Virtual China: Sichuan China

  

 

Welcome to Sichaun.

 The name means 4 Rivers...and is indicative of the major rivers (Jialing, Jinsha, Min and Tuo) which flow through.

The language spoken here is Mandarin, and the religions are primarily Buddhist, Taoist and Chinese Traditional Folk Religion.      

The area is known for its hot and spicy cuisine and use of Sichaun Peppers.

Sichaun Peppercorns
 

(...we will try this later...)

The area is known for extremely spicy food...hot pots...the bamboo forests and giant pandas!

Also the Leshan Giant Buddha.

 Which we also will explore later.

  Sichaun Overview

https://youtu.be/92lw0OJnkOY

 

Walking the Sichaun Countryside

https://youtu.be/rfpQJhYKIT0

 

Until next time...

 

 

Birthdays...Mushrooms...and Our April Escape

Brenden is now 12...

 

and will be a teenager next year!

And I am now 62.

How the HELL did that happen????

                                                     laughing

One minute you are in your fifties...and BAM...just like that you have entered the sixties.

My sage advice for this next decade?

1. Live life to the fullest every day.

2. Always have something to look forward to...

3. Moisturize.

(...apparently the sixties is when crepey skin arrives...who knew???)

Since crepey is...well...creepy...bring on the Oil of Olay.

At 62...

 

 

Got my birthday morels...

and have been savoring them.

John and I had a wonderful Birthday Escape and spent a couple days in Terre Haute.

...it was The Best...

With balloons...

and a ceramic butterfly dish for trinkets...and BACON...yeah, ya gotta love a guy who knows you well enough to bring bacon...and stuff for Sofi...and a great room at the Inn...

And breakfast and dinner at one of our favorite restaurants...including an oh-so-decadent slice of Triple Chocolate birthday cake...

also this...

 Perfect for yesterday tidying the borders and plans and patio. 

Looks cute with shades and ponytail sticking out the back.

Soon to have bright yellow daffodil blossoms!

Actually, yesterday was warm enough to open N.P.B, but today and the rest of the week is suppose to be cooler again...and then there is the rain...so we will wait a while.

Back to doing Physical Therapy...Occupational Therapy...Luminosity (for brain exercise)...and learning a lot from my Sixty and Me Group.

(...including the aforementioned moisture tip...)

I have lost about ten pounds of the Covid 20 I had gained...still working on it.

Coco Chanel was right...after 50 a woman really does have to choose between her bottom or her face.

Lose too much the face looks gaunt...to make the face look good you have to get used to a bigger bum.

Life is Unfair.

Still we soldier on.

So are the Ukrainians.

Today is the 61st day of the Russian Invasion. 

Putin's 72 hour war has stretched into its third month now...and they are no closer to winning anything...in fact Russia is now staggering from sanctions from all sides.

At this point I am emotionally invested in the small mine-sniffing terrier called PATRON.

And have been for over a month and a half.

I am not a dog person...but you can't let anything happen to this little guy!

More later...

"We've decided you cannot leave us again...ever!"

                                                          Gadget and Sofi
 

 

Virtual China: Qinghai Cuisine "Scorpion Tail"

 

It has been difficult to find something I wanted to try from this area. Most  of the food is based on entrails and vegetables. 

Not in a good way.

Finally decided on Chen-Mahua (Scorpion Tails) which is actually a twisted fried bread which can be made sweet or savory.

This is a street food found almost entirely in Qinghai.

The name was derived from an infestation of actual scorpions here years and years back.

 Yeah..blah!

The bread twists are usually thin and twisted three times before dropping into the boiling oil.

Mine is a little thick.

When done they are crunchy and give a satisfying crack when bitten.

(...during the infestation...the crack was said to scare the scorpions away...)

Yeah...I'm not so sure about all that.

Tasty...and satisfying...and nothing to do with entrails.

Next time we will discover Sichaun.

Until then.

Easter...This Week in Ukraine...and The Batman

 

Yeah...it was kind of like this...

