Cathy Chats

Peach-Walnut Coffee Cake

2010-05-24T12:09:00.007-04:00

I'm not really a food blogger, but I made this for breakfast and it was yummy. I thought I'd share it. I actually used white flour instead of wheat, because I didn't want to grind just a cup of wheat. I need to grind a few cups of wheat to have some flour handy in the freezer at all times. I didn't take a picture, either. That's proof I'm not really a food blogger. No food porn!
The best thing about this recipe is it uses canned peaches - commercial or or your own - so it is seasonless. It's a quick and easy pantry breakfast. I wished I had had some of my homemade vanilla yogurt to eat with it!

Peach-Walnut Coffee Cake

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour, freshly ground

⅓

cup

xylitol

tablespoon

baking powder

teaspoon

sea salt

cup

walnuts, chopped

teaspoon

cinnamon

teaspoon

allspice

oz.can

peaches, drained and chopped

cup

peach syrup, reserved

each

egg

⅓

cup

coconut oil, melted

1. Preheat oven to 375℉. Butter an 8x8 baking dish.
2. Drain the peaches, reserving 1/2 cup of syrup. Chop up coarsely.
3. Mix the flour, sweetener, walnuts, baking powder, salt, and spices together in a large bowl.
4. Add the egg, peaches, peach syrup, and oil. Mix gently but thoroughly.
5. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry.

Cheese and Stuff

2010-05-07T08:59:00.000-04:00

A few years ago I stopped buying those individually wrapped cheese slices, and started buying the packages of cheese slices that were all stuck together. I replaced processed cheese food with processed cheese. They melted just as well and gave the same creamy results in grilled cheese and omelets. It was a step in the right direction.

In the past few months I have stopped buying the processed cheese slices, and started buying more blocks of cheese, usually colby. It doesn't melt as well, and tends toward a stringier texture. It still makes delicious grilled cheese and omelets. I have to grate it for the omelets now, though. I've always used grated real block cheese for my mac and cheese. A slice off the block of real cheese is a much nicer snack than a slice of processed cheese. It's another step in the right direction.

The Farmer's Market opened last Saturday. There wasn't a lot available, because the last frost date here is mid-May. Most crops are still in their little seedling containers, safely indoors. I was able to get a nice couple of bunches of asparagus and some swiss chard. The rhubarb preserves I got are very runny, but delicious. I also got a rhubarb plant. It's sitting outdoors in a pot, ready to be planted. Not next year, but the year after I should have my own rhubarb supply!

Toothpaste and L-Theanine

2010-04-22T16:57:00.000-04:00

While looking for a source for a fluoride-free, xylitol based toothpaste I found a wonderful website: Swanson Vitamins. They had Norwegian Cod Liver oil capsules. They had L-Theanine for half the price we were paying locally. And, of course, they had the NOW brand Xyliwhite toothpaste. I placed an order for all of the above, plus some Dr. Bronner's soap with Tea Tree oil.

I won't go into the arguments about fluoride, pro or con. I decided we should try a toothpaste without it, and that one with xylitol would be a very good idea. And so I did. I bought NOW brand Xyliwhite refreshmint toothpaste. I am very pleased with this toothpaste. It doesn't foam up as much as Crest or Colgate. The flavor I got is mint, but it's not the nasty intense mint you normally find in toothpaste. It's a very mild, barely there mint taste. It contains baking soda and tea tree oil too, which is always a bonus in my opinion. It leaves my teeth clean, and my mouth refreshed, but not to the point where I couldn't drink something cold. If it prevents cavities and promotes gum health as well as I will never switch back.

The place I ordered from, Swanson's Vitamins, was a place I had never seen mentioned in any of the healthy cooking and living websites I visit. The prices were right, though. Items they had on sale were less than the prices at my food co-op. I am pleased with this company so far. They didn't overcharge for shipping, and shipped promptly. I'm a happy camper.

Sweetie has been taking L-Theanine, on the recommendation of a family member. He checked with our doctor, who said "If it helps, take it! It can't do any harm." L-Theanine is an amino acid that promotes alpha brain wave activity. Sweetie says that it allows him to shut off the thoughts that cause his anxiety to spiral out of control. It lets him simply think that he feels terrible and anxious, and might need to take some of his medication. This is wonderful, because previously he was so consumed with all the terrible possibilities he could imagine that he wouldn't think of taking his medication. He has been needing less medication, too.

I have taken it a couple of times, as a sleep aid. You know how sometimes your brain just won't shut off so you can't sleep? This lets your brain shut off. I find it to be a bit too calming for use in the day. It's nice to be able to focus on something, but I am accustomed to having a whole series of other things going on at the same time. Background processing, in computer terms. This eliminates multi-processing for me. Great for sleep, not so great otherwise. I also find that it takes a couple of days for the effect to wear off completely.

The Condo complex

2010-04-17T15:29:00.000-04:00

As promised, some more pics of where we live. These are not of our condo, but of the complex in general. With one of our door.

It's lovely here.

My Current Favorite Blog

2010-04-16T22:22:00.000-04:00

I plan to be adding this site to my links soon. But until I get it linked, I want all 11 of my regular readers to know about Kitchen Stewardship.

If you want to move to a healthier diet, this site can help. It has recipes, Monday missions, lists of things to do and lists of things to avoid. It's not rabidly proselytizing a set of dietary beliefs and insisting their diet is the only way to eat, although it is a TF (Traditional Foods) site. She knows her audience is real people, and that you have to make compromises between time, money, convenience and health. She helps by rating things in terms of those compromises.

I was reading an archive today of her 3 easy steps that don't cost too much. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I have been doing all three. I also have eliminated white sugar, and am close to eliminating transfats and HFCS. I have been doing better than I thought. I cannot yet give up white flour totally; the bread I make is only 3/4 freshly home-ground wheat. I need to get a sourdough starter going, too, to make the bread more healthy. But Jim makes pickles, and I make yogurt. I made some delicious sauerkraut, too, not that Jim will taste it. I'm not doing badly.

WoW Still Owns My Soul

2010-03-28T12:15:00.001-04:00

Note the lack of posts? WoW still owns my soul, but I'm getting better at limiting my time playing. The things you can accomplish when you aren't "in game" all day!

We moved. We bought a condo. Not the first condo, which we really would have preferred (first floor half bath!) but another one. It's in a different location, actually closer to most of the places we usually go. It's a bit farther from Mom than the first condo, but closer than the apartment. My new condo owns my heart.

I cannot overstate the joy of having my own washer and dryer again. I can put a load of laundry in at midnight if I want. I can do laundry while still in my jammies if I want.

This condo allows me to again have my small office area just off the kitchen. I can see things simmering on the stove as I sit here (beans are pre-soaking for bean soup). I have a working stove vent hood! Kitchen storage space is limited, but it's not as ghastly as I feared. I like the way the kitchen is open to both the dining nook and the living room. I can see a new dishwasher in the mid-range future. The upper rack has a wheel that keeps falling out of the track, but it works perfectly well at producing clean dishes. It's not a priority.

We painted all the kitchen cabinets rather than replacing them. Even Jim admits that they need replacing, and someday we will. But for now we need to work on resuscitating our savings.

I still have work to do cleaning off the bar section of counter. When we were first moving and the paint and carpet weren't yet completed it was one of the few locations we could put things. It was piled high! What the picture shows is actually a vast improvement.

So there you have a first look at my happy new home.

The Time Pit

2010-01-14T23:20:00.001-05:00

When my sister sent me a link for a free trial of a game she plays, I should have been suspicious. I'd been refusing to play it for at least a year. And the last time she engaged me in a game I lost 3 1/2 years of my life and hundreds of dollars to The Sims 2 and Electronic Arts. I knew better. I signed up for the free trial anyway.

It's only been a few days, less than a week, since I began playing. I've already laid out the money to continue playing after the trial ends. So, for those who care, I am Nyhelia, a level 14 Night Elf Priestess on Dawnbringer in WoW. I would like to meet folk of similar level for some group quests. Priests are a puny bunch, and I could use some warrior/hunter/rogue support. Or, more accurately, I can cast spells to help keep your players alive in combat provided you keep me from being killed while I do so. If you need me for anything IRL, message or mail me in game.

A Condo

2010-01-10T13:22:00.000-05:00

Sweetie doesn't want to own a house, for many very good reasons. Not least of these is that both of us are too allergic to grass pollen to mow a lawn. Mostly, though, we both simply have better things to do with our time than clean gutters, edge the sidewalk, and powerwash the siding. Let's not even think about the snow shoveling. A condo is a good compromise, in that it allows the freedom to do mostly what we want inside, without having to fuss over the outside.

I went looking online for good deals on condos. Good deals are not that easy to find; that short sale condo for $49,900 may have a $500 a month association fee. Finding out the fees was hard, as most associations don't have a website, never mind a website with good current info on both fees, services, and the current finances of the association. You have to be careful. You don't want a condo with a bankrupt association. You'll pay ever-increasing fees and still have to shovel the snow yourself.

I found a genuine Good Deal. Sweetie and I looked at it, and it was acceptable. It is not the home of our dreams. The home of our dreams has about 30% more space and a basement. But this condo is a Good Deal, and met our minimum requirements. 2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, at least 6 linear feet of usable counter space, a washer and dryer hookup. The association is not in financial trouble, the fees are extremely low considering that they include gas and water, and even the taxes are low. Even better, it's 10 miles closer to Mom. It doesn't get better than this.

So we made a short sale offer, one of three made on this unit. Our offer is the best one. It has been passed on to the bank for their acceptance. A month has gone by, and of course we have heard nothing. We don't expect to hear anything for at least two more months. We could hear tomorrow, though, or any other day. We simply don't know, and cannot find out. We can only wait, and hope.

It's hard, not knowing.

I Think I Hate Sally Fallon

2010-01-09T09:19:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I made mayonnaise for the first time. I used the recipe in Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. I followed that recipe exactly. I got mayonnaise with such a strong mustard flavor it is unusable for anything but potato salad. Which reminds me, I want to make potato salad today to use up that mayonnaise.

This week I made lacto-fermented pickles for the first time. Again, I followed the recipe in Nourishing Traditions. I did substitute 2 teaspoons of dried dill for the two tablespoons of fresh dill. I used whey and sea salt. 24 hours later there was mold on a few pickles. I scraped off the mold and used a weight to keep the pickles submerged. 24 more hours later there was a ring of mold around the weight. I scraped off the mold again, and tasted a small piece of pickle. It was not mushy, and did not taste moldy or spoiled. It didn't taste good. I threw the batch out, because the taste of the pickle was not heading in a direction I liked, and I mistrusted the cloudy brine with sediment.

Pickle making is nothing new for me. My Sweetie and I began making pickles a few years ago, when we were wholly unable to get anything other than sweet pickles in Thailand. Our garlic-dill pickles were renowned there, with several local restaurants wanting to sell them for us. We know good pickles, and we won't settle for something inferior. In fact, since our return to the states we have continued making pickles. The commercial ones available here may not contain sugar, but they simply don't compare in crunch and flavor to ours.

So, two recipes have been tried, and both recipes have been unsatisfactory. What are the odds of me trying a third recipe?

I Wish I Had Thought of This:

2009-12-15T09:26:00.000-05:00

If you like to bake, as I do, you soon run into the problem of where to store all those essential baking pans. Cookie sheets, pizza pan, cake pans in assorted sizes, pie plates, bundt pans, springform pans and more. If you have a small kitchen like mine it’s even worse. I know what your cabinets look like, because mine look that way, too.

I got one of those vertical organizers for holding things like pan lids and baking sheets. It takes up the entire top shelf in the pan cabinet. It keeps the nonstick surfaces from scratching, but it’s not an efficient use of space. So I ran across this little gem while wandering around the Ikea website:

I want about three sets of these. One an inch from the top of the cabinet for my cookie sheets and pizza pan. One two inches below that for my cake pans and pie plates and griddle. Another one two inches below that for my cutting boards. I will have to set a shelf of some kind on the second shelf to support the cake pans and pie plates, but that’s easily done. By using 5 inches of otherwise wasted space I will reclaim an entire shelf.

But you don’t even have to buy the brackets from Ikea. You can hammer in four brads and set a piece of quarter-inch plywood on them. You can hammer in more brads and lace twine to support something light. You can even modify this idea to suspend your cutting boards horizontally below your upper cabinets. They would be off the counter but easy to grab there. My mind is swirling with the possibilities.

