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Tag Archives: I made this
Bad Bean
My Twelve days of Christmas with the Rentz Girls ™ isn’t going to be on consecutive days. I’m going to spread it out so you have something to look forward to the entire holiday season.
Here’s one of the things I was going to write about yesterday before the interruptions.
Tip: Bad hummus is really gross. Don’t eat it.
When my poor sweetheart was sick, he had no appetite so we had tons of food in the house and I wasn’t able to eat it all myself. There were some bowls of stuff that lingered.
I made some hummus and I swear it hadn’t been in there that long. I took a giant bite and Holy Satan’s Diaper. It wasn’t immediately gross, but came on exponentially. Now I’m ruined for hummus for a while which is a shame because it’s a handy snack that’s better for me than salt and cracked pepper potato chips.
Vintage
I have a situation so I don’t have time for a normal post.
Here’s another sister goofy face and Mom with tiny waist and me in the background. Plus applied Photoshop tutorial.
I originally typed that “tiny waste.” I need to do a post about my lost ability with homonyms. I also find myself mistaking its and it’s on a regular basis.
Haven’t even hit 50 yet and the brain cells are a’shriveling.
Living Off The Land
Here’s the results of yesterday’s project. I always make canning into a bigger deal than it is. It was somewhat labor intensive and made a lot of dirty dishes but it really isn’t that bad. I need to remember to start earlier because I end up bumping into dinner time.
I have enough apples left for one more pot of apple sauce that I won’t can. Then I’m going to be done with the apple tree. There are still apples out there but they get to be compost.
I thought I was so organized already doing Thanksgiving planning. Thanksgiving is already the weekend after next.
I’m sticking with traditional this year: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie (from pumpkins I grew myself.)
No yam dish. No rolls. Maybe. I love the rolls but simpler to skip and no shortage of food with the above.
I want a green vegetable and I’m feeling a calling for spinach so I’m going to dig through my recipes and see if anything pops out at me.Â
I’m also probably going to make a chocolate haupia pie because three people really need 2 pies.
Apple Land
Yesterday I cleaned out one of my vegetable beds. I yanked out a sunflower and look what was underneath!
I somehow invented the sunflower potato.
When I was flopping around last night at 2am unable to sleep, I tried to think of names for my new vegetable: potato flower (nah), sunspud, suntater, sun potato (eh), sun nugget. I’m leaning toward suntater but I’m still working on it.
Meanwhile, it is now documented so I get full credit for developing this agricultural game changer.
Also yesterday was round 1 of apple sauce. We are going to be consuming gallons of this stuff in the next month.
As you can see, the apples aren’t very pretty. But they make up for it in volume. This bowl represents a fraction of what’s out there.
Normally I rake the ones I don’t use into a pile and after I put the garden to bed I bury them in there to compost.
However, there are so many, I’ve already dug auxiliary trenches in another part of the yard and buried about 9 buckets worth.
I need some livestock.
I’m going to can some, or jar some, as some folks like to say, but I think I might still have a pint or two from last year.
I forget that it’s there and it gets shoved back behind the cans of chicken broth and pinto beans.
We both had apple sauce sprinkled with granola for breakfast and it was terrific.
Check It Out Now!
Look! I have tomatoes. All this many.
And there are at least that many more that are almost ready for picking.
Bob said, “Wow, those came on fast.”
I said, “It’s September 100th.”
For contrast here’s my kitchen on September 6 last year.
Did I ever write about my jeans shopping day? My favorite jeans are one year away from disintegrating and for my replacement jeans I accidentally bought saggy Mom jeans. I decided I was going to go out and find some fancy jeans that would make me look like a stylin’ lady.
I tried on at least 30 pairs, all different brands and styles.
Not one pair fit. Not even close. They were all tight in the butt and/or thighs and gaping at the waist. I finally gave up and figured I’d try again another time.
A couple weeks ago I said screw stylin’ and went to Eddie Bauer. I knew which size I needed but of course they’ve changed their sizing scheme.
All these stores have a complicated scheme of pants styles.
There’s another store I shop at and they now have 4 styles. It’s like: the Metropolitan- slim at the waist and thigh, firm through the hips; the Sassy – slender at the thigh, low at the waist and full through the hips; the Henrietta – higher in the waist than the Sassy but lower than the Metropolitan, straight through the hips; and the Flirty – slim at the waist, firm at the thigh and relaxed through the hips.
I wanted to send them a message that said: Fire your translator. Nobody knows what that means.
At Eddie Bauer I tried on the Sassy, the Curvy, the Rainier and the Bainbridge. And then I had to pick from classic blue, Puget blue, faded, ultra-faded and the ranchero fade. Not to mention skinny, boyfriend, bootcut, slender cut, relaxed cut, beefy cut and astronaut cut. Of course they didn’t have what I needed in the store but I could order it from a phone in the store to get free shipping, plus a coupon for trying on 15 pairs of pants plus a buy one get one for 50% deal.
They finally arrived. I love my new jeans.
