Remembering the Time We Didn't Buy the Valentines

 The time we didn't buy Valentine's Day cards for one another...but we picked some out in the store and gave them to each other, then put them back.

I think the card was $4.99 or more. That's when dinner at a mom and pop restaurant was about $20 for two. So then we went out to dinner.

Happy Mardi Gras! ........Oh! My! Thirty-three Years Ago!

 

 

This is a re-post from a January 28, 2008:

Our first trip to New Orleans was in 1991. Before digital cameras, because we don't have jpegs of the trip. We were visiting my sister the Sister and got to stay in a guest cottage on the grounds of a large convent across Lake Pontchartrain. We rented a little GeoMetro and tooled around the City and countryside. There were parades going on all week, some in the City, others in surrounding towns. We were invited to go with a group of Nuns to the Big Parade on Mardi Gras, "Fat Tuesday" the last day of celebrations before Lent. We had to leave about 5 AM to get there on time, which I recall was about 6.

What made the offer attractive was the fact that they had connections at a New Orleans funeral parlor on the parade route that would provide both parking and toilet facilities. This is important, of course, as the crowds would make finding a parking place nearly impossible and, although drinking alcohol is allowed anywhere and everywhere, bathrooms on the parade route are scarce. McDonald's and other quick stops were known to lock their facilities for the duration of the parade. 

Some folks would drive their pickup trucks, with their own private Porta-Potties, into the City in the wee hours and park near the parade route. While we were guests of the Undertaker, we were provided the "luxury" of relief stations: the women had access to indoor plumbing while the men were relegated to a large canvas tent in the back parking lot, in which was a wooden box trough filled with sawdust. This set-up was not for the pee-shy. By mid-afternoon, the sawdust was saturated and recycled beer was seeping through the wooden box, onto the asphalt and slowly out from under the tent and into the parking lot.

Meanwhile the townies were hoarding beads and trinkets thrown out by Rex, Zulu, Orpheus and Endymion. Little old ladies would crush your fingers with a quick stomp if you were foolish enough to reach for a stray doubloon. It's all in the technique. You stomp on your prize, THEN reach down to retrieve it. Beads on the "G" rated parade routes were generally most accessible to those closest to the street, on stepladders or with feminine charms that were not explicitly exposed. We've heard that elsewhere in the City, exposure, for both men and women, is heavily rewarded, depending on the crowd. Alas, we were in the Nun section.

Another Day at the Office With the Hubby

Leon and I both had doctor appointments this morning so Leon, who had some comp time coming, took the day off. Rather unexpectedly, both our appointments got cancelled. 

So we got to spend a leisurely morning and went for lunch at the San Felipe rest stop on our way to Leon's office, namely White Ridge and Ojito Wilderness near San Ysidro. It was a gorgeous day, a bit chilly when the wind was blowing gently across the landscape, but very comfortable in the sunshine. We were going to go for a 2 mile hike to some petroglyphs but my bum knee was not cooperating.

Leon having the job he has is nothing short of fortuitous. I makes me happy to see him in his element, and being excited about what he does. And the people he works with obviously appreciate his initiative and work ethic and teamwork.  

He could not ask for a more suitable position than this: driving around in the New Mexico wilderness, fixing barbed wire fences, putting up signage, schmoozing with hikers and visitors, keeping track of the "counters", maintaining trails, cleaning up the many "shooting areas" that are littered with all kinds of debris from target practice (I mean refrigerators, microwave ovens, bottles, cans, propane cylinders, cardboard boxes, and more that are blown to smithereens), hauling the stuff to the dumpsters. (Aside: these "shooters" are just a plague on the landscape).

I would add that the "shooting areas" were all pretty free of debris today, thanks to my hubby. How he knows his way around the hundreds of thousands of acres he patrols is because he has a GPS Brain. I was lost after the first twenty minutes.

And as office views go, his is pretty spectacular!

It really was a great day spending time with my hubby "at the office".

Here are some photos of a corner of his office that we haven't been to before:

This was unexpected out in the middle of somewhere

And Mary was there too.

This well is dry

Note: there are cattle grazing in the wilderness; I think it rather cruel to make them forage among the cacti and scrub for their meager meals over many acres of high desert. Some are chewing on cholla cactus. If they only knew what a grassy plain was like or the rolling green hills back east! We saw a nearly dry mud hole where the cattle look for water, but saw no standing water. Leon says the ranchers will haul in water occasionally.

 

Che Inferno!

 So today I made homemade ricotta cheese. Technically, it is not true ricotta cheese, even though most of the YouTube videos referred to it as ricotta cheese. To make real ricotta cheese, you need fresh milk, preferably from a goat, and you treat it with rennet, make mozzarella, and then using the whey leftover, you recook it (ri-cotta) to make the cheese. 

Anyway, this is made using whole milk and heavy cream and lemon juice or vinegar. Heated to about 190°. Add a little salt and after adding the acid, that is lemon juice or vinegar, you let it sit until the curds form. 

It was a bit of a mess. I made a single container of ricotta plus a little bit more. It cost about $3.49 for the milk, $2.99 for the heavy cream $3.99 for the cheesecloth, about $.50 for one and 1/2 lemons. For a total of $10.97.

I can buy a container of BelGioioso ricotta at sprouts for $7.99 when it’s on sale, or $8.99 when it’s not. And there’s no mess to clean up.