Headphone Cozy

2009-12-11T19:07:00.001-05:00

Sweetie is a musician, and wears his headphones while he composes. His favorite Sennheiser headphones still worked perfectly, but the plastic over the foam earpieces was frayed and falling apart. It was irritating his ears. Sennheiser headphones aren't inexpensive, so I offered to make a soft knit cover for the earpieces. And I did.

I used black cotton Peaches and Cream yarn. For each cozy I cast 30 stitches on to size 2 needles, and did 8 rows of k1 p1 ribbing. Rather than binding off I ran the yarn through the loops and pulled it to the right size. I then stitched 3/4 of the side seam using that same yarn. I placed the cozy on the earpiece and finished stitching the side seam with the wire to the earpiece coming out through the seam. I tied off the yarn. Then I took the loose yarn from the casting on of stitches and ran it through the first row of stitches, as if I was picking up stitches. I pulled this yarn snugly to hold the earpiece in position and tied it off. I did it all again for the second earpiece.

American Food

2009-11-18T09:25:00.001-05:00

Our sojourn in Thailand has left us with a few dietary peculiarities. We are used to a much less contaminated food supply. The prime example is eggs. Commercial eggs make both of us sick, but free-range eggs from a local farmer do not. No hormones, no antibiotics, and no salmonella contamination. We gladly pay twice or three times the price of supermarket eggs for eggs that won't make us sick. Even the eggs sold as "natural" in the supermarket make us sick.

Supermarket chicken - Perdue or Tyson - smells like ammonia or bleach and tastes half-spoiled. We got used to SPF (Specific Pathogen Free) chicken in Thailand. No salmonella, no listeria, no campylobacter, no hormones, no antibiotics. Now the only kind that actually tastes right is the expensive organic chicken. I buy the whole bird and use the back, neck, and wings to make chicken broth. We'd really prefer to be buying packs of leg quarters, as we both like dark meat, but it looks like our foreseeable future holds overpriced whole chickens. White meat makes delicious chicken pot pie, though.

Supermarket pork is slimy and smells "off" the day I buy it. As with the chicken, we got used to S-Pure pork, which was hormone and antibiotic free, while being free of trichinosis and other pathogens as well. Pork was our standard meat in Thailand. I used ground pork freely as a ground beef alternative, in chili, lasagne, and tacos. We ate pork tenderloin regularly, along with pork chops once they started cutting actual pork rib chops instead of just random hunks of pork. The ribs came already individually cut for fast and easy cooking. I have a local source of pork, from which we buy all our bacon and sausage. I may need to start buying all our pork there.

Decent beef was imported in Thailand so it was very expensive. The local beef was all but inedible. When you can count every rib on the cow, there aren't going to be any "USDA Choice" cuts of meat within. We have adjusted well to eating more beef. We don't seem to have any problems with the beef, other than our fear of BSE.

And then there is milk. I avoided any issues there by going straight for hormone and antibiotic free milk from a small local dairy. I get my milk, cottage cheese, butter, buttermilk, and half and half from the food coop, which carries the products from that local dairy.

To sum it all up, we have experienced as many digestive upsets in our few months back here in the US as we did in our 3-plus years in Thailand. There are the previously mentioned eggs. Also affecting us badly is Mc Donald's, although it may just have been the egg in my Egg McMuffin. Pizza seems to be an issue, no matter where we get it. In fact, eating out in general seems to be a bad choice.

It's a good thing I like to cook.

Supplements R Us

2009-11-17T11:01:00.000-05:00

A month or so ago I embarked on a plan of dietary supplementation to improve our resistance to influenza. I began with zinc lozenges. The nice thing about zinc lozenges is that once you are no longer deficient they taste nasty and metallic instead of yummy. We went through an entire small bottle of Solgar Flavo-Zinc and then I couldn't find it again, so we are currently taking a zinc capsule. Those are nearly gone, and I will replace it with more Flavo-Zinc.

The next supplement I added was Cod Liver Oil. We take the capsules, because I am certain a spoonful of it would never pass my Sweetie's lips. Cod Liver Oil isn't just about vitamins. It's a great source of Omega-3 fatty acids, which pretty much everyone needs.

The last supplement I added may be the most important one. We are taking Vitamin D, in the form of D-3, 2000 IU each per day. This is currently the maximum daily dose according to the US government. However, new research linking vitamin D deficiency to depression and heart disease - and a very high incidence of vitamin D deficiency in the US population - has groups working to get that recommendation increased to 10,000 IU. If it is increased then more foods can have it added as a supplement, like milk. Relatively high doses of vitamin D are needed to remedy a deficiency.

In general we now feel healthier than we have in many years. There are a few small exceptions, which I will explain in my next post.

Dinner

2009-10-26T20:38:00.001-04:00

Dinner tonight was manicotti, no recipe used.

I made it using jarred spaghetti sauce (Bertolli Organic, Olive oil, Basil and Garlic flavor tonight) because we are currently sampling all the jarred sauces to see if an acceptable one can be found or if we must make our own. I stuffed it with ricotta cheese mixed with parmesan, parsley, and an egg. I stuff it uncooked, and bake it longer so the pasta gets done. I topped it off with some of he fresh homemade mozzarella we got at the farmer's market.

I intended to have some of our rosemary herb bread (also a farmer's market find) with it, but I simply forgot. I also meant to have some leftover cauliflower with it, too, but I didn't. So much for planning.

Even though Sweetie insists he hates ricotta cheese (it's white) he liked it enough to go for another helping.

Cookbooks!

2009-10-25T20:42:00.000-04:00

I enjoy cooking, but I've been in a rut. I remember when I could think of 20 or more different ways to prepare chicken without really trying. Now I can think of about 4. I need variety. I need recipes. And so I have embarked on a mission to get recipes - but not just any recipes. I want the recipes that inspired me when I was a young housewife.

Many, many moves over close to 40 years have left me sadly bereft of some of my favorite cookbooks. I never have been without my Joy of Cooking , 1975 edition, though. The newer editions just don't measure up, so although this book is literally falling apart it is precious to me.

The next thing I decided I wanted was a set of recipe cards put out by Betty Crocker in 1971. Ebay was my friend, and I managed to acquire 2 sets rather than the 1 I needed. I am happily anticipating the arrival of this in a week or so. I once had this complete set, and I remember there are several recipes in it that were staples for me. I'm anxious to revisit those old friends, and to try the recipes I couldn't afford back then! I'm sure the second set will find a good home, too.

Next I wanted the Farm Journal Homemade Cookies book, also from 1971. There is an oatmeal/coconut crisp cookie recipe in it that is superb. Lots of other good cookie recipes, too. It was well worth the $ it cost me for a used copy through Amazon.

That's all I have managed to acquire so far, and that ought to keep me happily engaged in my kitchen for a few months. Nevertheless, I am on the lookout for more cookbooks that I may eventually purchase. I want the Farm Journal Country Cookbook from 1972. I may want The Good Housekeeping Cookbook from 1963. I am considering whether I want the classic Betty Crocker Cookbook from 1975 (Looseleaf binder edition, of course!) and the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook from 1968.

So I'm hanging out more in food forums, and it's working. Supper tonight was breaded pork chops, potatoes, and parsnips in a dutch oven, and sauteed swiss chard. It was fabulous, it made me happy to cook it, and my Sweetie loved it. He even ate all his vegetables.

The Search for God and Guinness by Stephen Mansfield

2009-10-17T23:03:00.000-04:00

I have signed up to be a blogger book reviewer for Thomas Nelson publishers. I get books for free, and all I have to do is read and review them!

The Search for God and Guinness is more than a history of the brewery, although it includes that. It is more than a history of the Guinness family, too, although it also includes that. It is the story of how the brewery and the family have been guided in both business and life by their Christian faith. The Guinnesses are not people who go to church on Sunday and don't think about God again until the next Sunday, but are those rare people who put faith into concrete, meaningful action in their lives.

I didn't expect to be interested in the history of a brewery in a foreign country. But the history of the Guinness company is fascinating even to people not interested in brewing, and it is the Guinness family who make the company's history so fascinating. I was amazed by the acts of helping the poor and Christian evangelism that continued from generation to generation.

The history of Guinness paints a portrait of how a company can be run in a Christian way. Management and labor work cooperatively rather than adversarially, because the corporate culture is one of genuine caring for the well-being of the employees. Then the employees in turn care deeply about the welfare of the company. This is Christianity in action, and this is how Guinness was run for 250 years.

Bathing

2009-09-26T12:11:00.000-04:00

I took a bath yesterday. This may not sound like a big deal to you, but after 3 years of showers only it was glorious. There were no bubbles, no perfume, no powdering and pampering. It was steamy hot water until I was pruney. I loved it. When I was in the Philippines the ladies were advised that if the water was unsafe for drinking, it was also unsafe for bathing. Something about bacteria, fungi, and parasites. I applied this bit of wisdom to my life in Thailand. We had a positively gorgeous blue tub, over 5 feet long with armrests molded in the sides. I took showers in it for three years, because the water was unsafe for drinking. There are benefits to living in the USA.

Back in the USA

2009-09-20T13:27:00.002-04:00

We've been back in the USA for over three weeks now. The plan to try living without a car? It lasted two days after arrival. We got caught in a nasty cold pouring rain the second day, with a bit of a walk from the bus stop to our destination, and then back, using a bus stop with no shelter. Jim was afraid I would get sick out in that cold rain, and he says he didn't want his stubbornness about not having a car to be the cause of me getting ill. We got a car on day 3. So we have a shiny new red 2009 Chevy Aveo, and we love it. Jim says it is nicer than our Honda Jazz/Fit we had in Thailand. It's not a hatchback, but has a spacious 2-body trunk. We have a free year of OnStar, too, and 0% financing. Woot! Being out of the country for three years left Jim with a wholly clean license, so the car insurance was less expensive than I feared. And we got a discount by getting renter's insurance from the same company. Jim is keeping that license clean by not speeding. Our apartment is almost fully furnished, thanks to Ikea. All our furniture is from there, except Jim's desk. If you are curious, just ask and can link you to what we bought. Our bedroom is white and blue, a calm retreat. It has warm fluffy down alternative pillows and comforter. The living room is white and birch, with a red sofa. It really needs that splash of color. We are using the far end of the living room as a dining nook, and using the dining nook as my office. It's really working well for me, to be open to the kitchen. My desk and bookcase are white, as is my chair. The dining room table and chairs are birch. No real decorating has been done yet. Plenty of time for that. We are both happy to be back. Jim is following the Detroit Lions, seeing how long they can extend their record-setting losing streak. I am shopping at the local food coop and farmer's market for fresh food. I still shop at Meijer's, but I'm spending far less there than I would otherwise. I can't wait for the kitchen appliances I ordered to arrive! Having only a toaster and coffeemaker is a bit limiting.

Moving, Yet Again

2009-08-11T05:04:00.001-04:00

All systems are Go for the move.

I made the necessary hotel reservations here in town and in Bangkok for our last week here and departure.

Yesterday I emailed all the documents the movers need for the packout this Saturday. This included not only the Customs paperwork, but the inventory for the insurance. So that is all over but the actual packout and the money transfer to pay the movers.

The only thing left to do is to arrange the transportation to Bangkok on the 23rd. We have too much luggage to take a bus or taxi; we need a van. We could fit into a taxi, but not for a 3½ to 4 hour trip. Too crowded in the back seat. So a van it is.

I found the website for the local power company where we are moving and have actually arranged to start electrical service on the day we get our apartment. That was going to be the greatest inconvenience, not having electricity when we moved in. We can order pizza for dinner, and boil water to make coffee, but having lights is nicer than sitting around in the dark. Not to mention being unable to charge our Kindle, Sony E-reader, iPhone, and iPod Touch with no electricity. The very prospect is unacceptable!

I lose easy computer access the night of the 15th, when we will pack my precious Mac for the move. Updates may be very sporadic after that. Okay, even more sporadic than usual.

How to Load a Truck

2009-08-10T10:12:00.001-04:00

It's only rattan and bamboo chaises. It's not all that top-heavy. Really.

Please excuse the quality of the photo. It was taken through a dirty windshield while driving down the road. I thought you wouldn't mind too much due to the, ah, interesting nature of the photo.

Farewell, Sharp Microwave-Convection Oven

2009-08-04T23:56:00.001-04:00

I was melting some baking chocolate for brownies in my microwave last night, keeping a sharp eye on it as I didn't want to scorch the chocolate. Suddenly, there was an intense white glow and sizzling sound on the right hand side, followed a few seconds after by smoking and what appeared to be an actual hole in the metal side of the oven interior. I stopped the microwave. I unplugged the microwave. I melted the chocolate in a saucepan.

