Happy Friday the 13th, thanks for stopping by!