Ingredients:

  • a few green tomatoes
  • cornmeal (yellow is my favorite)
  • mix cornmeal with salt, pepper and other spices (I add in some white cornmeal, too, and some Tony Chachere seasoning)
  • bacon grease or vegetable oil

Cooking:

Slice the tomatoes into about half-inch slices. Dip in whipping cream or egg wash to make the batter stick. Then dredge each tomato slice in the cormeal mixture. Place in a hot skillet and fry until golden on one side, gently flip them over. Done when both sides are a nice golden brown. Then eat up!


- - - - -

During this morning's "Fun With Felines: A French Farce With Medication And Claws" I sat in the hallway and bawled. It's a good thing I don't have kids, I would SO be one of those "No more wire hangers!!!" mothers. Anyway, I'm going to take a (much-needed) few days off for the Memorial Day l-o-n-g weekend. Have a good one!

Today I am sort of pushing the dress code at Corporate Job, Inc. I am wearing pants, so that's good, but these particular trousers are ... CERTAINLY not denim, as that is verboten. No, they are NOT denim. Instead, they are, uh, black and made of a heavy cotton-like substance and they have top stitching and they have back pockets and ya'll know.

I plan to hide behind my desk all day.

So this is what it has come to in my life. A laundry pile that is threatening to take over the hallway and if I don't do laundry soon, I will have to show up at work on Monday in my prom dress. I believe it is the only thing left in the closet that's clean.

If I do show up in a prom dress, of course, you know I'll be taking a picture of that event. And that picture will happen ... in the ladies room mirror. Amen!


# # #


I do not own a big fancy and expensive camera. I use a plain old Kodak EasyShare digital camera with a whopping 3.1 megapixels. (It is model CX6330, if you are interested). I do sometimes manage to get great shots of my animals by merely stalking them in natural light and taking eleventy-nine million snapshots, at least three of which will be good.

This one wasn't very good, shot at night maybe after a little vino, and it's using my camera's "night" setting.

These pictures of Roy were not taken in daylight, since I have not actually been at my house in the daylight for weeks. (Dear Internet Bandits Planning To Rob My House: My neighbors are very nosy and they are retired and stay home all day watching to see if foulplay happens. Their little fingers are practically perched over the numbers 9-1-1 all the time. Also, I have nothing in my house of any real monetary value... except for the cats. And they poop a lot. Love, Laurie)

So, anyway, to make these pictures a little less dull, I used Photoshop to lighten them a little, crop them and fix Roy's red-eye problem (even with the red-eye flash he still gets the demonic eye.) I know photoshop is expensive but there are some less pricey versions, too, like Photoshop Elements, and if you like to tinker with graphics Photoshop is an excellent investment since it is the very best of the best.

I use this same software to add the white caption boxes on my pictures, too. Using the vector shapes tool, make a square or rectangle and apply a Layer Style to the shape. In the Layer Styles area, change the "color overlay" to white and the "stroke" setting to 1-pixel black for a nice border. (It's good to learn how to add that stroke to all your pictures. Adding a 1-pixel border to the whole image gives all photos a more professional finish for displaying online. With a border, they stand out just enough from the background on a webpage.)

I also saved this style as a pre-set, so I can now apply it to my shapes with a single click of the style picker in the top toolbar, an option when you work with vector shapes.

For the text that goes inside my little white boxes, I prefer to use Arial with no anti-aliasing so it more closely resembles the look of text in a web browser.

Are you asleep yet? Have you nodded off with all this exciting cat and software talk?

I knew it would bore you to tears. I am about ready for a nap myself. But people are always asking me about the text boxes so I thought I'd try to answer the age-old question of "How do I make my cats talk?" heh heh.

I may never be a world-famous photographer roaming the Sahara for a million-dollar shot of a lion in the wild, but I roam the wilds of Encino-adjacent pretty frequently and without fail I do manage to get my million-cent pictures using natural light, my camera's close-up setting, and a patient crouching-in-waiting position in the laundry pile.

It's worth it. Damn cats are so goodlooking I can't help myself!

On Wednesday I left work early so I could drive down to the REAL O.C. and hang with Grandma and her retirement community's "Stitch 'n Giggle" group.

When I first started knitting, Grandma told me about the monthly Stitch 'n Giggle, which I could only assume was the less complainy version of Stitch 'n Bitch.

"So you attend these meetings?" I asked her.

"All the time!" she said.

"But Grandma, uh, you don't crochet or knit. You don't...um... stitch. Do you?"

"Oh, no," she said firmly. "I bring the Giggle."

And of course with her new Internet Blanket, she has been dying to tell everyone at Stitch 'n Giggle about it (anytime someone walks by she calls their name and then they come over and she shows it to them, it's the sweetest thing) and so I went down to hang out and stitch and giggle. And, truth be told, I wanted that good feeling to last, that feeling of seeing Grandma at the center of attention, seeing something so good and happy for folks to oooh and aahhh over. Seeing her light up.

Grandma watching intently as the gals peruse the scrapbook. Notice Fine Photographer here took only the Grandma angle.

And my mom came, too, and I attempted to take self portraits of the two of us but each of them looked like this:

Fine Photographer strikes again.

And, in keeping with the trend of "chicken with head cut off" I totally forgot to pack my knitting bag that morning when I left my house and also, what the HECK was going on with my hair (which you cannot see in the pic but imagine if you will a weird fly-away trying to escape) but it was fun and I did not stitch -- or bitch -- once but I giggled a whole lot.