Farewell, beloved Sharp microwave-convection oven. Farewell, totally awesome "reheat" button. Farewell, defrost setting that actually defrosts instead of cooking. I'll miss you. I had to boil potatoes for dinner instead of baking them in you.

I suppose that this was a good time for my microwave to die if it had to die. I can live without one until we head back to the US. Coincidentally, my son's microwave almost bit the dust recently.

Packing our Suitcases

2009-08-02T08:59:00.000-04:00

You may think that packing our suitcases 3 weeks prior to our flight is a little premature. It's not. I have to complete the shipping inventory for the movers in less than 2 weeks. I need to know what goes on the inventory sheets. I need to know what will fit, and what needs to be shipped in the household goods. Hence the packing. As it turns out, very little clothing will need to be shipped. For one thing, we have almost no cold weather clothing. for another we were ruthless in our sorting, and we are not bringing anything that we simply don't ever wear.

We will have to buy some things when the weather cools. That's okay.

The dining room is looking bad. It's the staging area for Stuff to be Moved.

We have used up all the white sugar, and are using brown sugar for everything. Sweetie likes brown sugar in his coffee, as it turns out. We have only a few days supply of oatmeal left, a week at most. The elbow macaroni will be used up tomorrow in chili-mac.

We ate at a new restaurant Friday. It was some of the best food we've had in Korat. I particularly liked the apple dessert. I've posted on a cooking forum trying to find out what it's called so I can get a recipe. Yes, it was that good.

The Move Continued!

2009-07-17T04:45:00.001-04:00

Flight reservation home? Check.

Apartment available? Check.

Hotel reservation for arrival? Check.

Mailing address for new apartment? Check.

Household goods shipment scheduled? Check.

Things are progressing swimmingly.

A quick phone call to the motel confirmed a Coney place within walking distance. After three years of really awful, literally inedible hot dogs it seems serendipity is our fate yet again. Even better, it does American breakfasts. I sense a serving of crisp and golden hash browns in my future. God help me if they have biscuits and sausage gravy.

We have begun the sorting of our possessions into the "shipping" and "not shipping" categories. Jim has been working on the setup of the laptop for use as our exclusive computer for a couple of months after our arrival. I have been re-ripping our entire CD collection using the Apple lossless format because we aren't shipping our CDs. Jim's been helping with that, too, because it is tedious. Only a few more to go now.

I have confirmed the availability of AT&T U-verse for our TV and Internet and phone service at our new apartment. Yay, fiber!

I have ordered pots and pans and dishes for use upon arrival. Okay, for use the next day at our apartment. We won't have to spend a fortune eating out the first couple of months while waiting for our household goods.

I believe this may be the smoothest relocation I have ever done. So far. Knock on wood.

MacGourmet

2009-07-01T05:37:00.000-04:00

MacGourmet is the recipe software I use on my Mac. I chose it over the other apps available, after trying all of them. What sold me was the simple recipe import from web pages using the Safari Services menu, and the active developer with a clear vision of what features to add and a defined path to add them. It will import quite a few file formats from other recipe apps, most significantly Mastercook.

It has a section for notes on wine, which I don't use. I know people who do, though, and it would really be nice to have a place for them to record the information about that lovely, inexpensive varietal that complemented the duck perfectly. Because you will want that information 4 months later for a dinner party, but you'll have forgotten the vintage.

When I began using Macgourmet that was all it could do. Oh, it had smartlists, pictures, a shopping list and a sweet large view for referring to a recipe from across the room. It was still only recipes and wine notes, though. True to the developer's announced upgrade path, both menu planning and nutritional value calculations have been added. They are add-ons you purchase separately, or buy the retail package MacGourmet Deluxe and get them both with the app.

Even this added functionality is not the best part. The best part is the MacGourmet iPhone/iPod Touch app. Now I have all my recipes on my iPhone. I simply use that in the kitchen for the things I use a recipe to make. Combine that with the timer on my iPhone and you have a perfect cook's toolset.

Business Class!

2009-06-25T01:35:00.000-04:00

I made our reservations for our flight home. Flying to Detroit from Thailand is miserable. It's about a 23 hour trip, with a 2-hour layover in Tokyo. That 2-hour layover is just enough time to clear security, use a restroom, and board the next flight. Having to clear security again in Tokyo baffles me. I have been nowhere but the airport boarding gate or 35,000 feet since the last time I cleared security. Precisely how was I supposed to acquire any contraband?

Flying Coach, aka cattle car, is a horror. There is enough leg room for your knees to clear the back of the seat in front of you, and not an inch more. The food is barely edible, and frequently barely warm. Trying to use a restroom is an exercise in quick reflexes, as they no longer allow a queue to form. You might be terrorists standing in line by the restroom doors to plot, not merely passengers who desperately need to relieve themselves.

Thank God for frequent flyer miles.

I was able to use those miles to upgrade our Coach price tickets to Business Class. Flying Business class on an international flight is almost a joy. I will be able to sleep, because my seat will recline nearly flat instead of nearly reclining. The food is quite good, and comes on a real plate, with metal utensils, fabric napkin, and even a small fabric tablecloth for my tray table. I particularly enjoy relaxing with a free glass of white wine while cattle car loads, and it comes in a stemmed glass, not a plastic cup.

You get greeted by name, and they really do try to make you comfortable. You get a pillow, blanket, slippers or socks, toothbrush and toothpaste, comb, and one of those nightshades to cover your eyes for sleeping. They will let you sleep through a meal in Coach, but if you do you simply miss the meal. In Business Class they will bring you that meal as soon as you wake. You have three feet of leg room, and all seats are either aisle or window. Best of all, you have a place to plug in your laptop, PDA, or Kindle to recharge it for the long, long trip.

I like flying Business Class.

Cafe Vienna

2009-06-14T04:09:00.002-04:00

Jim loves the General Foods instant coffee Cafe Vienna. It's only available here when somebody hand-carries it in their luggage. (Thanks, Helen!) Poor Jim has been feeling deprived for three years. But even in the US that stuff is unconscionably overpriced. We have tried just putting a bit of cinnamon in a cup of coffee, and I'm sure you all have, too, so you know how well that works.

Two days ago I found a recipe for copycat Cafe Vienna at a forum online. Yesterday I made a batch. This stuff is so good we are unlikely to ever buy the General Foods product again! She also has recipes for other General Food instant coffee flavors.

Copycat Cafe Vienna

1/2 cup instant coffee 2/3 cup sugar 1/2 cup instant nonfat dry milk powder 1/4 cup powdered coffee creamer 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 cup store bought instant butterscotch or vanilla flavored pudding mix (optional) 1. Measure all of the ingredients into a blender and blend well. 2. Transfer the mixture to a resealable container, or a pretty jar. Makes 2 1/2 cups. To Prepare: Place 2 tablespoons of dry Cafe Vienna into a coffee cup. Add hot water to fill up the cup (about 3/4 cup hot water). Stir and serve.

More about Moving

2009-06-14T02:15:00.000-04:00

The date to sell the house has been moved up from October to mid-August. That's when the loan is finalized. We expect to be out of Thailand and back in the USA by the end of August. The best part is that it means we will not have to renew our annual visa in September!

I have arranged for an apartment to be available for us the day after we arrive. We will have the actual address before we leave here! I should know it in about 3 weeks. Then we can begin the misery that is address changing.

I have a quote from a very reputable moving company for shipping our household goods. It's the price I expected to pay, so we will be accepting the offer and setting the date for probably the 17th of August. We won't be moving any furniture, not when the cost is roughly $500 per cubic yard. We shipped $25,000 worth of household goods here, and will be shipping about the same back, for about $5,000 each way.

Once the household goods are shipped, we move into a hotel downtown and sell the car. We transfer the money from the sales to our US bank, confirm the arrival of said funds, and then we are free to go. I plan to leave a window of about a week for the money to be transferred. It shouldn't be necessary, it only takes 1 or 2 days, but Jim is cautious that way, and any issues will be easier to resolve from here than the US.

I have not yet purchased tickets for the flight home. That's the next thing on the to-do list after the details for the household goods shipment are arranged, which I will do tomorrow, since it's Sunday here.

We are "eating down" our food, trying to run out of things. Unfortunately, the swine flu has finally arrived in Thailand. I'd like to have some food stockpiled to get through a few weeks without having to visit The Mall. It seems that circumstances just aren't cooperating.

Calibre

2009-06-03T23:11:00.003-04:00

I love my Kindle. I hate my disorganized folder of e-books. Sure, they are all neatly in folders by author name, and sometimes by series name. But I finally have a solution, and even better it converts formats my Kindle won't read - lit and rtf - to mobi files that my Kindle will read. Who could ask for more?

I could. I want to be able to sort my e-books by author, by series, by genre. Calibre lets me. Even when a series is started by one author and added to by another. I want iTunes, only for my e-books. Yo, Steve - some of us still read.

It's not a perfect app. It crashes quite a bit, particularly when accessing the database for the meta information via the Internet. It hasn't ever lost any data due to the crashes, however. I'm going to be sending the developer of this app a donation. He deserves it, and it may improve Calibre.

It works on OS X, Windows, and Linux. Go download it now!

It's All a Blur

2009-05-29T09:03:00.000-04:00

Literally. I broke my glasses the other day, the stereotypical geeky crack dead center of the bridge. We could get me new glasses here, and less expensively than back in the US. But I don't want to do that. I want to wait until we are back in the US to replace them. If I get them here the bifocal line will be in the wrong place, just as the progressive lens areas of the glasses that just broke are in the wrong place. I'd only have to get yet another pair of glasses in the US that would be right. Jim is willing to do that for me, so I can see. But to me it's spending an extra few hundred dollars that we don't need to spend. I'll wait and spend it just once.

I have a couple of weeks of daily wear contacts, and reading glasses to use with them. I can go blurry most of the time, and use those when I need to be able to see. I can read at length in comfort without any glasses. I'll be fine.

Reasons to Live in Thailand

2009-05-14T23:25:00.000-04:00

as opposed to living in the USA.

1. Having a maid one full day each week: $35 per month.

2. 2 hour Thai foot massages.

3. Batter-dipped, deep-fried lettuce.

4. Shower gel, deodorant, talcum powder, and lotion in matching scents.

5. Unlimited voice, message and data plan for iPhone: $14 per month

6. They bring you freshly cooked food and bus your table, even at McDonald's.

7. Being stunningly beautiful; pale skin color compensates for being fat and middle-aged to the point of getting drop-jawed stares from even young Thai men.

8. Grilled salted fish.

9. Gold I'm not allergic to - 23K.

10. Watermelon year round, pre-sliced in packages.

Reasons to Live in the USA

2009-05-09T23:32:00.000-04:00

As opposed to living in Thailand, of course.

1. No pit vipers in your mailbox, ever.

2. You can drink the tap water.

3. No need to run the air conditioning 24/7/365. At least not in Michigan.

4. Packages arrive when mailed to you.

5. Actual seasons.

6. Fritos.

7. No International Gateway restricting Internet 3 meg access to .5 meg (at best!) for US sites.

8. Kindle Whispernet.

9. Fragrance free products (read: allergies)

10. That creepy doorman at The Mall who I always felt compelled to sprint past only to hear him call after me: "Welcome to The Mall...enjoy your day...good luck to you sir...farewell, my sweet prince...etc. etc.".

Baking Bread

2009-05-09T22:49:00.001-04:00

Jim doesn't like bread machine bread. It's a texture thing. He does like bread kneaded by hand and baked in a real bread pan in the oven. Particularly white and rye bread, not whole wheat. So 39 years later I am back to making bread the same way I first made it. I am trying to eliminate commercial mass-produced bakery products from our diet. It's not important here, as they don't use HFCS and frequently use palm oil instead of hydrogenated oils in the commercial baked goods, but in the US it will matter.

Baking bread is a process I enjoy. We get delicious bread instead of the rather questionable tasting loaves here. So yesterday I baked bread again. I made a double batch, enough to make two loaves. We don't eat bread rapidly enough to require baking 2 loaves at once, but I wanted to try making hamburger and hot dog buns. I let the buns rise a second time in the bowl so they wouldn't need to be baked until after the loaf was done baking. I have a small oven, you see.

The bread turned out perfectly. The hamburger buns appear to be perfect, as well; I will confirm this after eating one as part of my lunch. The hot dog buns are a bit too short and fat. I will know how to shape them better next time. All in all it was simple and I plan to make more buns in the future.