Publications Update
My most recent publication “The Last Willow Stick on the River” is finally out and available if you know where to look. You can order it directly from Yellow Medicine Review. It’s a journal of indigenous poetry and prose. The guest editor is Steve Pacheco.
I’ve read it cover to cover and there is some terrific stuff in here. In particular, I loved the poems by Tiffany Midge and Paul Rowly and the prose pieces by Carter Meland.
Also, Prime Books has come out with an edition of Future Lovecraft which includes my story “Lottie versus the Moon Hopper.” The anthology was originally published (and still available) by Innsmouth Free Press. The Powell’s link has the wrong cover. The book looks like this. According to the Powell’s page the book is in the Burnside store. I need to go over and look at it. This is a personal milestone that I can find a story I wrote in a book at Powell’s bookstore. Silly, maybe, but still cool to me.
Finally, updates to my ebook collection Red Tape Stories from Indian Country.
It’s still available for Kindle at Amazon and every other format at Smashwords.
But wait, there’s more. You can get it at
the itunes store (I’m in the itunes store! Another silly personal milestone) here it is at the nook store, Kobo and the Sony ebook store. Maybe even other places I don’t know about.
If you have any trouble tracking it down, drop me at note at pam(at)pamrentz.com and I will help you out.
And thanks to everyone who supports my writing. It’s a slog sometimes so it’s always nice to hear that someone checked out my work. I appreciate it.
I’ve been on semi-hiatus for the summer but I am just now kicking back into gear. Hopefully I’ll have something new out there soon.
Worst Night Out
I had the worst dream last night – I was visiting with friends and Maggie and Christopher and they left with all my stuff in their car: my purse, wallet, phone, keys. Actually, it was a motorcycle. Because of the fact situation of the dream there was no way to solve this problem so I decided I had to walk to their house.
“How far away is it?”
“Seventy miles.”
“Okay, can I borrow some shoes?”
Someone gave me vans and stockings.
I woke up completely panicked and it took forever to get back to sleep. Then I had to tell Bob all about it this morning. “All my phone numbers are in my phone. I didn’t have any money. There was nothing I could do.” Meanwhile Bob was cracking up: “A Pam control dream.”
I needed a few cups of tea and some fruit and granola before I could function again.
I’m never going to let that happen.
Baking Disaster # 32,471
I thought I killed my sourdough. After years of taking care of it, it got wedged in the back of the fridge and I neglected it. When I finally took it out it had a weird chemical smell and I dumped it.
Later I found out it was fine and with a couple of good feedings it would be good as new. Or good as old. You only have to throw it out if it gets mold or weird stuff growing in it.
When I was in California in February Auntie gave me some more starter and I fed it this weekend. I decided to bake a loaf of bread. I’ve done this a lot. I use the regular no-knead recipe and throw in a dollop of sourdough.
This time my sourdough feeding was more liquidy than I usually do. I fed the sourdough in my bread mixing bowl and I was too lazy to wash it. Honestly it occurred to me that this was a terrible idea as I was doing it but I did it anyway. I just scraped out most of the sourdough for the fridge and made the bread in the bowl with the remaining sourdough.
Within a few hours I had a bowl filled with bubbling “dough.” I left it overnight and in the morning tried to shape my loaf with what was actually a wonderful sourdough batter. When I took that baking class the teacher managed to make a loaf with really wet dough so I thought I could do it. But mostly I just swirled sticky batter all over my kitchen counter until I got mad and scraped it into the trash.
I’m sure when we get home tonight it will have taken over the trash can.
Big Announcement: RED TAPE Story Collection
I’ve been talking about this forever, but FINALLY! My story collection is out into the world and available for eReaders.
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It’s called: Red Tape Stories from Indian Country.
It’s a collection of nine speculative fiction stories including three that were already published. All the stories have some connection to the people and lands of the Karuk Tribe.
Here’s the Table of Contents and a little bit about the stories.
The Battle of Little Big Science
(previously appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction) This was my Clarion West week #3 story.
Estelle Makes the Casino Run
(previously appeared in Innsmouth Free Press) I wrote this for a contest with my Clarion West classmates.
Social Security
(previously appeared in The Wordstock Ten) This was my submission story for Clarion West.
Field Work
This was my Clarion West week #2 story. Are you seeing a theme here?
The Medicine Woman of Talking Rock
Yup, Clarion West Week #5.
Repercussions
Clarion West Week #6. This was me trying to do something different since you’re supposed to stretch yourself at the workshop.
Trusted Leader
This was my Week #7 story – the first thing I wrote after I left the workshop. The process was gruesome but I like the way it came out after about 5000 drafts.
Fish Killer
This story has nothing to do with Clarion West. I was upset about the dredge mining situation on the Klamath and needed to work it out.
The Casino Gargoyle
This was another submission story I wrote when I misunderstood the application instructions.
All of this can be yours with just a few clicks.
It’s available for Kindle at Amazon or in all other formats at Smashwords.
Special thanks goes to my Clarion West class and instructors. Also giant tower of thank you pies to Douglas Lucas for help with finalizing the manuscript and Eden Robins for the title. (Note to Douglas and Eden, that tower of thank you pies is a figure of speech. Don’t expect an actual tower of pies.)
