I Don't Know if I Got the Spices Right

It's not quite a "thin stew" in its current form, but it's certainly thin in the pan.

What is this I'm talking about? Why, it's this:

I found online a recipe for a dish like this, and yanno, it's pretty good. I have no idea if I got the spices right, but I'd make it again. Here's the recipe.

I didn't use bok choy, but substituted spinach instead. Also did not use fresh lemon grass or ginger, but used lemon grass and ginger paste. And while I was going to put shrimp in it, we were out of shrimp, which was sad.

KABOOM!

Drove - or at least was a passenger - through a summer deluge on a mission of mercy to bring a new power inverter to Michelle.

She was in the camper earlier today when the old inverter screamed, let out a huge puff of black smoke, then died. It was an inverter we were going to replace anyway, but I guess it decided to push our plans forward a bit. Luckily enough I was able to find one locally that would do what she needs.

We did get a burger from Big Juds out of it, so it wasn't a complete waste of an evening. She's back at camp now and says the inverter seems to be inverting just fine. Damn camper roof still leaks in the shower area, though. That's got me stymied. No idea where the water is sneaking in.

New inverter for scale:

Sure, it's from Harbor Freight. But this inverter is made by an American company and seems to have a pretty good reputation online. And while a lot of people dump on Harbor Freight, I actually own a lot of stuff from there, and I've yet to be disappointed by something I've purchased there. And it had the best qualities we needed in an inverter: Pure sine wave, and available locally.

Had the faulty inverter burned the camper to the axles, that would have solved some of my problems. But introduced some new ones, so we'll call it a draw.

Still need to get a new battery for the camper, but at least the new inverter will get along with the kind we want to get.

UPDATE: 24-hours later, Michelle reports the inverter is still inverting and, compared to the previous model, is doing so extremely quietly. Her one quibble: The former inverter had two USB outlets, the new one has only one. But it's doing its intended job quietly, contentedly.

Raising Steam: A New Look

After a hiatus in which I read several other books, I'm back on Terry Pratchett's "Raising Steam."

My initial look at the book was pretty grim. It still feels as if the book were written in Plato's cave, but it's growing on me. I really try to give books a fair shake; there are only a few I've given up on (notably John Crowley's "Little, Big" and Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast" novels (and I'm not sure I've given up on the latter, but it certainly has fallen to the bottom of my "to read" pile).

I picked "Raising Steam" back off the pile after finishing Catherine Gilbert Murdock's "The Book of Boy," which I thoroughly enjoyed. I decided after reading that excellent book that I wanted to get back to Pratchett's last book, and I'm glad I did.

The gauze is starting to come off the characters. There's a lot of gauze there yet, but they're starting to come through, and Pratchett -- like Dickens -- is to be read for the characters, because the characters make the story.

I know Alzheimers is an ugly disease; my mother-in-law passed away from Alzheimers complications earlier this year. It was hard to watch her personality deteriorate and fade, so watching it in "Raising Steam" brings back some pretty hard memories of our family's last few months with her. So I guess I have a little extra baggage coming into this novel.

So, How's that Chore List Going?

I keep a running chore list because I'm forgetful and also lazy, but I also love lists and crossing things off of lists, so the list keeps me going. And, surprisingly, chores get done.

Here's the list I've been working on:

Yes, I have had to re-add "paint kitchen ceiling" to the list. I did paint the problem area, but now need to paint the rest of the ceiling to match.

I'm also unsure as of yet if the leak in the camper roof is fixed or not. I did have to go to camp a few weekends ago to do another bit of taping, but I don't know if it's rained up there since then. It's been dry as a bone here.

Missing from the list (mostly) is the basement bathroom. I have been patching ceiling holes where I've run the Cat-6 cable and have hung some of the backer board, but not much else to report there. Maybe a bit later when my weekends aren't so scattered.

It's part of the joys of home ownership, but in some ways it's a lot of fun. Sometimes.

Check Engine Light OFF

As I continue my quest to keep our 2005 Honda Pilot on the road, I have a little victory.

The new gas cap I was hoping would fix the evap system warning that triggered the check engine light has done its duty. The cap is on and the light is off.

That doesn't mean the dash is free of warning lights, but the newest one has been taken care of.

