This post has nothing to do with Sandy

Last weekend (9 days ago) I had a small accident, wherein I needed to stop our dog very quickly from chasing a squirrel into the street.  Sadly, all I had with which to attempt this task was my voice (only moderately effective at this point), the rope to which he was attached, and my bare hands.

So now I have minor rope burns that are finally starting to heal.  But over the course of the last week, I have learned that in 2009, Johnson & Johnson (not an S. C. Johnson company) discontinued the sale of their immensely popular First Aid Cream, which irks me no end.  When I go into a drug-type store now, all I see are antibiotic creams (unnecessary and possibly harmful in the long run due to overuse of antibiotics), "burn sprays" (overkill, and hard to apply to the webbing between my fingers anyway), and various aloe-type gels, which I'm not sure are safe to apply to broken skin.  This is annoying-- all I want is something I can rub onto a wound that will moisturize, soothe, and seal it/protect it a bit from the environment.  And there really isn't anything on the shelves that matches that.

After surfing Amazon's product reviews, I was informed of two things: to wit, 1) that a popular replacement is manufactured by Ambix Laboratories, a company that does not seem to have a web presence and about which I can find only limited information, and 2) that the old first aid cream apparently had a beeswax base, which may in part explain its disappearance since the price of beeswax has apparently skyrocketed (possibly due in turn to colony collapse disorder).

Horsepower

One horsepower is defined in the United States as equal to 746 watts, or (roughly) 550 foot-pounds of work per second, which translates as the amount of power needed to lift 550 pounds upwards one foot in one second.  A typical horse, by comparison, can lift just shy of 400 pounds the same distance in the same time.

Which is to say that an average horse has about 0.7 horsepower.  Which seems dreadfully unfair, somehow.

Danny Kaye died and went to Valhalla

No, really.

When actor, singer and comedian Danny Kaye died, may or may not have been rewarded by an afterlife of continual combat, death, glory, and resurrection in the halls of the Viking gods (probably not).  But he was interred in Kensico Cemetery, in the hamlet of Valhalla, NY (part of Mount Pleasant in Westchester County) back in 1987.

He wasn't much of a fighter, but given his history of entertaining the troops, it's not hard to imagine him stopping by to lead a rousing chorus of "Who dropped the mead barrel?" up there in the halls of Asgard anyway.

Rutabaga Monday!

Or, "Cooking with Rope Burns*†"

No fish today, I'm kind of sick of it.  But our CSA share on Saturday had some lovely rutabagas, so I dug into one of our vegetabley cookbooks and came up with the following new recipe.

1.  Peel roughly 2 pounds of rutabagas.  This may take a while-- the ones I had were remarkably hard to clean.
2.  Cube, cover with water, add copious salt, bring to boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
3.  Meanwhile (or beforehand, if you're an organized sort of person), peel, core and quarter an apple.  Slice 1 medium onion.
4.  Start caramelizing the onion in a little bit of butter and oil.
5.  When the 15 minutes are up, add the apple quarters and continue to simmer for another 10-15 minutes until tender.  Keep the onions browning over medium heat; proper caramelizing takes time and relatively low heat.
6.  Drain the (now) tender rutabaga and apple chunks.  Return to the pot, add a bit of milk and a little more butter, and mash to bits.  Mmm, catharsis.
7.  Check seasoning, top with caramelized onions and serve.

Very yummy.

*Pro tip 1:  Don't.
†Pro tip 2:  Wear gloves.

Chinese noodles

According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), the words "mein" and "fun" that appear in the names of Chinese noodle dishes are indicators of the type of starch the noodle is made from.  "Mein" noodles are made from wheat, and "fun" noodles are made from rice.  Not that lo mein can't be fun, mind you. [/obvious joke]

And, of course, in America foreign food terminology has a tendency to get really really confused, so there are no guarantees-- if you're trying to be gluten-free, buying chow fun might help, but then it might not.

Rusks and S'mores

Not together, mind you, although I suppose they could be.

Today I learned two minor food-related things-- first, that there is such a thing as a "rusk," which is a "sweet plain bread baked, sliced, and baked again until dry and crisp," when it's not a "hard crisp bread originally used as ship's stores."  I had never heard of it, but apparently it's a thing.  So there's that.

In another setting, from a podcast which usually isn't terribly foodie, I learned that it is possible to make a S'mores with a candy other than a chocolate bar.  I have no idea why this never occurred to me.  Reportedly Kit Kats don't work very well (which I can see), Snickers are pretty good, and Peanut Butter Cups are excellent, which I will verify the very instant that I can buy some marshmallows and set fire to something.

