Measure twice, cut...

...to the chase?

Double your pleasure, double your commute?

Scrimp in haste, repent on the freeway?

Old saws:

*saw (n.2) 

"proverb, saying, maxim," Old English sagu "saying, discourse, speech, study, tradition, tale," from Proto-Germanic *saga-, *sagon- (cf. Middle Low German, Middle Dutch sage, zage, German Sage "legend, fable, saga, myth, tradition," Old Norse saga "story, tale, saga"), from PIE root *sek(w)- "to say, utter" (see say (v.)).

We won't say just what I uttered when I realized I'd forgotten to fill my coffee travel mug and turn off the cheapo Mr. Coffee before driving to work.

When my wonderful coffee dispenser went flopbot crackerdog and leaked all over the kitchen counter I was feeling seriously broke myself. So I purchased the least expensive twelve-cup Mr. Coffee  at WalMart. Geez, I berate myself just for shopping there.  How much worse can I feel?

Lots of time to ponder this in the traffic jam on 75N aka Central Expressway driving back home from work because I forgot to switch off Mr. Coffee.  Lost over an hour of pay to prevent the darn pot burning down, smelling up the condo, and setting the place on fire by the time I got off work this evening.

Yep, next time I'll spend the big bucks for the automatic shut-off model and consult Poor Richard's Small Appliance Almanack

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

The Coveted Nancy Awards for 2013

Piled on the reading to beat the ball drop in Times Square, plus spent some quality time in airport terminals lately. There were good late entries into the competition, and as usually happens I had to redefine the categories for the 2013 Coveted Nancy Awards.

For the Most Creative Book to Share with Your Favorite Child of Any Age:

• Press Here, by Herve Tullet.  

For the Most Likely to Show Up in Your Dreams we have a tie between

• Beetles, by Bernard Durin
• Skulls, by Simon Winchester/Nick Mann

For Most Addictive Series in Audio Books

• Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole books beat out
• Hilary Mantel's Cromwell novels

In the category Way More Interesting than Dave Egger's Hologram for the King

• Care of Wooden Floors, by Will Wiles
• Greg Baxter's The Apartment

Entertaining Cookbook with lots of photos and pretty easy recipes:

• This is a Cookbook:  Recipes for Real Life, by Max and Eli Sussman (two guys who like to cook)

Picture book most likely to inspire art class projects:

• Over and Under the Snow, by Kate Messner/Christopher Silas Neal

Never be quite the same again nonfiction book:

• The World Is a Carpet

Current issues fiction:

• Tale for the Time Being 
• Flight Behavior

[I am a failure in the poetry category, but I read more poems online in 2013, and none of them were bawdy limericks.]

Cornucopia of Fascinating Historical Fiction:

• Elixir of Immortality
• Girl You Left Behind
• Light Between Oceans
• Last Runaway

I always appreciate your reading suggestions. I check them out, but I don't always get them read!

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

Sea foam and fish cakes

Christmas in Oregon offers alternatives to the traditional snowy white version. My first experience of sea foam drifts offered loud, crashing ocean waves and spouting jets of sea water.

We were on the Captain Cook Trail at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area south of Newport, Oregon in the Siuslaw National Forest. The contrast between the white foam and the jagged black volcanic rock was stunning.

A Cape Perpetua visitor unaccompanied by a toddler could do some philosophic contemplation about permanence and transience, creation and destruction, our little moment of time in geologic history. With a toddler that person might just sing the Opposites Song--black/white, soft/hard, wet/dry, loud/quiet...

When my mom used to make sea foam punch for birthday parties, the recipe was lime sherbet, ginger ale, and pineapple juice. She would make the shaped fish cake from the Baker's Coconut cookbook. My brother got all those pirate and fish theme parties mateys. Aarrgghh.

The recipe for real sea foam is more complex. You needs waves and wind and water, of course, plus salts, proteins, fats, and decaying organic matter from algae die-off. This is not Johnson's baby bubble bath! For some people and animals it can cause respiratory problems.

We watched a sea lion surfing around these rocks, but I didn't get it in the zoom photo.

The Spouting Horn is pretty impressive, and more frequent than Old Faithful. Pooooooofffffff!

It was time for a sustaining lunch of crab burgers, steamed clams, and fish and chips at the South Beach Fish Market.

You can read about this character-loaded joint on Michael Stern's Roadfood. The crab burger did not knock my socks off, but the toddler gobbled the steamed clams and played open/shut with the shells.

Opposites. Om.

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder