2.0 -- thank you!

Nerves

The air ruffled blades of grass around me. I told myself to stay as still as possible, just in case the woman saw me.

She hadn’t. She passed right by and only a meter away, too. Ha! Well, I got myself all worked up over nothing, I suppose.

I took my time getting over to the shady spot. It was cooler here but not by much. Taking advantage of the relative security under the structure, I decided to stretch my tense muscles a bit. It was calmer now and the wind was hardly noticeable, save the occasional puff that reached deep under the covering. I moved one leg back and then the next.

That was much better. I leaned forward on my elbows and looked around, blinking in the summer heat. Eventually, my eyelids grew heavier and heavier and I let my neck droop forward until my chin rested on my wrists.

SCREECHKERPLUNK

My head bolted up and I felt all quivery inside. What was that? Too afraid to turn my head, it held still and rolled my eyes to each side. There were no movements or sounds near me, so I risked turning my head to search out the cause of that grating and booming noise.

Darn. I couldn’t see anything. Maybe it was the canopy above me blocking out too much. I scooted my legs back underneath me and shifted my body slightly inch at a time until I was almost out from under it.

I gasped. There was the woman again! She hadn’t passed by and gone far away as I thought. She was only a few meters away now. Had the noise come from her?

The woman spoke. I stopped dead. Was she talking to me? Screwing up some courage, I sniffed slightly and blinked quickly, my nose itching and eyes gone dry with nerves.

I turned my head toward her and waited. She looked over me. My head turned in the same direction she looked. Now, I could see a man stood in the shadow next to a building.

“Did you get them all??” She repeated herself to the man across the way.

“Yeah. I just finished crushing the rest.” He stepped out into the late afternoon sunshine. He was big, much bigger than he had first appeared. What were they crushing? What damage could they possibly have wrought with that contraption in the shadows?

The woman took another two steps toward me but it didn’t scare me; she was too interested in the man to pay me any notice.

I breathed a sigh of relief and stretched my legs back out behind me but kept my head up, this time, just in case.

The woman skirted the canopy, which still blocked her from seeing me. She approached the man and stopped a few meters from him. She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand like a visor. Their earlier shouts were so loud that I was afraid they were fighting. Now, they just stood close, speaking quieter than before. I could hear them but not make out what they discussed.

I decided to step out from my hiding place but on the opposite side from them. I was getting hungry, anyway, and wanted to get my supper before the sun went down. The man and woman were still several meters away and kept to themselves.

I strode out and peered out over the choices in front of me. There were a few different types of salad and a few fruits. I didn’t like the fruit too much, it was too sweet. I preferred the anti-oxident rich greens. I reached forward and pulled at a piece. It broke loose easily. Chewing, I pondered over this afternoon’s excitement: the woman showing up out of nowhere, getting startled and unexplained sounds. Where in the world that man had come from and what had he been destroying? I couldn’t figure it out, so I reached for another morsel of greens. It was good, full-bodied with a bite at first, then, a sweet finish.

Stepping a another few inches forward, I didn’t bother to twitch when the lady came back around the large object that had earlier sheltered me from the sun. She wasn’t a threat. The man could’ve been but I didn’t hear him on her trail. She seemed to have come to some understanding with him.

So far, everything was turning out alright. I turned my head, still munching, and saw the lady smile at me. I leaned forward and took another bite. She was, wasn’t she?

She turned back toward the man, who stood in the same place as before, smoking a cigarette . “He’s so tame, he hasn’t stopped grazing while I passed, sweet baby rabbit.”

If you're new to my lj, you can click on the habitat for humanity tag to see photo-progress (it's now finished)

Habitat for Humanity Stool #3
By Reed

When I heard Girl Scouts were building the stools, my mind immediately turned toward
my three nieces: Lauren (9), Allison (5) and Cassandra (2). The eldest girls are active
in the “Girl Scout Family” already.

I envisioned my nieces drawing and doing coloring books. I thought of the
themes and colors they love. I chose vivid, “Parisian Pink” for the background and
stand-out, day-glow colors for foreground subjects.

Each panel has its own story: roses and pansies in grandmother’s garden; a tree with
apples hanging heavy and a bumblebee buzzing around; trumpet vines hanging from
a terrace, enticing a hummingbird; a pailful of carrots tempting a bunny rabbit; and a
child proffering a daisy, repeating the old rhyme, “How does your garden grow?”