I still haven't gotten around to trying to make English muffins.

Going to America

2009-04-14T21:32:00.000-04:00

After our lovely almost 3 year sojourn in Thailand we are returning to the US to live. Partly it's the civil unrest, which is becoming more frequent and more violent with each repetition. It looks like a gradual slide into civil war, which will be accelerated when the much beloved and revered King passes away. The succession will be disputed, and historically all Thai civil wars are over the Royal succession. Mostly, though, it's that Jim's mother needs us, and we want to be there for her.

The day after we made the decision we told our neighbors across the street. They are wonderful people, and have been the best possible friends that they could possibly be, in spite of the language barrier. It seems that one of their sons wants our house, so they will be buying it from us. We are selling it for a price on the low side of fair, and including everything we don't ship back to the US, so everybody is happy. They also want our car, the other main item we need to sell. We will get a realistic price from the dealer today.

Curiously, this is, in a very real way, the story of my life. Serendipity rules. It's not that bad things never happen, it's that freakishly coincidental good things happen too often for it to be mere chance. For example, we sold our house in the US in 1 week, when other houses in our area had languished on the market for as long as 2 years. We sold it just before the home prices in our area dropped like shares of automaker stock. Jimmy decided to retire, and we proceeded to plan accordingly for the next two years. Just before he applied for his pension, they announced cash buyouts as a retirement incentive. You get the drift.

Fashion Update

2009-04-09T08:40:00.001-04:00

Not my best photo, but give me a break. I was using a cellphone camera and giggling so hard I could barely hold the camera still. Please bear in mind that the color pink has no association with things feminine in Thailand. Unfortunately, that only helps explain the color of the suit. Yes, this is a men's suit, proudly displayed in the men's section of the most expensive store in town.

Extremists

2009-04-08T03:42:00.001-04:00

Are there any normal people left on the Internet? I'd like to meet them, but I can't find them.

The Catholic Blogosphere and Webosphere is dominated by 2 groups, the far right SSPX/Traditionalist bunch, and the far left Call to Action/Voice of the Faithful bunch. Middle ground, anybody?

The homemaking and parenting Blogosphere and Webosphere is dominated by the Religious Right, with their quiverfull, homeschooling, anti-evolution mentality and their incessant prayer requests. Why can't they be Luddites as well? It fits with the rest of their world view better than monopolizing the Internet does.

The political Blogosphere is divided between the far right, which calls Obama a Socialist and calls for violent resistance to his policies, and the left which fails to question Obama even when questioning is needed. Think telecom wiretapping court cases and the attempts by the Justice Department to get those cases thrown out, under Obama, just like under Bush.

I remember the days -oh, sweet memory!- when the Internet was the sole domain of geeks and hackers. Everybody had an IQ of 125 or better. They had to, to figure out how to get on the Internet in the first place. They could all spell, and they used correct grammar. They even followed the generally accepted rules of netiquette. I miss those days a lot.

I don't mean to offend anybody, even though I probably did. Maybe it's just time for me to take a week or two off from the Internet. I'm beginning to hate it.

Not in Thailand

2009-03-28T08:57:00.001-04:00

I have mentioned before the sensitive noses of Thais, and their preference for heavily perfumed products. This has, until now, merely been an annoyance. But Jim's sensitivity to smells has recently ratcheted up to a zero tolerance level. This is a problem. Jim needs to breathe, but I need to bathe and the house needs to be cleaned as well.

I can't use Jim's shower gel, because *I* react to that. So I went looking for the one thing that I know from experience will not bother Jim: pure, unscented soap. Kirk's Castile soap comes in both a liquid and bar form in the US, as does Dr. Bronner's. They are not available in Thailand. I smelled every bar of soap on the soap aisle, both sides. I brought home 6 different kinds, from inexpensive Thai brands (6 bars for $2) to imported brands ($1.50 for 1 bar).

When we got home I had Jim test-sniff them. 4 of them, including the Ivory, got sent home with the cleaning lady. Ivory is unscented in the US, but it's scented here. I was left with the most expensive soap, the Pears, which is only slightly scented, and a Thai specialty soap that, although scented, didn't seem to bother Jim. If these don't work I'll be bathing with $10 bars of Clinique soap. They are unscented.

Baby Mango

2009-03-22T21:56:00.001-04:00

In this, the fourth year of our mango tree, we hoped for a profusion of fruit. For the first time it burst into luxuriant bloom instead of featuring scattered blooms here and there. A visual inspection a week or two later revealed numerous tiny fruit beginning to grow. But mango trees are sensitive to overwatering, and wind, and will just plain drop their fruit for no apparent reason. We are down to three mangoes, about the same production as in previous years.

So much for me canning mango.

No mango cobbler. No mango preserves. No mango pie. I'll be forced to buy my mango with sweet sticky rice.

Too Good to be True

2009-03-20T20:23:00.001-04:00

About a week ago I walked into IBeat, the authorized Apple reseller at The Mall, and told them I wanted to buy a new iMac. I built the iMac I wanted on the ordering screen. They saved the info in a webpage capture, telling me it would take 3 to 5 weeks. About 4 days later, I got a phone call telling me my iMac would be ready on Friday. When I went to The Mall Thursday to get my teeth cleaned, Jim and I checked at IBeat. My iMac was in!!!

They seemed anxious for me to pay for it and take it home. No offer to open the box and set it up for us. They open the box and plug in every single electrical object I have ever bought here, including light bulbs. Does this raise any alarms or questions in your mind? It did in ours. Upon checking, we saw it was indeed one of the newest iMacs (1 Firewire port, 4 USB ports). We insisted it be started up so we could check the system specifications. They dutifully booted it up to the hardware diagnostics screen. Sure enough, it was the stock high end model of the new iMac, not the one I ordered.

The only difference is the video card, but I definitely want the ATI Radeon 4850 instead of the NVidia GT130. Why? Because I was wholly unable to find any information about the GT130 (or the GT120) on the NVidia website. This causes me to suspect it is for the iMac only, and won't be well supported by PC game manufacturers. does it even support DirectX? I couldn't find out. The ATI Radeon 4850 was available for both PC and Mac, and had excellent reviews as the sweet spot of price vs performance.

We pointed out that this was not the computer I had requested. They acted as if they had never read the specification list. I had specifically pointed out to them, several times, the upgrade to the video card. So now they say I will get my computer in 21 days. I think it will be the right one this time.

Raisin Bran

2009-03-07T20:49:00.001-05:00

I have noticed that you can buy a good selection of American cold cereals in Bangkok. They generally cost about $10 a box, and I don't mean the large boxes, either. Cheerios and other such things have not been a part of our life for almost three years now. Who wants to pay that much for cereal?

I was at the supermarket at The Mall, Freshmart, cruising the farang food aisle, when I saw some new cereal boxes on display. There were two brands of organic cereal, Barbara's and Cascadian Farms, with a variety of types in each brand. I have never heard of Barbara's, but I have had Cascadian Farms before. Checking the prices, I saw a box of Cascadian Farms Raisin Bran was a mere 220 baht, or about $6. Still a steep price, but recalling that organic cereal is more expensive than regular, and that the price of food has been climbing, I decided it was close to the same price as in the US.

I just ate my first bowl of cereal in three years. The raisins were plump and plentiful, the bran flakes were crisp, and the milk was from a local dairy. It may not become my standard breakfast, but it's going into the routine rotation with the peanut butter on toast, the yogurt with muesli, and the occasional scrambled egg. Color me content.

Of course, this does not mean I will ever again see Cascadian Farms cereal once this supply is gone. Sometimes I think they buy their farang food from overstock discounters. The result is that if you see something you like, you'd better buy it, because you may never see it again. Right now they have a lot of organic farang food. I may try the Amy's brand salsa.

Lent

2009-03-02T09:14:00.000-05:00

When I chose to give up coffee for Lent, I didn't expect it would be easy. Coffee is more than an early-morning wake-up beverage for me. I normally do drink coffee in the morning, two cups. But coffee is also my soothing ritual beverage. A cup of coffee and a place to sit quietly are all I need to calm myself when things are getting stressful. I am missing my coffee, but more I am missing the soothing effect it has on me. Today we went to The Mall, and I was confronted with another situation where I normally drink coffee. Every visit to The Mall I get an iced cafe latte -no-sugar- from one of the coffee stands. Today I got an iced tea. It's not the same at all. Tea does not do whatever it is that coffee does for me that calms me.

No caffeine withdrawal headache so far, though.

Lifestyle Upgrade

2009-03-01T03:22:00.000-05:00

This is as good as it's going to get. Note that it slows down substantially after 3PM when school lets out, on school holidays, and of course on weekends. Believe me when I tell you just how large an improvement this is.

Ash Wednesday Penitence

2009-02-27T07:39:00.001-05:00

I thought I was giving up coffee for Lent. Apparently I was mistaken and I was giving up the Internet for Lent. Well, for the first three days of Lent, anyway.

I was excited on Ash Wednesday. Not only was I going to get ashes smudged on my forehead, but my Internet package upgrade to Premier service (2meg/1meg) was going to take effect. I put the new username and password into our router settings, and prepared for blazing speed. I was underwhelmed. It was not only not blazing, but something I wouldn't even call speed.

We gave it half a day or so, and then I called the Call Center. The Call Center can only be called from a mobile phone. It's the local equivalent of those *-something numbers in the US. They offer a English language menu option, but unless you press 9 before they finish the sentence telling you what to press ("to continue in English, please press 9") you get Thai. Your finger had better be on that 9 button before she starts talking. Once you successfully navigate the voice menus, they put you on hold while your mobile phone minutes tick away.

Eventually a nice Call Center lady told me a technician would call me. The technician called on Jim's mobile instead of the land line. Jim was working on music with hi headphones on, because he was not expecting a call. So we missed the one phone call and he never called back. Day 1 with barely useable Internet.

The next day the service had degraded from a 10K upload speed to some unmeasurably low speed. We printed out a copy of the speed test screen and took it in to the the TT&T office at The Mall. They called the Call Center and arranged for a technician to come to our house that afternoon. The technicians came. They saw the problem. They made half a dozen phone calls. Then they left, saying that the trouble was with the phone exchange and it would be fixed by 6PM. It wasn't. I called the Call Center around 7PM, per the instructions from the technicians. They promised to have a technician call me at 10AM the next day. Day 2 with wholly unusable Internet.

Day 3 dawned with a worse download speed than before, and a still unmeasurable upload speed. When no technician had called by 11AM I called the Call Center yet again. After a bit of confusion on the part of the nice lady, because she could not understand how it was that the technicians had come to my house and had not fixed the problem. She then wanted to send a technician out to my house again. What part of "the problem is not at my house" is so hard to understand? I gave up and had Jim call them.

Jim insisted that a technician be sent to the house, after humoring the nice lady by removing the power from the router for 10 minutes. She actually thought that would solve the problem. No technician ever came, but the Internet suddenly started working again. Jim got a phone call an hour later, informing him that a fiber-optic cable somewhere had been repaired.

We really did go get ashes on our forehead. We went to the Thai service, as no English one was scheduled. We got to see the inside of the main church for the first time. We were both amazed by the beauty of the crucifix on the wall behind the altar. I wanted to take a picture, but it didn't seem like the proper thing to do. It was miserably hot, as it was pretty full, the end of a very warm day, and all the doors were open so the only cooling was a few fans.

I am getting tired of fish.

Fat Tuesday

2009-02-24T03:40:00.000-05:00

There are certain days when I miss being in the US. Fat Tuesday is one of them. I miss being in the US because I can't get paczki (pronounced POONCH key) here. Ground zero for paczki lovers is the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck with its old Polish bakeries. Those bakeries still produce prodigious quantities of paczki every Fat Tuesday, and the lines are still around the block at 6AM to buy them.

The lines are the same, but the people in the lines have changed. Hamtramck is no longer a Polish suburb, but is a Muslim area, like Dearborn. The Hamtramck Muslims have adopted Fat Tuesday for the sake of the paczki, and that's who you find standing in line to buy paczki now. Paczki transcend religion because they are that good. They are like a filled doughnut, but with a richer dough that seems to melt in your mouth.

I am making do today with Dunkin' Donuts filled doughnuts. Not the same, but the best I can do here.

Simming

2009-02-19T21:56:00.001-05:00

My name is Rhiamom, and I'm a Sims 2 addict.

