Due to improper use of my CSA, I now have about a gallon of frozen strawberries and I want to make jam.

I am happy to invest in jars, lids, rings, pectin, sugar, etc. But I really don't want to blow $50 on a giant canning pan, jar tongs, etc.

So I send this request out into the aether -- can someone lend me these useful things? I promise to return them promptly, clean, and if I damage them, replace 'em.

I can pay for their use with... you guessed it... strawberry jam!



Otherwise it's a lifetime of smoothies for my kids.

Damn, what a busy month.

1) Snowy Xmas mess in Seattle
2) Quitting old job
3) 5-year-old birthday
4) My graduation
5) New job and related craziness

But the interesting reason I am posting is because I just found another guy from my deep past. Leo Y., a developer from Borland on Quattro Pro, now works with me at NetApp. Odd.

For those of you lovely readers who don't get to Jalopnik regularly and who miss the lovely HW 17 page of shame... I submit to you this lovely vision of California excess:

http://jalopnik.com/5100049/when-black-friday-comes

Enjoy!

This week I cooked with quince for the first time... I made an quince+applesauce that turned out GREAT! I love the extra texture the quice added and I appreciate my ability to control what cooks down when so the chunkiness is the way I like.

Also, it's better than the stuff in jars. It's thicker, sweeter, and richer. I did let it cook for quite a while so it's a bit like apple butter at times. I also like the quince fragrance. V suggested I put in some cinnamon so I threw in 4 sticks. Awesome.


I found some grass-fed organic beef on sale, too, and made a roast. Even my picky girls liked it. And pumpkin bread got baked tonight. I am a domestic goddess.

Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

Classic anatomical drawings of Japanese movie monsters.

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/10/kaiju-anatomical-drawings/

Awesome.

Even in my jet-lagged stress-addled world I know this video is a classic.

Or maybe it's just that I'm jet lagged and stress addled.

http://www.tatami.in/

Click on the big yellowish button for some Japanese fun!

Crazy week in Brazil now ends. It has been interesting, fun, disturbing, and educational.

I mostly can't wait to get back to my girls.

Here's an interesting video if you're into economic policy, what's up with the current crisis, and the big O.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubBFIw6HedQ

Most interesting to me, of course, is my friend Laura Tyson just to Obama's right. She was my international finance prof and we've been corresponding via email since. WICKED smart, one of the billion women more qualified to be prez than stinky ole "Caribou Barbie".

W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.