And this.

With a whole lot of this by the evening.

Talked to most of my kids...John...some of my grands...a lot of my friends...and both my sisters. 

Fixed an asparagus and ham quiche...fresh asparagus...fresh strawberries and strawberry cream muffins...oh and a chocolate bunny, of course!!

Nice relaxing Easter.

(...with early birthday morels on the way...can't wait!!!)

John won the "Find the First Dandelion of Spring" contest.

 

Dinner was wonderful.

Less palatable was DC's newest offering
 

Which, in my opinion, was pretty much unwatchable.

I tried.

I really did.

Twice.

Do yourself a favor...if you only see one movie this year...don't make it this one.

You've been warned.

Long..boring...badly acted...dark and brooding.

If you have been following the Invasion in Ukraine you will enjoy this series of photos.

Yes.

We sunk their battleship!

Huge, as it was the Russians flagship!

At first Putin carelessly tossed it off as

"...tis but a scratch..."

"Ye daft bastid...the ship is gone."
 

By the next day he admitted there was a fire aboard.

(...Neptune missiles launched into artillery will do that...)

The evening before the Kyiv Independent had already told the rest of us the ship had sank.

The Kremlin cooked up a story about how it was being towed back to port...then a heavy storm had come up suddenly...

(...yeah...right...)

And finally admitted the ship was gone.

Turkey rescued 54 sailors as she sank.

The captain died during the initial missile attack and/or subsequent fires.

And the rest of the crew...assumed sitting at the bottom of the Black Sea.

Zelenskyy and Kyiv still standing...53 days now.

Now to get this mess cleaned up...nibble leftovers...and get the day underway...

 More Anon.

 

 

 

Ukraine...Stepan...Justice Jackson...and Morbious

 

New Holland Bulbs...especially developed to commemorate Ukraine.

 It has been a progressive, but rough, week in the Russian Invasion. A lot of towns have been reclaimed by the Ukrainian troops...but with this has been much sadness.

 The discovery of civilian massacres...torture...mass graves...and devastation. Zelenskyy appears to have aged 30 years in 40+ days. 

 

Fighting seems to have moved to the Donbas region now.

Horrified to see what comes out of Maripol.

A train station packed with fleeing people trying to evacuate yesterday...last count 52 dead and 98 wounded badly...some missing arms and legs. 

"For the Children" painted in Russian on the side of the casing.

Suddenly my empathy for the Russian conscripts who entrenched in the Chernobyl hot-spot is gone.

Or as a Ukrainian Grandma put it

"Here...have a nice slice of pie."

And with her poisoned pies she managed to kill 8 Russian soldiers.

IKR???

Even the Grandmas here are bad-assed.

Ukrainian cats have been making headlines, too...

From Stepan who is now evacuated and entered into a major award contest...

Which, if won, the proceeds go directly to Ukraine.

To a variety of badass cats found amidst the death and rubble...

and THIS GUY...

Who does not look afraid...or traumatized...but severely pissed off and ready to kick Russian ass and take names!

"Just LOOK what you've done to my house!!!!"

Watched history being made this week...

 With the confirmation of Justice Jackson!

Three Republicans (Romney, Collins and Murkowski) crossing party lines along with all 50 Democrats to make this happen.

Gives me hope.

And speaking of hope-

An IM from Nicole this morning...assuring me I will be able to see Emma and Aiden despite the impending divorce.

I have been so worried about my grandchildren through the split.

This week's movie:

Jared Leto at his very best.

(...watched it twice...)

Completely makes up for his performance in House of Gucci.

His crystal blue eyes and dark sharp features give him an other-worldly look long before his transformation.

Not War and Peace...it is a vampyrish movie for godsake...but good storyline...excellent acting...nice special effects.

Definitely worth your time!

Completely a Cinderella Saturday, here. Wash me..scrub me...dust me...declutter me.

Have a Great Weekend!
 