Being a Windows using Sims 2 addict in the US is easy. When a new expansion pack or stuff pack is released, you just run out to the store and buy it. If you are a Mac Simmer, it's harder. You have to wait for Aspyr to port each and every expansion pack and stuff pack. The last I heard, Aspyr and EA were involved in Negotiations over the licensing of the rights to the remaining expansion packs and stuff packs. Will EA bother to license the rest of the Sims 2 series for porting to the Mac, now that The Sims 3 is coming out, as both a PC and (Intel) Mac app?

While I prefer to play the Mac version, I have both. Why? I don't just play the Sims. I also create custom content for the game. The main tools to do this is are Windows-only applications, SimPE and HomeCrafter. So I play on the Mac side, and create on the PC side. I need to have it all twice. This drives my husband crazy.

I have more issues. Nobody will ship computer games bought online to Thailand. I have been getting my Mac games through the kindness of friends who carry them back here in their luggage when they return from a trip to the US. The solution to my Windows Simming woes is much easier. I acquire the pirate version of the game, in English. I then buy a legitimate Thai language version of the same game. I install the pirate version, using the legitimate serial number. As a bonus, I use the cracks that came with the pirate version to play without the CD in the drive and without Securom. I need to go to Bangkok and hunt down the last three expansion/stuff packs - my local shop doesn't have the non-pirate versions - and my Windows game will be complete. My Mac game already is, as much as has been released.

The picture is one of the many Sim houses I have created. It's sort of a white brick Italianate style Victorian. There are people out there who create much prettier and more elaborate houses than I do. While pretty, those houses usually have sacrificed game functionality for esthetics, and you can't use them in the game. I make houses for the average Simmer to actually use in game.

Heroes Week

2009-02-12T08:45:00.000-05:00

My daughter has asked that people do a blog post or twitter or something about their heroes this week. Since the week is nearly over, it's time to get with the program.

I thought about it, and came to the conclusion that I have few heroes, and even fewer that meet the requirements she gave. Why don't I have heroes? Am I incapable of admiring people? I had to spend quite a while pondering this. I tend to not admire famous people. I am more likely to admire somebody I actually know. I finally worked out that I do not value the accomplishments of a person, but their character. You rarely see much of the character of a famous person, so I have nothing to admire there.

For example, I'm a prime candidate to admire Hillary Clinton, but I don't. In fact, after her run for the Democratic nomination for President I detest her. Her choices in how she campaigned showed, to me, a less than admirable character.

I do admire Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter wasn't the best President we have had. I don't think anybody would dispute me, though, if I claimed he was the most honest, upright President we have had in my lifetime. He was just too honest to run the country well. He has some serious morals and ethics, and he actually lives by them. He doesn't just give money to a charity to help the poor, he goes out and helps build houses for poor people.

I can admire that.

Aging

2009-02-09T21:37:00.000-05:00

I am often told that I don't look my age. While that is flattering, I am beginning to appreciate it less and more wish I didn't feel my age. You see, I have arthritis. It was officially diagnosed when I was only 30. I went to see the doctor confident of my diagnosis, and wanting only to know how many aspirin a day I ought to be taking. The doctor, noting the perfect symmetry of my symptoms and my youth, insisted on running a blood test to rule out rheumatoid arthritis, which was more consistent with my age and symptoms. He didn't know the family history. So the doctor satisfied himself that I had simple osteoarthritis, which I already knew. He was quite surprised at how advanced the degeneration was then, as it was already visible on x-ray.

So now, 26 years later, I still have arthritis. I have it in my hands, particularly the bases of my thumbs, my knees, my neck, my hips and occasionally in my ankles. The cool season just past caused a dramatic increase in my pain level and stiffness. I was going down the stairs in the morning almost in slow motion. The hot dry season may not be my favorite, but it does help with the arthritis pain and stiffness.

What do I take for my arthritis? At the moment, nothing. I've always had a fair tolerance for pain. I am unable to take any of the fancy NSAIDs, or Cox-2 inhibitors, for reasons I won't go into here. Just believe me that if I could take them, I would. The doctor once tried to put me on Tylenol three or four times a day for my arthritis. His office called in a panic a week or two later to have me stop taking it. I already had; I knew I couldn't take it daily. Ever since then I have had a prescription for tramadol. About once every other week I take one at bedtime. I get a better night's sleep than usual, plus the accumulated pain and tension, particularly in my neck, is reset. I think I will begin to take aspirin again soon, though. While the tramadol works for the pain, it doesn't do anything about the inflammation. I can take aspirin on a daily basis, and it reduces the inflammation.

I honestly can't remember what it is like to be totally pain-free.

iPhone

2009-02-09T11:46:00.001-05:00

I've had my iPhone for two and a half weeks now. I already can't imagine not having it. It's everything my various past PDAs have tried and failed to be: calendar, contacts, maps, entertainment while on the go, and, yes, phone. I use it to time the laundry so I get it from the washer to the dryer before it starts to mildew.* I use it to make critically timed attacks in Travian** when I am away from my computer. On rare occasions, I even use it make or receive a phone call.

I would really be thrilled to be using it for my grocery shopping list, but I can't. I have a couple of free, "lite" game versions that I would like to upgrade to the full version, but I can't do that, either. I can look over a vista of commercial apps for my iPhone, but I can't buy any of them.

You see, the iTunes Store and my bank have a disagreement about zipcodes. The iTunes store insists that a zipcode has 5 digits and only 5 digits. If you enter a "zip plus four" zipcode on the billing address for your iTunes account it rejects it. Contrarily, my bank insists that a zipcode has 9 digits. If you enter a 5 digit zipcode on their address change form, it automagically adds the other 4 digits. Hence, whenever I try to use my bank card to buy an iPhone app, I get a failed authorization due to a zipcode mismatch.

I have had the bank manually change my address, but the extra digits reappeared.

I have emailed Apple support about this issue, too. They suggested some other ways to pay -all of which required using a credit card, which will then be rejected for a zipcode mismatch. The only viable option was Paypal, and I am not interested in hooking that up to my main bank account. As Borg of America does their routine issuing of new debit cards as the old ones expire, complete with 9 digit addresses, more iTunes users will fall into this little catch-22. It makes no sense whatever for Apple to resist the addressing system of one of the largest banks in the country.

But until Apple crumbles I am stuck with free apps only, and no grocery list.

* Please note that my wash cycle is from 1¼ to 2½ hours long. It's easy to get involved in something else and forget the laundry.

** Do not click this link. If you do, be prepared to give up large chunks of your life to this addictive, real-time, year-long game.

Fish on Friday

2009-02-07T09:20:00.000-05:00

We're not really practicing Catholics, but we really do try to avoid eating meat on Friday, year round. During Lent, it's an obligation. It was easy when we lived in metro Detroit. Metro Detroit is historically a predominantly Catholic area, with a Catholic church every 8 or 10 blocks in the suburbs. It seemed like every other one of them had a fish fry, too, every Friday of Lent! It was fun, it was cheap, and it was an easy way to avoid meat.

Let's just say that the Catholic population here isn't even close to the 50% mark it is in the Detroit area.

Apparently God works in mysterious ways, because we have discovered an even easier way to eat fish for dinner on Friday than going to a parish fish fry. We have placed a standing order at the clubhouse restaurant (I've mentioned it before) for fish and chips at 7PM every Friday. Delivered to our home. At a total cost of just under $8.

Lent begins in 18 days, and we are ready.

Changes

2009-02-07T08:34:00.001-05:00

I’ve been in Thailand for 18 months now. A lot has changed, particularly things that affect me in my daily life. It’s almost entirely changes for the better.

On December 5th, His Majesty the King’s birthday, a Starbucks opened at The Mall here. While Starbucks is not the best coffee in the USA, it quite definitely is the best coffee here. It’s expensive, too; I paid over $3 for a grande Mocha Frappuccino. (That’s a medium for those who are not savvy to the wholly inscrutable naming of Starbucks beverage sizes) It will never replace the Thai vendor where I am able to get my iced coffee with no sugar for $1. Starbucks will remain an occasional treat, while the Thai vendor will remain a standard part of a trip to The Mall.

After a year of avoiding the Pizza Company, Jim and I tried it again the same day the Starbucks opened. Jim thought he discerned a difference in the picture of the double pepperoni pizza since our last visit. So we ordered an onion and pepperoni pizza. Were we ever in for a surprise! It had three things the pepperoni pizza there had previously lacked: real pepperoni, real pizza sauce, and real mozzarella cheese. We are trying to limit ourselves to one per week so we don’t get burned out on it. It’s not just “good for Thailand,” it’s just plain good.

This is the thin crust. The pan pizza is really good, too. Why is there no good medium crust, my preferred style? All the medium crust pizzas have weird stuffed edges. Photo stolen from the Pizza Company website.

Taking trips to Bangkok, something I really dislike doing, is becoming ever less necessary. I can buy Kraft barbeque sauce locally, with which I make my own special (and fast) BBQ ribs. Heinz cocktail sauce is available locally, too, so that Jim can fully enjoy his scampi fritti (battered fried shrimp). He brings it with him to the local restaurant/bar with the best shrimp. I found a chili seasoning mix that is an effective replacement for the chili beans I use to make chili. Once Jim even found Doritos at Freshmart, so there is hope they will return. Not that there isn’t a huge variety of chip-like snack food here without having Doritos!

I can’t get Bisquick locally, but if I get a food processor I may try making it. I have a recipe, but I don’t see myself being able to blend the shortening into the flour without a food processor. Plus I then need to keep it refrigerated so it won’t get rancid. Maybe in my new freezer? (Merry Christmas, Cathy, a stove and a freezer from your sweetie!)

Schefflera

2009-02-07T06:26:00.002-05:00

If you have ever had houseplants you probably had a schefflera, commonly called an umbrella plant. I remember being quite proud of one I had that reached about 4 feet in both height and diameter. Imagine my shock when I first saw this:

This is a couple of houses down from our house. It's a very badly pruned Umbrella tree. Note the distinct umbrella shape, and the lovely shade it provides, too. I never knew it was supposed to be a tree. But it's definitely a tree, and quite a common one, too.

Blog Keeping

2009-02-04T03:29:00.000-05:00

I move my blog like other women buy shoes. It's gone from Xanga to Typepad to LiveJournal to Wordpress to dotmac to Xanga to Wordpress to Blogger to Wordpress and now back to Blogger again. Even my children never know where to find my blog and have to ask. (It's not like I don't post a link at the old location when I move it!) I have transferred over a number of posts, but not all. I'll try to transfer over more later. Some are forever lost. Links are welcome.

What will improve things is that I got a blogging tool. It will allow me to post things to more than one blog if I so choose. It gives me more control over how my posts look. Finally, as you might be able to tell from the most recent posts, I got an iPhone so I always have a camera on me. Expect photos in my posts again.

How Do You Know Easter is Coming?

2009-02-03T22:58:00.003-05:00

You see this in your local doughnut shops:

Aren't they just too cute for words? I don't think I could bring myself to actually consume one. I just couldn't destroy such cuteness.

But what would you expect in a country where women pushing 40 years old still wear Hello Kitty barrettes?

At The Mall

2009-01-28T04:15:00.001-05:00

This is the pretty waterfall in the food court area of The Mall. There's another, larger, waterfall outdoors in front of The Mall. The pond into which the water falls has huge fish, about 6 feet long. I suspect they are Mekong catfish, which are known to become quite large. There is a shallow pond just to the right of this one. That pond has two Manta Rays, and children "pet" them regularly. The orchids and trees and other plants are all real. It creates a lovely calming atmosphere.

Yes, that's a Dairy Queen just visible behind the waterfall.

Yet Another Lifestyle Upgrade

2009-01-25T20:35:00.005-05:00

When we decided to live in this housing development, there was a nice little restaurant in the clubhouse. It served a Western style breakfast, and a Thai lunch and dinner. The food was delicious, the surroundings were clean and pleasant, and the prices were low. Since town and restaurants are 10 miles away, it was nice to be able to get something within walking distance.

Two years later, when we moved into the house permanently, there was no Western breakfast anymore. There was no longer a menu, and dining room service didn't exist. You had to go to the kitchen door to order food, and see the filthy kitchen, complete with rats and roaches. The prices had increased, and the food was barely palatable. Worse, the food was frequently spoiled. We quit patronizing the place after I got a bowl of chicken curry containing chicken so spoiled I literally hurled after placing one spoonful in my mouth. I never even swallowed it.

Business flagged so badly that the owners of the restaurant-minimart-clubhouse franchise from the developer finally decided to lease out the restaurant to new management. It was taken over by the wife of a Western man who lives in the housing development. She is a fabulous cook; she made a larger profit the first week she served food than the previous management had been making in a month. She was only serving a rice congee breakfast and a fried rice or noodles lunch at the time.