It's got just north of 250,000 miles on it, and I'd like to keep it going a while longer. I like not having a car payment to worry about.

Now if I could only figure out that stupid TPMS light . . . 

We Continue the Journey We Started

Got to thinking about Dad last night, and a dream he had.

He was standing on the bank of a river. Across the river, he could see Mom walking, very slowly, using a walker. He watched her walk for a bit, struggling on the rocky trail. Then she saw him, turned her course and plunged into the river. The walker went tumbling and he watched, helpless, as she struggled in the rapid water.

But she came out of the water, climbing, then walking with ease. She came up to him, kissed and embraced him, and together they continued their journey on the same side of the river.

We continue the journey we have started.

Pete's Puddle has the Best Sunsets

Michelle sent me this photo today of the sunset blossoming over Pete's Puddle, the lake at Island Park Scout Camp.

I wish I were there tonight.

Not for the noise and hubbub of camp, but for the little peaceful moments like this that help you see that even hot, dusty, unsheltered places like Island Park Scout Camp does have its beauty. And thus does the world.

THE NEW GAS CAP IS HERE

I'm pretty sure no one else will be as excited about this as I am, but MY NEW GAS CAP IS HERE.

Here, a little rant.

A month or so ago, a new warning on my 2005, 250,000-mile Honda Pilot, but one I can't ignore, because CHECK FUEL CAP is now obscuring one of the most important dashboard instruments: The thermometer.

So I went to the auto parts store, being the forward-thinking man that I am, and bought a new gas cap. The old one had hung on for 250,000 miles and by golly, if a $14 gas cap could get rid of that dashboard warning, so be it. No matter that the other dashboard warnings, one for TPMS and the other for the airbag, go unanswered. I should probably look into those, thought I'm convinced TPMS is a system set up on Hondas to slow let the air out of the rear drivers' side tire. And airbag, I have *never* used that thing.

And for a while, the CHECK FUEL CAP error cleared, so smooth sailing.

Then it came back. Then it disappeared but was replaced by the dreaded CHECK ENGINE LIGHT. So my youngest, checking on his own vehicle, took it to the mechanic who read the error codes and deduced it's probably due to the cheap gas cap I bought, since 95% of the errors linked to the evaporative whatever system on Pilots is linked to a faulty gas cap, and the non-OEM ones tend to not fix the problem.

Thus the new gas cap.

I'll put it on tonight after work, drive around for awhile and hope that the error clears. Maybe I'll have to go clear it myself. Or I can make my son do it. I've earned the money for the $35 gas cap, after all.

Lucky Find: The Book of Boy

I'm calling this a lucky find at the local thrift store this week:

I'll admit I'm a sucker for *any* book set in pseudo-medieval times, particularly one that involves a character talking to animals. But as I go through this book -- and it's hard to put down -- I'm struck mostly by the simplicity of the storytelling. This is the kind of story I aspire to write, so I really should be paying attention to the writing style. There is some description, but it's brief and adds to the story, which moves along briskly. The characters are few but clearly defined, the story starts almost immediately -- something I struggle with in my own writing -- and the action just keeps going. No Steinbeck hooptedoodle in this one.*

(An aside: The blog post linked above, from my blog, is on the FIRST PAGE of Google searches for "hooptedoodle Steinbeck".)

I understand the book was a Newberry Honor winner in 2019, and justly so.

One oddity, something I've seen in print books a few times, but it's been a long time since I've seen it: The last page of the book physically glued to the cover:

*Amended to say the hooptedoodle came in the last two pages, and was perfect enough to make me weep.

Hey! For Hooptedoodle, I'm an Expert!

Googled "hooptedoodle Steinbeck" tonight as I wanted to reference Steinbeck's hooptedoodle concept in another blog post, and found a previous blog post in which I write about hooptedoodle shows up on the first page of searches for that particular search term, viz:

This is almost as exciting as they day a student from New York contacted me via email back in the really early days of email to ask what I knew about James Ensor, the famous Belgian painter, because he/she had seen my reference to Ensor on my very rudimentary home page, from the mid to late 1990s. I had to confess then the only stuff I knew was from the They Might Be Giants song, so the conversation died quickly after that.