2000! 2000! 2000!
This is a Karuk-style basket start that’s on the wall at basket class. I should probably put a photo of a finished basket up so you can see where this is going. Try this.
Hey! Great news. This is my 2000th post since I started blogger which was February 2001 if my archives are to be believed. This is going to be a rambling post filled with history and random tidbits that I have scrawled on little pieces of paper and post-its all over my desk. I was going to wait until I had time to write a really good 2000th post, but then we’ll never get to it because my entire life is on hold until I have time to do it better and who knows when that will be?
I started a website in April 1996 (check out the Wayback machine) and some of that stuff survives in the ancient archives and some of it is stashed in a folder on my harddrive.
I’ve always wanted to bring back the Delta Sucks post and the responses including the one from the crazy lady who told me: “Your stupid!”
If I ever have money to burn I’m going to hire an assistant and that person’s job is going to be to surf the Internet and visit comment threads and any time a person posts some version of “your stupid” or “your a moron” my assistant will reply with: I think you mean “you’re stupid.”
But I’m getting away from my planned rambling. I actually have a huge page of notes for a different post to be titled “The Internet is Ruined” which I thought would be perfect as a 2000th post but I’m not in the mood today. Someday.
Last weekend I went to California to hang out with the family. This is Minky.
Does anyone ever intentionally set out to get a cat or are cats something that people just end up with? It seems like every person I’ve ever known with a cat(s) ended up with them.
Minky’s original name was Wink and Wink lived at the house next door where they already had bigger cats and also dogs. Wink was small and timid and a little overwhelmed trying to get a good meal with these other critters around. So Wink wandered the neighborhood and found my parents house. I’m not sure if she was nibbling on Shy Boy’s food or what but Dad fed her and that was the beginning of the end.
The owner retrieved her cat from my parents’ house several times but she always snuck back in. One night my Mom got up in the middle of the night and there was Wink hanging out in the hallway. She found the cat door. When the owner moved, she left Wink to live with Mom and Dad.
Wink became Winky and because she has such soft fur: Minky. But it’s a great name. You can say: inky, stinky, rinky dinky, finky, pinky, drinky. I made up some limericks for her but she just gave me this same bug-eyed stare so I stopped.
In this photo she has made a nice nest in my big warm coat. She was able to spread her fur around to all of my clothes. She’s a very sweet kitty.
I have a follow up to the Verizon story. They sent me a response to my customer service email that starts off by saying that they’d call me to walk me through my problem except that they received my email too late and due to industry regulations they can’t call me.
Because it would be a shame if any of this wasn’t all my fault. Why not have your workers on the job during the time that industry regulations allow you to call?
But that doesn’t matter because I already fixed the problem myself by doing the simple steps of canceling my autopay and then restarting it with the new credit card number. They also mailed me a notice thanking me for enrolling in autopay and welcoming me.
Your welcome. (intentional mistake because I think its funny)(that was intentional to)(that too).
I had another milestone last week — it was 20 years since I started working as a paralegal in Indian Affairs. I don’t know what to say except its nice to feel competent at a job. I did not feel that way for a very long time. I remember reading legal cases and it would take all day and then I’d read them again and again. It’s like you have to train your brain how to think a certain way and I was not a natural. 20 more years and I can retire! (sigh, geez)
Watercress harvesting. I’m sure my family is thrilled that their butts are on my website. That was the angle I had.
I have one of those dinky iPods that’s as big as a postage stamp. I have a gadget so I can listen to it in the car but I’ve only used it a couple of times because normally the only places I drive are the park-n-ride or the grocery store and those trips aren’t worth plugging in the iPod.
If you’ve ever used one of those tiny ones, you know that you can’t work it while you drive. Well, you could but you’d probably crash into something. So I had it all set up with mega-long playlists and I would get it set up and then pause and then once I got going I could listen. I had a 100 favorite song playlist that I could shuffle and an audio course and a bunch of podcasts.
The ride down worked great. I’m not sure what I did on the way home but somehow I managed to make it so it would repeat the item. After I heard the same song 3 times I realized there was a problem. I had a pitstop and I fiddled with it and thought I fixed it but I did not so it was completely aggravating. Then I tried tapping on it a bunch of times so then I was skipping all around which made the audio course a bit confusing. I’ve got it sitting here so I can figure it out when I’m feeling frisky.
Another funny technology story is that I always forget some cable that I wish I had so this trip I put every single cable and charger that I have into a plastic bag and threw it in with my stuff.
Then I forgot my laptop.
I very carefully made sure it was charged and I use Dropbox and I made sure it was synced. Bob said I left it on the couch which is pretty random because why would I put it on the couch? I think it was all subconscious. But, I had my notebook with me and wrote longhand every day so the streak (which has been going since Oct 31 2011) lives!
Goodness, are you still reading? That’s enough of that. Signing off Post 2000!
Get excited because Monday starts Timbers pre-season!
Posted in doing it wrong
Tagged cats, eternal overachiever, I made this, revisiting old things
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