Now she is serving full meals, some of them Western and some of them Thai. Her fish and chips is delicious; she makes her own french fries. Her cottage pie -shepherd pie to Americans - is my new favorite. Her fried rice is a lunch standard at our house. I can't wait to try her curries.

We now have the convenient place to get a meal that we expected when we chose this place to live. The place is spotlessly clean. There is a Thai menu, and we are working on an English translation. The dining room is again a pleasant place, but they also will deliver to your home. The prices are reasonable; not too high, but not the lowest we have seen, and the food is much higher quality. Yet another lifestyle upgrade.

I Vote NO

2009-01-25T06:01:00.003-05:00

Can you call it "spaghetti" if:

the pasta is the size of elbow macaroni, but the length of spaghetti
there is no tomato sauce, just diced tomatoes and sauteed onions
there is no cheese
chili sauce is an ingredient

Jim found this to be a perfectly acceptable form of "spaghetti." I did not.

Post-Christmas

2008-12-31T02:17:00.001-05:00

We took the Christmas tree down yesterday. Instead of the usual tedious disassembly, Jim put the assembled tree sections, folded up, into the storage area under the stairs. I had planned to leave the tree until New Year, but we were getting a delivery and needed the space in the living room.

The delivery! We got an exercise bike. It faces the TV to keep us motivated as we pedal. It's a good idea, as neither of us likes to go outdoors in the day, and the mosquitos (the ones that might carry malaria!) come out at night. It's sort of a Christmas present to ourselves. Now we need to use it.

I got the best ever Christmas present. I got hot water that comes out of my kitchen faucet. Washing dishes is ever so much nicer with hot water. Jim has been faithfully putting the clean dishes away, too, which is the part I never liked to do. Now I can simply wash whatever is dirty without having to put the clean things away to make room. Add the hot water to getting the washer repair done, and I'm one very happy housekeeper.

Tidbits

2008-12-27T09:58:00.001-05:00

I got my washer back from repair a week ago. I don't think it's the same washer I sent in for repair, but another of the same model, only quite a bit older than mine. It is rusted and yellowed in places mine was not. I'm not best pleased about it. However, it works.

Today was cold and rainy. By "cold" I mean a high temperature of about 72F, and a low of about 64F. I wore my grey hoodie sweatshirt and made chili and cornbread for supper because it was just the right weather for it.

We have managed to get a lot of clutter removed from the house. It's still a work in progress. Oh, and we hired the cleaning lady again. She comes on Fridays, and boy does she work her tail off! I do believe she took getting fired as a comment on the kind of job she was doing - as well she should.

I Can Haz Yogurt

2008-11-20T22:21:00.002-05:00

My first attempt to make yogurt didn't go well. I ended up with a quart of curdled, spoiled milk.

I tried for a second time yesterday. This time I used my rice cooker as the place to let it sit. I didn't actually turn the rice cooker on, I just filled the cooking pot with water the right temperature for the yogurt culture and set the sealed jar with the milk in the center. I could only make a pint (half-liter) because the quart (liter) jars were too tall for the rice cooker. I replaced part of the water with warmer water after about 4 hours. I checked on the yogurt after 10 hours and it was perfect. It is neither as thick nor as creamy as commercial US yogurt, but that's because I didn't add any powdered milk in the milk. The melamine thing again; I know it's in the commercial yogurt and I suspect it's in the powdered milk as well.

I still want a yogurt maker. It will make more at one time, and I won't have to check on the water temperature every few hours. But now I will be able to have yogurt in the weeks and months while I wait for Verasu in Bangkok to order one for me and ship it.

Obama Forgot about Dean

2008-11-06T08:55:00.001-05:00

In Obama's victory speech I was waiting to hear him thank the man who made his victory possible. I never heard it. Whether Obama is grateful to him or not, I still want to thank Howard Dean.

Howard Dean was nearly the sole voice in 2000 calling for a 50-state strategy. It was just him and the bloggers, and back then the bloggers didn't matter. Democratic Congressmen and Senators screamed and fought to keep Dean from investing money and opening party offices in places that were Republican strongholds, like Colorado, Nevada, Virginia, North Carolina, and Montana. Dean held firm to his ideals, and the 50-state strategy was born. Dean asked the Internet for political donations, and the Democratic coffers were overflowing while the Republicans were in debt.

You know now what the results of the 50-state strategy are. Howard Dean paved the road that Obama travelled to victory.

Don't Eat the Food

2008-10-26T12:21:00.001-04:00

In case this little tidbit doesn't make it into the Western media:

Hong Kong (dpa) - Melamine has been found for the first time in eggs imported into Hong Kong from China, a media report said Sunday.

The move has prompted concerns that the industrial chemical, which can cause kidney stones and other renal problems particularly in children, has contaminated more of the city's food supply than first thought, the South China Morning Post said.

Melamine had previously been restricted to dairy products.

The territory's Centre for Food Safety said it would test samples of all eggs imported from China starting Monday after melamine was found in a box of eggs from Dalian in northern China.

Tests showed the eggs contained almost double the legal limit of the chemical, which is believed to have been in feed given to the chickens.

A centre spokesman said a 3-year-old child would need to eat 12 of the eggs to exceed the safe daily intake of melamine. An adult would need to eat 144 eggs.

Sometimes You Just Can't win

2008-10-04T06:55:00.001-04:00

I glanced out the kitchen window today while I was making my morning cup of coffee, and saw the hibiscus in glorious bloom, 7 rosy red blossoms 6 inches across fully open, with another half dozen or so partially open. It was breathtaking. I just gazed at it a little while.

A few minutes ago I went to get the camera so I could photograph the hibiscus for this post. The camera would not power on. I changed the batteries for new Duracell ones, and the camera stubbornly refused to power-on. The camera has done this before. This was the final straw, and we are now in camera research mode prior to buying a new one. Our needs are simple; 6 megapixels, 3X optical zoom and more digital zoom, and must use some sort of memory card, preferably SD. The ability to record a few minutes of video is a real plus.

More Woes

2008-10-01T10:52:00.001-04:00

My broken washing machine needs a part that has to be ordered, which takes 45 days. The owner of our favorite appliance/electronics shop is trying to get a part from Bangkok instead in only a week. He is talking about a "loaner" washing machine while mine is being repaired. No loaner as yet, though, to prevent me from washing a load of white clothes in the bathtub tonight. A friend offered to let me use her washer, but I really would rather not. She's very weird about her washer, to the point of keeping a dust cover over it when not in use.

I will not be able to get a yogurt maker until a week from Monday, 10 days or so away. There wasn't one available in town, so a friend in Bangkok will buy one for me and deliver it via her husband who commutes regularly between Korat and Bangkok. Whatever shall I eat for breakfast until then?

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go wring out some clothes and get them into the dryer.

Making Yogurt

2008-09-29T22:11:00.001-04:00

My plans for today include learning how to make yogurt. It seems that the company which makes my favorite yogurt, the one I eat almost daily with my muesli, has 20 tons of melamine-contaminated milk powder imported from China in their warehouse. I'm not averse to another food I make at home if it will be safer that way.

A number of other Chinese-made products have already been pulled from store shelves pending tests by the Thai FDA. They are actually pretty good, and work closely with the US and EU FDAs. Thais are very concerned with food safety and contamination -not that you could tell by the average Thai kitchen- and prefer organic products whenever possible.

Anybody got a good yogurt recipe? I'll be heading into town to get milk and a different brand of plain yogurt for my starter.

Laundry Woes

2008-09-29T05:33:00.001-04:00

My washing machine is broken. The repairman came yesterday to fix it and, after doing all the things I had already done, plus opening it up and checking the electronics, said the switch was faulty. He had to take it back to the shop for repair by the more experienced and trained repair guy. They were supposed to call me today, but didn't. It is Sunday, and since the more experienced guy had Saturday off, I expect he has Sunday off as well. I expect a call tomorrow, not that any actual communication will take place during that call.

So I'm back to doing laundry by hand, just like my first trip here, and my first two months here once I arrived permanently. I really dislike doing laundry by hand. It's not the washing part, that's easy. It's the repeated rinsing and the wringing. At least my dryer works, so I won't get mildew smell in everything from it souring before it dries.

I Sew a Jumper

2008-09-20T11:49:00.001-04:00

I finished a new jumper today. It took me three days. The first day I cut it out and sewed it; that took several hours. The next day I did the hand-finishing where the bodice lining attaches to the skirt. I could have simply attached the skirt to the bodice and lining at one time, but I wanted the smooth inside that finishing the bodice lining by hand provides. Today I did the hem. So it took one day, plus an hour or less on two other days.

It's made of 100% cotton quilting fabric, in a soft pink with white and darker pink in a tiny design. I have a matching hair clip and at least two t-shirts I can wear with it. So my wardrobe expands a little. All the clothes I brought with me are wearing out, being at least 5 years old. I guess I can't complain.

I Make an Apron

2008-08-24T09:59:00.001-04:00

To put it bluntly, I wear my food. Whether I'm cooking it or eating it, part of my portion will end up on my clothing. I need an apron, as the one I had in the US somehow didn't make it into the moving boxes. In fact, there's a whole bunch of kitchen stuff that I set out for the movers to pack and they apparently didn't, but that's not relevant. What's relevant are the food stains I inevitably acquire on my limited wardrobe, and the missing apron.

The cure was obvious. I needed an apron, and I needed it pronto. I had the foresight to bring an good apron pattern with me when we moved here. Yesterday I made the pattern alterations and cut it out. Today I sewed it, all except the button, buttonhole, and hem. I can't do the buttonhole until I know how big the button is; and I don't have a button. I'll pick one up Tuesday when I'm in town. I could hem it, but in my present state of mind I'd do a machine hem. I'll wait until I'm not so tired and do a nice hand sewn hem.

Not in Kansas Anymore

2008-08-20T10:56:00.002-04:00

An article from today's Bangkok Post:

Qualified people only may apply

ANUCHA CHAROENPO

Being a beggar will not be so easy anymore if draft legislation approved by the cabinet yesterday becomes law. The bill proposed by the Human Security and Social Development Ministry sets conditions for people who want to be beggars.

They must provide proof they are underprivileged, disabled, homeless or elderly without children to care for them. And this will be a reserved occupation, exclusively for Thais who must carry ID cards.

Would-be professional beggars will have to report to local administration organisations for approval and work permits.

Local agencies will be responsible for controlling beggars in their jurisdictions, while the Social Development and Welfare Department will have special centres to help them and programmes to care for them.

Those who force other people to beg, or exploit them, will be liable to criminal punishment, deputy government spokeswoman Suparat Nakboonnam said.

Passing the legislation into law would help the authorities get rid of the large number of foreign beggars in the country, she said. The bill will soon be handed to the government whips and then go to parliament for approval.

If passed, it will replace the 1941 Begging Control Act, which is outdated and begging for a makeover, Ms Suparat said.

I am so not in Kansas.

Almost Tivo

2008-08-03T23:28:00.001-04:00

While I commonly refer to our satellite TV service as UBC, it's been bought out by True Corporation and is called Truevision. In Bangkok, True offers cable TV and cablemodems. Here in Korat, they offer satellite TV. All over Thailand they offer mobile phone service. They have some nice convergence packages, like TV service on your mobile phone. One of their newest offerings is a PVR.

This PVR is made by Humax, a manufacturer of the Tivo Series 2. It's almost Tivo; the software isn't quite advanced enough to record a program being shown at a time other than the normal schedule, or to record based on keywords. It does allow for pause during live TV, and to record a TV show every week at the same time. Improvements to the software are planned, too.

Naturally, I want one, so we went to the local True shop to get one. We ran into problems; the man running the shop had had a previous bad experience trying to get PVR service for somebody else who owned their set top box rather than renting it , and who paid for the satellite service annually instead of monthly. He did contrive a way around this. His solution was to sell us the PVR as if we were a new customer instead of an existing customer. The point we found objectionable in his plan was the part where he insisted we had to sign up for the satellite package we wanted a second time. Truevisions does not give refunds. We would be paying double for service for the rest of the year, and our Truevisions year is only about half over. He honestly expected us to go along with this plan!

I sent in a request for PVR service to True directly using their website. We shall see what transpires. A Thai friend said the shop owner was merely trying to take us for more money. My experience tells me that while this is probably true, there will be a problem getting PVR service because we aren't presently getting a monthly bill, and their system is dependent on that billing. Never mind that the PVR service fee is waived for the first year. If it doesn't fit in their little mental box, they don't know how to deal with it.