The design is meant to capture the fancy of little girls. I hope it delights the child
in all of us.

View, 3rd thing down is "all clips."

I'm not exactly writing. In personal news, I've become so aggravated at the world, particularly my own country, that I was going on 40 minute uncontrolled spiels to anyone afraid enough not to walk away.

I've taken myself straight off television. The only thing I liked was the news and political shows. So, no news for me.

It's working, there's much less screaming and I still get some news on the radio (I'm allowed a big of World Update on BBC and a bit of whatever is on in the afternoon if I don't listen to my iPod on the way home). I'm diving back into reading The Discworld. Nothing better than that, eh?

I'm walk-jogging a bit more and that's good. I know it doesn't sound impressive, because it's not, but I'm back in the range of 15 minutes miles (told you it was unimpressive). In defense, I'm 5'2" and my lungs were damaged a few years ago in a fire. Piss off, I'm moving.

The important thing is that the Creative Meetup is this week. A chance to actually write, it is. Come on down!

My friend J (of the many J-friends I have) is starting to write! How cool is that? She's got a lj account and I'm going to poke her a couple of times to post her progress, snippets or even the whole she-bang.

Werewolves. Duh. They taste fresher.

Fingernails dug into my skin like wild mille-fleur rose bushes.

If you have a gas range, it may work similarly. I've only cooked a bit in my god-parents' old range and never had need of cleaning it. When I was a kid, everything but paying the bills and earning cash to pay them was my job. One of the many chores I did was to crack open our family's stovetop once or twice a year.

Also, when I was a kid, the whole thing had to be pristine and checked as a-okay before I was allowed to reassemble it. With age, I've found I draw the line at a certain level of "clean."

First, choose your poison:
•you can buy special oven cleaners and that's a separate job but you can use the same foam on drip pans as they're basically coated with the same type of char and the area beneath "lid" of your stove
•you can make your own cleansers out of things around the house already:  white vinegar, baking soda, natural soap/cleansers (I like 7th Generation dishwashing liquid, Burt's Bees baby shampoo, or Dr. Bronner's liquid soap), washing soda (different from baking soda or washing powder), and rubber gloves and scrubby tools

Next, remember the lay-out of your range. Most stovetops have two large burners and two small. My wee range has one large burner and three small. Just to be safe, I always maintain the layout of burners and drip pans while I'm cleaning so that I can replace them exactly as they had been before I took it apart. Do not submerge burner elements!

Most importantly, be sure everything is cool to the touch before grabbing anything! Use commonsense.

Cracking it open

1. Look where the burner "ring" (element) sticks into the side wall of the "well" in which it's housed. Your burner is probably a spiral that "ends" on the outside and that's where it plugs in, much like any electrical appliance does in a wall socket. It should come out with surprising ease. Grab the burner and pull opposite to where it's plugged in, in other words un-plug it and lift out at an angle. Place the burner in a way that will make it easy for you to remember where it belonged (mentioned above).
   
2. Once the burner ring is removed, the drip-pan comes up even easier unless it's caked on from previous spillages. Mine are always very loose, simply lift them out and place in a sink or whever you're going to scrub them.

Clean burner element with any damp sponge or scrubby material you wish, minding to always keep dampness away from the part that will plug-in. It would probably be fine even if it's wetted as long as you thoroughly dry it. I prefer to not cause myself trouble and I lightly clean off the burner element with a damp cloth and that's the end to that part (times four for each burner).

Cleaning the drip-pan is probably going to take quite a bit more elbow-grease (in other words, manual labor). Spills and drips that we notice or don't when cooking collect here and then "cook" with the heat from the burner element. It builds up over time and is very difficult to remove, if neglected. I neglect mine, so I know what I'm on about here. I scrub with a concoction of baking soda and natural liquid soap. What type of natural soap doesn't make a difference other than scent, in my experience. With these photos, I used Burt's Bees Baby Shampoo simply because I've been using it lately. I recommend washing soda normally for its much more caustic rather than innocuous (baby shampoo and baking soda are excellent cleansers that are also easy on your hands) properties but I find it works better on grease rather than the char involved with my drip-pans.

I scrubbed on the four drip-pans for an hour and then called it a draw. Most of the char came off within the first couple of minutes during scrubbing (I used a plastic mesh-covered sponge implement). Only a slight bit more came off with more scrubbing and additional baking soda (a natural abrasive).