April...All The Seasons in One Week...Return of The Rona...Politics and More

 

This week has been bizarre.

First it is in the 20's and everything is frozen...then it is 40 but raining...Wednesday was sunny and 74 degrees...then back to gray and raining...Friday Morning was WTF and woke to a light coating of SNOW...IKR???

Today they promise more rain...but tomorrow it will be sunny and near 50.

Welcome to Spring in Indiana.

The nearby willow tree has greened up...and my daffodils are now sprouted about an inch...the grass is greening nicely and the lawn crew is back hauling mulch...so there is hope!

Frankly, I've been too engrossed in a local business/bank error to even notice.

An honest mistake by a local business...dominoed into a nightmare this week. I noticed that they had overcharged my Visa by 39.04 (...in retrospect...I should have just eaten the loss and moved on...) Talked with the business-owner who acknowledged that it was an honest mistake...and then she advised I call the number on the back of my card to dispute the charge and have it removed/refunded.

 

Sounded easy enough.

Yeah, right.

(...can you hear my eyes rolling from there???)

When I rang up the number on the back of my card...it soon became apparent that Visa outsourced their help-calls...and that the guy who answered did not understand me and that English was not his first language.

By the time we had brokenly communicated with each other...he had disputed my electric bill for 139. instead of the local business 39. overcharge.

This would reflect on my online account.

I immediately contacted the electric company....and Visa...who righted the situation...

And then I made the mistake of trying to explain the 39.04 overcharge...this time to a well-meaning...also outsourced woman...maybe in Dubai.

OMFG!

She said she fixed the problem...she fixed it, ok...

She marked it as a case of fraud...and cancelled the card and sent a new one with a new number and pin and everything.

Jesus Wept...

I still have not had the charge removed...have a new card number and PIN to memorize...and have learned a very important lesson.

Never ever ever call the help-number on the back of your Visa.

You're Welcome.

And The Rona is back...or soon will be coming to a town near you.

Not that it ever really left, of course.

You may be so done with it...but it is certainly not done with us.

Now there is the B2 variant...and it has already arrived on the EC ( New York) and the WC (San Diego) 

In China and the UK it has already taken over as the dominate strain.

John has already got his 4th shot...and I am scheduling mine.

(...if we have to do these yearly like the flu vaccine...I'm good with that...)

Entering the third year and we have vaccinated and masked...tested and socially distanced...you know what we haven't had???

Covid.

So yeah...there's that.

 

Krispy Kreme got me with its April Fools gag of a cologne that smelled exactly like a hot original glazed doughnut.

"Just shut up and take my money."

And Twitter unkindly teased us with the possible addition of an edit button...lol...real funny.

The Russians have retreated from Kyiv and surrounding areas...Zelenskyy is still standing...and for seven buses full of troops...have fucked around and found out WHY there is still an exclusion zone 36 years after Chernobyl.

I feel sorry for a lot of these young soldiers who were not even born when the melt-down occurred.

The engineers maintaining the defunct plant tried to warn them...to no avail.

To make matters worse, a large group entered The Red Forest

In the Exclusion Zone...possibly the most radioactive spot on the planet...and will be for my lifetime...my children's lifetimes and their children's lifetimes...and drove heavy machinery through it raising columns of radioactive dust...and dug trenches in it...and camped (bivouc) here for three weeks.

At which time they all had Acute Radioactive Poisoning and were taken away in 7 buses to a hospital in Belarus where they were met with doctors in Hazmat suits...and grim prognosis.

Most will die of radiation poisoning...soon.

The rest will develop cancers within the next 5 years.

Yeah...invisible can STILL kill you.

The forest is called 

The Red Forest

because this is the way it appears on Infrared Film. 

36 years later the area is still highly radioactive.

 Gearing up for our midterm elections in November.

The possibilities are endless.

My primary concern is voting out Todd Young.

We have a real chance to change the face of politics with this election...and all we have to do is show up and vote blue.

Enjoy your weekend!