Lifestyle Upgrade

2008-07-27T05:58:00.001-04:00

Today the nice handyman kind of guy moved my washer and dryer to the far end of the back patio. This required installing an electricity cut-off switch, removing a plastic water supply line, moving an external faucet to the place where the water supply line was attached, drilling a hole in the concrete patio for the electrical ground, cutting the plastic drain pipe and installing an elbow and upright so it will hold the washer drain hose, attaching the washer hose to the water supply, placing the drain hose, putting on the new dryer vent hose, and of course the actual moving of the washer and dryer.

He did a fantastic job, even removing the old ground point because it stuck up from the patio and pulling out the old brackets for the removed water supply and drain lines. Total cost? 800 baht including parts, or just under $24.

I now can shift clothes from the washer to the dryer while standing in one place instead of having to walk around both appliance doors. I now have room to walk around the patio table and chairs, making them easy to use. The patio looks nicer and feels nicer. I may sit out there this evening and have a glass of lemonade with my sweetie.

A bonus today was the successful giving away of some old Tupperware containers. They had been on the dining room table since the Great Ant Infestation when I removed everything from the kitchen to allow the use of chemical warfare. There's hope I may have a cleared off table by mid-week. Then I can lay the pretty table scarf I bought to match the new throw pillow covers in the living room.

Salsa

2008-07-21T05:09:00.001-04:00

Today I made salsa. I used canned whole tomatoes because the fresh tomatoes here make the hothouse tomatoes in the US seem flavorful. I chopped up a small onion and three peppers that looked a lot like jalapeno peppers but probably weren't. I used salt, pepper, garlic, MSG, and a bit of vinegar. I sauteed the onion, garlic and peppers in a bit of olive oil, then added it to the chunked up tomatoes. I added a bit of cornstarch to thicken the juice and simmered it a while. The initial taste tests were very promising, but we'll know more later tonight when we try it with tortilla chips.

Update: The salsa is a failure. Next try use fresh tomatoes and uncooked onions and peppers.

Broken Camera

2008-07-19T06:13:00.001-04:00

Jim's camera has stopped working. This is one reason why there have been no posts for a month. Posts with pics are so much nicer. I think we ought to take it in to the camera shop in the basement of The Mall.

Food Pyramids

2008-06-17T07:32:00.002-04:00

I am certain you are familiar with this old USDA food pyramid. No surprises here. I know the USDA has newer, vertically oriented pyramid, but this one is easier to compare.

But you may be a bit startled by the structure of this Thai food pyramid. Forgive the bad photo; it was snapped from a box of delicious Thai hot rice bran cereal with apple and cinnamon. I wish the supermarket carried it regularly. Another one time good deal, I guess. I really liked it, too!

That’s right, meat monthly or in very small amounts, eggs and poultry weekly or in very small amounts, fish and dairy optional daily. Note where fats are located in this pyramid, too. We are not in Kansas, Dorothy.

Proof EA Sucks

2008-06-02T12:48:00.001-04:00

I submit the following customer support request and the entire ensuing exchange.

ME: I am an American expat living permanently in Thailand. All I want to do is buy some of the digital download versions of the Sims 2 expansion and stuff packs to complete my set. However, your automated ordering system rejects my order as I am not a US/Cananda resident. This is even though I am using a debit card from an American bank.

Legitimate English copies of these games are impossible to find here. Pirate Thai and English copies are widely available and cheap. Legitimate Thai language copies are a bit scarce but can sometimes be found-but I don’t read Thai.

If I were to buy the physical version, assuming you would ship it here, which is itself unlikely, I would not receive it. The mail service here reliably fails to deliver packages from overseas.

So, the final question is this: Will you process my orders manually so I can have legal copies of these games, or do I spend $5 each on the pirate versions? I know that the problem is merely one of international addresses not playing nicely with the software used to process the orders. I know it can be overridden, as it has been done for me before by a different company.

EA: Hi,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

We apologize as due to trade restrictions, we at EA Store do not possess the ability to ship orders outside of North America, Canada and Mexico.

However if you are using a valid card you should be able to purchase the digital version provided you enter the correct billing information.

If there is anything else we can help you with please let us know.

Thank you,

Temjen

EA Online Store.

ME: The correct billing information is an address in Thailand, which your ordering system rejects. I tried. It quite correctly assumes I am indeed not a US resident. As I stated before, all I want is the digital download versions.

EA: Hi,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

If your country is not listed there then it means that the game is currently not released in your country, you will not be able to purchase the game through EA Download Manager. I apologize for any disappointment this may cause.

If there is anything else I can help you with please let me know.

Thank you,

Deval

EA Online Support

ME: Thailand IS one of the countries listed for the International version of your website; the game has been released here. go back and read my original email. Unfortunately, I am wholly unable to read Thai to order from that portion of your website. I also suspect that portion of your website would be less than thrilled with an order using a US debit card and a Thai address.

EA: Hi,

Thank you for writing to EA.com account services.

In order to purchase the game from a US website, please visit http://www.ea.com/language and select country as USA/Canada and then click on the “Shop” link at the top of the page. You should now be able to purchase the game using a debit/credit card having the billing address from USA/Canada. If you are still unable to purchase the game through EA Store digitally then we suggest you to look for a local retailer near you to get the physical version of the game.

Please let us know if there is anything else needed.

Thank you.

Chandan

EA Online Support.

ME: We are back to square 1; I DO NOT HAVE a billing address in the USA or Canada. I live in Thailand, where the game IS released, but I cannot read your Thai website to order it, nor do i want the game in Thai. My debit card is from an American bank. I want to buy an English language digital download of the game. The only English language copies of the game I have ever seen are pirate. I would prefer not to go that route.

Can you escalate this to somebody who is paid enough to actually read what I have already written before responding?

I believe my case is well proven.

Potato Salad

2008-05-21T07:32:00.000-04:00

I read this story in an expat forum. It sums up nicely the eating out experience here, and why we usually eat at a westerner-owned place.

A gentleman saw on the menu “potato salad.” ‘Oh, boy,” he no doubt thought. “That sounds delicious. I haven’t had potato salad in so long! I think I’ll order that.” And so he did.

He was served a plate of lettuce, topped with a serving of french fries.

Jim commented, “They didn’t even see a picture of that one.”

Home

2008-05-11T05:41:00.001-04:00

To some people, home is an absolute thing. It may be the house in which they grew up, the town in which that house is located, or at least the general geographic area surrounding that town. It doesn’t matter if they travel, get relocated by their job, or even if they retire to sunnier climes. “Home” remains that place of origin, and there they return when they are able.

Other people define home differently. Home is wherever you happen to be living. The location can change or not, depending on the person and their life choices, but “home” is still not a fixed locale.

My husband was one of the first sorts of people. I am one of the second sort. It took a powerful inducement to get him to not only move away from his home, but to move to a non-industrialized country 12 time zones away. That inducement was retirement at 49, while being financially comfortable. It was his idea, but one I responded to with enthusiasm. So here we are, 24 hours by air from the place he once called home, and yet it feels more like home to him than the old place ever did.

I'll Forget It by Then

2008-05-07T04:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I made lasagne with an altered recipe, and in the process discovered how to season ground pork to transform it into yummy pork sausage. You can buy lots of ground pork here, it’s the Thai version of hamburger. You cannot buy bulk pork sausage, not even imported Jimmy Dean. Knowing how to do this is a handy thing, and I’d very much like to keep this tidbit of information. I want to enter it into my recipe database before I forget how to make it.

Not much chance of that happening in the next few days. Ok, wait, I can record this manually. I can use a pen and paper! I have those. I can put it in my recipe database later, when I have a computer again.

*Tries to write recipe down*

Have I ever mentioned anything about the pens here? Like about them not working? Not for over half an inch at a time, anyway? We’re switching to mechanical pencils. Pens aren’t worth the hassle. And I still don’t have the recipe written down.

Pork Sausage

1/2 kilo ground pork (about a pound)
1 tsp rosemary, crushed
1 1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp ground sage
1/2 tsp marjoram
1 tsp MSG (optional)
1 tsp salt

1. Mix well and leave overnight in the refrigerator to blend the flavors.
2. Shape into patties and fry it up.

Another Week?

2008-05-05T04:27:00.000-04:00

It’s been 2 weeks since my computer broke. The iBeat shop says it will be another week until I get it back. I’m about ready to go crazy. I can surf the web, I can play Packrat, I can play a lot of other games I own that are Windows only. I even updated my website with a new Sims outfit.

But I have 130 emails in my inbox, waiting to be downloaded to Mail and then archived by Gmail. I don’t have my address book or calendar. Thai holidays have been sneaking up on us, causing some inconvenience. I have no tunes to listen to on this laptop.

Update: It actually took another month to get my computer back, repaired.

Thais and Menthol

2008-04-30T04:28:00.000-04:00

Thais and menthol, surely a love affair to last the ages. When a label says “mint” on your toothpaste or chewing gum, you must translate that. The actual flavor is mint-menthol. The menthol is never mentioned, but it is there as surely as the mint. Trust me on this.

A couple days ago Jim bought some small red candies. They were that indeterminate fruity flavor that may have been either strawberry or cherry. They were also menthol flavored. The end result was a cherry cough drop taste; not the good Smith Brothers ones, either, the much less desirable Vicks ones.

My favorite gum here is a sugar-free lime-mint flavor. Of course, it is actually lime-mint-menthol flavored. It tastes much better than it sounds. I’m curious as to why they called the flavor lime. Limes are common here, and used in cooking as Americans use lemons…but in English Thais refer to them as lemons, not limes. Ask for some lime, get a blank look. Ask for lemon, and you get…lime.

My computer has been in the shop just over a week. I am officially being driven insane from using a Windows laptop. A slow, old, lame laptop.

Goodbye, Dot Mac

2008-03-23T04:31:00.000-04:00

My dot mac account expires in 30 days. I got an email from Apple reminding me of it today. I’m going to let it expire.

Last year I needed it. I blog at dot mac, I use my dot mac email, I have backups of all my contacts and calendars at dot mac, and I use my iDisk for transferring large files.

This year I have Leopard, or, more specifically, Leopard and a large backup drive for Time Machine. I have moved my blog. I don’t need dot mac anymore.

Thanks, Steve.

Seeing is Very Good

2008-03-09T04:33:00.000-04:00

This my new profile pic showing me without glasses. Yay contacts and reading glasses. Best of all, I only need the glasses for really close work, like within 2 feet.

My glasses were two years old. My eyes had changed. Worse, I am taking hormones now (Hot flashes in the US -annoying. Hot flashes in Thailand -truly miserable.) Hormones slightly alter the curvature of your eyeball, changing your focal point and astigmatism. To sum, I couldn’t see even with my glasses on.

I went to a local shop, got an eye exam, and got shiny new daily wear contacts and reading glasses. I’ve worn contacts before, but I always gave them up due to my astigmatism not being corrected, or the contacts being painful due to protein deposits even with an enzyme cleaning twice a week. These contacts don’t correct any astigmatism, because the combination of contacts changing the outside curvature and the hormones changing the focal point made a correction unnecessary. I can see better than I have in ages. I need drops for my somewhat dry eyes, though.

The first contacts the doctor prescribed were wrong. I went back after three days and explained that I could see across the street, and into the next county/tambon, but not anything in the same room. A quick exam verified it. So he changed my prescription from -3.25 to -2.00, and I could see everything over 2 feet away. He swapped the box of wrong lenses for a box of the right lenses.

Jim is unhappy with the recurring expense of daily wear lenses versus the one-time expense of glasses or contacts you clean. It would be nice if we could get some type of payment from our vision coverage. I’ll try.

Proof Mine is Worse

2008-02-04T03:36:00.000-05:00

You can all stop complaining about your Internet connection now. I have proof that mine is worse; mine is slower, in fact, than dialup speed. I dream of a 56K connection to the point where I am actually considering switching to GPRS.

You may note that my upload speed actually exceeds my download speed, not that either number is one to cheer the soul. Just shoot me now.

Life As I Know It

2008-02-03T03:44:00.000-05:00

Jim’s computer is back from iBeat. It is working perfectly after the repair. We still don’t know what was wrong with it, as there is a bit of a language barrier. Their English is about as good as my Thai, which means advanced concepts, like what was wrong with Jim’s computer, can’t get communicated.