And everyone LOVED the blanket! The ladies of Stitch 'n Giggle oohed and aahed over every quare and loved the postcards from all of ya'll. It was such a big hit, and it did get everyone to talking about the kindness we receive in life from strangers, a goodness we almost never expect.

This is Anne.


In fact, Anne told me about her daughter-in-law Vicki, who is struggling right now with cancer, and how Vicki received a package one day from a group called Heartmade Blessings. "My daughter in law was so surprised and awed that a group of total strangers would care enough to make her something so thoughtful and beautiful," said Anne.

She even brought me a copy of the letter that Heartmade Blessings attached to the afghan for her daughter-in-law:

    Dear Vicki, A comfort afghan was requested on your behalf by Sheila (lastname omitted).

    There are times in our lives when you need a friend, some love, some hope, some comfort, some reassuring support. We know you are going through one of those times right now.

    This Comfort Afghan is our way of giving you a special hug from all of us at Heartmade Blessings. It is our hope that you will find comfort in knowing that you have folks who are thinking of you, praying for you, and reaching out to you.

    When you wrap yourself in this Comfort Afghan, we hope you will feel the love that was put into each stitch like a hug from a dear friend. May this afghan give you warmth, catch your tears, remind you that others care, and may it give comfort when needed.

    Cheryl-Beth Proper
    Heartmade Blessings

And ya'll know I was all "Excuse me please for a moment while I go over here very close to the cookies and try not to blubber."

But then there was no time at all for blubbering, because Shirley piped up and I tell you what. I may need to attend these Stitch 'n Giggle events on a regular basis.

The ladies were talking about the upcoming St. Patrick's Day dinner at the community. And how Shirley had been receiving many calls about the dinner selection, called "Chicken Romantico."

"They keep calling and asking what the heck is chicken romantico," she told me. "So I just started telling 'em it was chicken with Viagra sauce."

And even before I could stop from falling out of my chair already, she continued with her story.

"So my husband and I are sitting there one day and the television has those ads, you know, the ones that say 'If you experience this condition for four hours...' and my husband turns to me and says, honey, if I ever have that condition for four hours would you call the doctor?"

She paused.

"I told him hell yes, I'd call the doctor! I'D CALL EVERYONE I KNOW!"

Hello, ladies of Stitch 'n Giggle. I'LL BE BACK!

Today is the last day of the summer sale on Aliexpress. So I decided to write this post.

How determination and self-belief help achieve the impossible

It is hard to imagine a person who has never bought or at least planned to buy something from the online store Aliexpress, as it is one of the most popular in the world today. In addition, we know some facts about this trading platform, which can not only interest, but also surprise anyone.

The founder of AliExpress was very poor and unsightly.

Many people who like to watch YouTube videos about various entrepreneurs know that Jack Ma is the richest Chinese man in the world. But not all of them know that he was once so unsightly that many companies, when he was looking for a job, said goodbye to him at the beginning of the interview because they needed confident people. Not only that, but Ma also did rather poorly in school. For a while the guy worked as an English teacher and received only fourteen dollars a month.

AliExpress is a relatively young company

It may seem to some that the famous Chinese online store has been operating for a long time, but that is not true - it is only eleven years old. Jack Ma opened the site in April 2010. Initially, it was adapted for small businesses, and on it the products were offered mainly by resellers from China, who sold them at retail to customers from other countries. At the moment you can find more than 50 million different products on Aliexpress. The online store has:

    products for home and office;
    clothing;
    electronics;
    spare parts;
    food;
    etc.

My Town.

Ma became famous not only for his ability to make a lot of money and speak beautifully, but also for his loyalty to his employees. Proof of this is the fact that for them he built a whole town, which is located inside the city of Hangzhou, and contains ultra-modern buildings with amazingly beautiful design.

AliExpress is a project of true enthusiasts

In addition to the fact that Ma was often unlucky in his youth, his Internet projects had no success for a long time. In 1999, he and his friends created the Alibaba Group, now the most influential company in the world. Who would have thought that for the first four years this platform did not bring any profit, and the guys worked solely on enthusiasm.

Only eleven years later, when the young entrepreneurs were successful after all, AliExpress appeared. Perhaps it is not necessary to say that this online store would not have existed if Jack and his comrades had not been so determined.

Third-party services for Aliexpress

Here are some resources to get you started.

Pricearchive price history - Aliexpress tracking

Google Chrome Ali price extension


Articles

Medium AliExpress search by picture

Medium AliExpress price tracker


Videos

Youtube AliExpress price tracker

Youtube AliExpress price history

Youtube AliExpress search by image

Vimeo AliExpress price tracker

Vidlii AliExpress price tracker


Additional information can be found here.

Localized versions of the site

Aliexpress verfolgung (DE)
Historial precios Aliexpress (ES)
Suivi prix AliExpress (FR)
Monitoraggio dei prezzi (IT)
Отслеживание цен (RU)

Although I’ve read a fair number of e-books I don’t have an e-book reader. I think I’ll wait a while before I get one.

If I do get a portable electronic device it will probably be something like the Kindle Paperwhite, a multi-purpose device where reading e-books is just one of the functions I’ll use it for.

It will not have a cell phone capability. Or if it does I’ll turn it off and leave it off. I prefer to have control over who contacts me and when. ;)