When you've had all you can take of wiping down burner elements and rinsing off your now gleaming (in some places, anyway) drip-pans, set them to drip-dry in your dish drier (yes, I wash my dishes by hand) and turn to actually cleaning the top and underneath of the range.

1. Transfer over some fresh natural liquid soap and baking soda with a sponge-load of water to the range-top. This is usually enough for me to loosen any gook that is on top or primarily, that which hid under the drip-pan lips. There will be scrubbing! I'm always careful to avoid the "plug-in" socket where you will replace the burner elements. Be wise.
2. Rinse and remove the cleanser, water and loosened filth with wetted kitchen towels or dry towels. If you must, use paper towels. I like to use a kitchen towel at this point because I can rinse it and return, as needed, and it gives me a better scrub for those spots I may have missed.

Done? Nope. Now, notice where the "lip" of the surface you just cleaned rings around the front of your stove. See it goes around the sides, too? It lifts up like the hood of a car. Mine has two sturdy metal rods (really more like the wire in a wire clotheshanger) in front that will pop in place when I pull up on it. Yours may not work the same way. Be wise and watch your fingers.

When it is pulled up and safely held up, survey the damage. Normally mine has a dried-up ocean of spills that look like the surface of Mars. Note, there will be something that delivers heat up from the oven to one of your burners. That's called a "warming burner," if you never noticed it. That's a handy thing they leave for when you're preparing something in the oven, you can place a pot on that warming burner that will allow the oven heat to rise up and keep your green beans ready to go with that pot roast. You can clean up to it but don't go poking around, down inside it.
Propped up, note electric parts

1. Depending on the size of your "spill zone," you'll need more or less cleanser and time. This time I was lucky and there was only one dried "pool" of spill of something not-so-bad, like pasta water. I transferred some soapy water (the liquid soap without baking soda added only because I didn't need an abrasive. If you need an abrasive, knock yourself out.
2. Scrub away and rinse well.
   
3. Dry.
4. Check if your drip-pans are dry.
5. If they are, lower the top of your range (carefully). Mine is made where I simply press backward on those wire clotheshanger things and it drops nicely into place.
6. Place your shiny-clean drip-pans (okay, mine are mostly clean...as an adult I get to say "when") in place with the hole arranged over the electrical socket.
7. Replug burner elements by coming in at an angle and pushing in, opposite to how you removed them. One through three were easy-peasey for me. The fourth one (always, the last one!) took about three minutes of trying and I admit to bitter name-calling.

There's hope if your drip-pans (after an hour of scrubbing) still have a bit of char and you refuse to accept a certain level of clean (that I do, knowing how hard I worked), replacement drip-pans are available for purchase. Personally, I consider buying new drip-pans giving in more than accepting 95% clean. It's your stove! You get to decide.
Finished
-sorry about lack of links; I've tried adding them and re-adding three times but lj keeps eating them :(

At the only bank with a vault for miles around, they have a security officer come in one day a year to handle whatever issues people may have with their safe-deposit boxes. You see, the bank workers cannot get into the boxes themselves (or so they say). If for any reason a person needs to get in and they don’t have a key, too bad! You have to wait until the security company arrives.

Since my father lost his safe-deposit key many years ago and my mother is getting old, she figured they better both have their own copy. You know, for the inevitable.

The “boy” there wore a clean-pressed uniform (it helps the old folk feel safe) and waited to help whomever the bank staff pulled in front of him next in line. At my mother’s turn, she approached. “My husband swears he always carried his on his keychain but...Well, he needs another one.”

“Do you have your copy with you?”

“What’s the difference? Don’t you have that information?”

“Well, the difference is $140 to make a fresh key or $15 to make a copy.”

“Oh.”

My mother reached into her giant old lady purse and pulled out her key-holder.

“Ma’am? Is that a mustard jar?”

“No. No, it’s not...It’s a holiday sampler jam jar.”

She would be horrified to hear that I gave away her key-holder but for safety I'll not pass along where she, in turn, hides that jar.

Original plan was no black outline on top but outline in black the rest for a "coloring book" effect. I felt overwhelmed by black (we're having day upon day of rain and darkness, this could be affecting my judgment) and I just couldn't do it. I used a dark red and dark green on red and green respectively and then black on the rest.

Layer upon layer... Get busy!

Fluorescent powers on a cloudy day.

All gesso is done & sanded. Here's the first glazing of fluorescent red.

momilies