It seems that the local Immigration office will be closed or moved, leaving us with a trip to do our 90-day reporting. If they move to Surin it’s only about 100 kilometeres-a couple hours- away. Otherwise it’s a trip to Bangkok. There’s a petition going to keep the local office here which is supported by the local Immigration officers as they want to stay here as well. We have the nicest Immigration officers in Thailand.

Sek Loso has three albums available at the Apple Music Store! Two of them comprise a greatest hits collection (volumes I and II) from his Thai CD releases and are well worth buying if, unlike me, you don’t have all of his Thai CDs. The other I’ll be buying if I can’t find it locally.

Yesterday Jim was asking -not for the first time- for the Pillsbury Orange rolls we used to get in the USA. They were hard to find, and I think they have been completely discontinued by now. They were my traditional Christmas morning breakfast, so I need a replacement. I think I found one yesterday. It’s recipe that uses my bread machine to make the dough, and uses no trans-fats. Even better, all the ingredients are available locally. I’ll be making them today to test the recipe. Later I’ll test them using a cool-rise method to see if they can be made the night before and baked in the morning. 2 1/2 hours of waiting for rolls for breakfast is too long.

Catastrophic Failure

2008-01-19T03:48:00.000-05:00

Jim’s computer had been acting peculiarly the past few days. It was randomly not recognizing external drives after they slept and woke. It was hanging on restart. But today, today it didn’t just hang on restart and boot properly after another restart. Today it failed to finish booting to OSX at all.

On restart after the last software upgrade it hung. For over half an hour. After a hard forced shutdown and boot it gave the Apple Setup screen. It will let you go through all the setup. Then it loops back to the first Setup screen.

It will not boot from a Leopard DVD in the internal drive.

It will boot from an external DVD drive when the proper key combination to do so is held during boot. Unfortunately, when it does boot you get the same looping Apple Setup screen as before, but with the pretty Leopard background so you know it booted from the DVD.

Jim’s computer has already been taken in to our local Apple authorized repair center. They are sending it to Bangkok for repair under the AppleCare we wisely purchased a few months before moving here. It will take 2 to 4 weeks for the repair. Until then, he has a Macbook.

No Car

2008-01-12T04:33:00.000-05:00

We are doing a week without a car. It's at the dealership, being repaired after a very minor fender-bender. That happens so often here that the insurance companies just pay without any fuss.

We can't go grocery shopping, so we stocked up beforehand. Sadly, this means that I have to cook every day until we get the car back. We're out of fresh fruit already, except for a few oranges that are rapidly going bad.

My dining room table is immaculate, with only a decorative basket holding the previously mentioned oranges and one small stack of folded laundry.

Rush and Me

2007-12-26T03:49:00.000-05:00

Yeah, another stolen pic. This is the cover of Grace under Pressure, copyright no doubt owned by either Rush or their record label.

This is so embarrassing.

Until today, I had 10 Rush songs in my iTunes library. It’s not that I don’t like Rush. Quite the contrary, as evidenced by my 19 Rush CDs. But about 7 years ago Jim ripped our CD library to mp3, choosing the songs he liked. He liked every song on every Black Sabbath CD, but only 10 Rush songs.

In his defense, let me explain that Jim was not familiar with Rush, and chose songs by listening to the first 15 seconds or so of them. He missed a lot of good tunes that he would have otherwise selected, I’m sure. He’s attended a concert, and even learned to recognize Rush when he hears them on the radio since then. He’s a convert.

So after years of procrastination I finally began to rip our CD library the way I prefer, which is full albums. I started with Rush. There is a great satisfaction in having almost all the Rush tunes finally available to me. I made a Rush playlist, and am enjoying hearing songs I’ve not heard in, literally, years.

If I just had Snakes and Arrows and Feedback…

In a Mere 5 to 13 Years

2007-11-25T04:03:00.000-05:00

It takes 5 to 13 years for an avocado tree to start bearing fruit. Huh. My mango tree had fruit the second year.

Standing an impressive 30 centimeters (1 foot) tall is my new avocado tree. It was not an easy process to get started. I bought (and ate) avocado after avocado, and my efficient maid disposed of every pit I was trying to save. Finally I got one safely into a glass to root. Then...I waited. Nothing happened for about three weeks. I gave up. The maid optimistically buried the un-rooted pit in one of my terra cotta pots.

It grew!

Avocado trees get quite large, and I am counting on this. The tree is strategically located to shade the east side of the house, the most exposed side, from the direct sun. Someday it will reduce the heat gain substantially. As for now, the gardener and maid tend to it conscientiously. I mean, I’d have to go Outdoors to water it. Anybody who knows me knows that I Don’t Do Outdoors.

Paradise

2007-11-07T04:10:00.000-05:00

Jim took this photo a few months ago of one of the trees in our yard. This one is supposed to be both good luck, and difficult to grow.

Sometimes living in a “tropical paradise” isn’t what you imagine. There’s the rainy season, the typhoons, and the hot, dry season. But sometimes it is just like you imagined a tropical paradise would be.

Today is one of those perfect days. It’s warm, but not too warm, not humid, with a steady gentle breeze blowing. The sky is the perfect shade of blue and cloudless; the sunshine brilliant but not overpowering. It’s the kind of day that makes me want to recline in one of the lounge chairs by the clubhouse pool, with a chilled beverage at hand, complete with the little umbrella in the drink. I don’t even like reclining in lounge chairs by pools. I don’t like being outside in any climate. But this is the kind of day that makes me wish I did.

We haven’t run the A/C in three days now. We have all the windows and doors open letting in that breeze. Once in a while you get a whiff of tropical flowers, particularly the jasmine at night.

Paradise.

iPhone Sighting in Korat!

2007-10-29T05:13:00.000-04:00

We went for ice cream after supper tonight. In the booth next to ours at Swensen’s there were four Thai young adults. Jim spotted one of them using an iPhone. I speak enough Thai to be able to ask the owner the important questions: where did he get it, does it work as a phone, and does it work for Internet access?

The phone is an import, purchased in Bangkok, at the MBK shopping complex. It can be used with either of the two major mobile phone services, AIS or DTAC. He had an AIS plan, which for 599 baht ($17.54) included 500 minutes of talk time, with a fee of 1 baht per minute of Internet use, or $1.75 an hour. Not bad.

The phone was an unlocked model, as it obviously had to be to be used in Thailand. It had additional software installed, so it had been given the common “freedom” hack. I saw the installer app and the launcher app, as well as a bunch of games like sudoku. It had apparently not been updated to the newer system, as I found no icon for the iTunes Music store.

Like Manna from Heaven

2007-10-28T05:16:00.000-04:00

Here are the lovely flowers by our front gate. Okay, blocking the front gate for the sidewalk, but next to the driveway front gate.

When I decided to grow some basil and chilis and dill I bought 6 terra cotta plant pots. All six of them are still in the back yard, growing useful things. But as if the planting of herbs and spices triggered the beneficence of some unknown deity, new pots have appeared, one by one, in the front yard by the gate. First came the pale pink rose, then the short plant with the bright pink flowers. Then came the tall skinny plant with the red flower, the short fat one with no flower currently, and finally the red rose.

We don’t know where these plants come from. We don’t know why they arrive, they just do. We don’t know why they are in ugly plastic pots. Most of all, we don’t know if replanting them into less ugly terra cotta pots, or even into the ground someplace, would offend the plant-giving deity.

I Need a Camera of my Own

2007-10-23T05:19:00.000-04:00

There is a blog entry I want to make. It requires a photo. I have asked Jim to take this photo. More than once. He still hasn’t.

I would take the photo myself, but he gets all paranoid and nags me about not touching the lens and generally acts like I have no idea how to use a camera. I don’t have much of an idea on how to use his camera, as he has never let me read the manual (nor has he bothered to read it) so things like how to take in-focus close-ups are a mystery. But he obviously doesn’t like me touching his camera. Add a cheap digital camera to my Christmas wishlist.

English!

2007-06-05T12:30:00.000-04:00

We have achieved English display. I was so emboldened by this success I ventured even further, and actually got my Google account page to stop displaying half the content in Thai. Note to Google: please don't continue having IP locale overrule the browser's language settings. It's more than annoying. It very nearly drove me to abandon Google in favor of Yahoo for my search and email and start page. That doesn't mean that I have no plan to ever learn to read Thai. I have begun learning to recognize letters and the sound associated with them. It's hard because the differences between letters can be very subtle. I know enough words in Thai now to be able to read something simple once I learn my phonics. 3 consonants down, 41 to go...

Whoa!

2007-06-04T13:38:00.000-04:00

Why does Google think that because I am located in Thailand I must only be allowed to see a Thai version of Blogger? Setting this up was...interesting.

In Which I Become a Pirate

2007-01-21T02:41:00.000-05:00

Originally posted Sunday, 21 January, 2007 This blog entry is for Gabe and Jeremy, or it would be if I had any reason to believe either of them ever reads my blog. Read it and weep, boys. We brought our PS2 to Thailand from the US. We use a transformer for the power, and it all works nicely on our multi-system (NTSC and PAL) TV set. We were wandering around in the basement IT area of The Mall one day and we ran across the Game Shop. At least I think that's the name of it. We looked around a bit, and were unable to resist the siren call of Final Fantasy XII. We bought it. For $3. After taking it home we discovered that it would not play. This was not unexpected. So a week or so later, back at The Mall, I managed to communicate our difficulty to the shop owner. It was quite helpful that his limited English included the words "no play." When I told him that our PS2 was from America he knew what the problem was. Our PS2 would not play a copied Playstation disc. Since nobody will ship games to Thailand, all you can buy are pirated games. We needed a modded chip put into our Playstation to play the copied games, he explained. But there were two kinds of chip. The cheap one would only play copied games, not any of our original games. That would cost us $22. The expensive chip would play all the games, and was a whopping $28. We brought in our Playstation the next day. The day after that we picked up our Playstation, paid the man $28, and on the way out picked up Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007. For $2. All our games, even our PS1 games, play just fine.

I Make Pizza

2007-01-08T02:45:00.000-05:00

Here in Thailand Pizza Hut has a nice salad bar. They have delicious pasta, too, my favorite being the ham and mushroom in alfredo sauce over spaghetti. They have tasty wings and pretty good garlic bread. What they do not have is decent pizza. We've tried to eat it, but it's never been a satisfactory pizza experience. I was forced to make my own pizza, but first I had to acquire the essential ingredients. I can make the dough in my bread machine; check. I found some mozzarella cheese last time I was grocery shopping; check. I had the presence of mind to buy a couple cans of tomato sauce last time I was in Bangkok; check. I have some mushrooms and onions for toppings; check, but there is no pepperoni. It's not pizza to Jimmy without pepperoni. A special trip to the store and we acquired some of the very hard to find pepperoni. Check. All systems are Go. I made the dough in my bread machine like I planned. The recipe makes enough for two 14 inch pizzas. I tried the recipe as given this time; next time I will add garlic powder, basil, and oregano to the dough. That's a lot of dough once it rises!

Then I put on the toppings. I used sliced fresh shiitake mushrooms, diced onion, and pepperoni. I believe the toppings go under the cheese, unlike some pizza places. So I put on piles of mozzarella and a sprinkling of real grated parmesan (not the stuff in the green tube) over that. Here it is ready for the oven! It's definitely looking pizza-like at this point. See the nice round pan it is in? That's the turntable for my convection oven. This is a bad idea, as we shall soon see. I baked it for 25 minutes in a preheated oven sitting on the rack. The rack is supposed to sit on top of the turntable so the food rotates. In order to use the turntable as the pan, and get it at the correct height in the oven, I lost the rotation. It mattered. The back of the pizza was overdone while the front was underdone. I rotated it manually and let it go another 5 minutes. I got a pizza that was a bit overdone everywhere. Compared to Pizza Hut pizza it was ambrosia. Jimmy said we could have this every week. I wish we could, but there is a serious lack of tomato sauce here. I can buy all the tomato paste I want, though. Anybody know how to make pizza sauce from tomato paste?

...

2006-12-29T03:20:00.000-05:00

Taiwan: earthquake. Underwater cables: severed. Internet: mostly inoperative. Me: screwed.

Taco Bell Cravings

2006-12-23T03:22:00.000-05:00

Jimmy has been here a few months now...apparently just long enough to develop massive Taco Bell cravings. Please don't think we confuse Taco Bell with Mexican cooking. We can get Mexican cooking here. We can't supply him with a Taco Bell fix, though. Taco Bell is owned by the same corporate conglomerate as Pizza Hut and KFC, two of the most broadly available chains in Thailand. So why can't they open a Taco Bell here anywhere? Believe me, my husband would travel to Bangkok for it.