St. Kazimiers

There's a... well, a building, next town over from our place, of superficially indeterminate function, with a sign hanging outside calling it "St. Kazimiers."  This is not a saint of which I am familiar (to be frank, there are a great many saints of which I am not familiar, so this is no great surprise), but eventually I became curious enough to do a little research.

Kazimier is the Polish spelling of Saint Casimir, originally Casimir Jagiellon, prince of the Kingdom of Poland in the late 15th century.  He died a few years before Columbus sailed, if that gives you a better reference point.  I know it does for me-- I always have trouble keeping historical dates distinct unless I can cross-link them to something else I'm vaguely familiar with ("ok, when popcorn was introduced to the American settlers, it was before J. S. Bach, but after Shakespeare...).  Anyway.

Caz (may I call you Caz?  Thank you.) was an ardent Catholic, supporting Christian Poland against the Turkish encroachment.  He was offered the Hungarian crown as well as the Polish one, but was rebuffed in his attempts to travel to Hungary to accept, and had to retreat a fugitive.  He was extremely devout, a fact that unfortunately led more or less directly to his death-- his excessive devotions (fasting, mortification) left him weak, and he apparently contracted lung disease, maybe TB, and expired.

Several online articles about him mention "various miracles" but do not specify, so I have no idea what he is supposed to have done to qualify him for canonization, except possibly to be both royal and devout, which may have been enough if you're cynical like me.  He is now considered to be a patron saint of Poland, Lithuania, and the young.

Oh, and so the building is the St. Kazimierz Society, I guess somewhere between a church and a fraternal lodge.

Word for the Day - Dégagé

The word dégagé is possibly my new favorite word-- at the very least, it's my favorite word until I get distracted by something shiny, such as the new banking app that lets me deposit checks from my living room.  I love the future.

Where was I?

Oh, yes.  Dégagé is defined by the Big Book of choice as

1 : free of mental engagement and constraint of manner : carefree and indifferent to decorum : EASYGOING <I adopted a dégagé pose on the arm of a Morris chair -- S.J.Perelman> <rather dégagé after the nervousness he had shown at dinner -- Edmund Wilson>
2 : marked by a free and easy show of unconcern for strict conventions <the famous slouch hat with the nonchalant dégagé air -- A.J.Liebling> <a model of crushed pink velvet dipped low over one eye and soaring in a dégagé movement on the opposite side -- Hats>

It's like being nonchalant, or easygoing, only with less implications of slack and more class.  Because it's French.  I like to think that it describes me, actually.  But then, I suppose I would.  Also, I would like a slouch hat, even if it isn't necessarily famous.  I don't really need one made of pink velvet, though, no matter how Mad my Hatterdom.  That's a little bit too dégagé.

Weekend Roundup

This long weekend past afforded several opportunities to learn and try new things.  Here are two of them.  Tra la.

First, we broke and had to clean up our third (3rd) compact fluorescent light bulb, commonly abbreviated to "that goddam thing."  Three mercury spills is at least two too many, and we've had enough-- we're jumping ship.  One of the two table lamps received one of our precious stock of incandescents (cunningly stored in plain sight, a la The Purloined Letter, in a different lamp that doesn't get used much), and the other?  Ah, the other.  The other received a shiny new LED light bulb, rated at something like 800 lumens.  It cost 12 bucks, and I'm a little nervous, as reviews of other such bulbs suggest that their reliability... well, isn't.  But even if we end up having to replace it in 6 months (rather than the 20 years some have claimed), I think the piece of mind of not having to clean up mercury is probably worth it.

Secondly, on Sunday we took the dog and joined a (semi)local dog walking group for a roughly 4-5 mile hike.  Ok, not so much "hike" as "meander", but it was still nice-- especially for a couple of learning experiences.  We were on an isolated farm trail, away from roads and traffic, so we (somewhat nervously) let our slightly less than a year-old puppy Jet off of his leash for the first time in public.  Whereupon we learned the first thing-- he may not, in fact, have been named Jet because of his ebon hue.  He was likely named Jet because that's how goddam fast he was.  Holy CRAP fast.  30 mph?  Possibly more at full tilt?  (Greyhounds can go over 40, but I'm not sure he was quite that fast).  I'm pretty sure it'd take an Olympic sprinter to have a hope of keeping up with him in the full stretch.  This, amid our astonishment, also gave us a touch of concern, obviously, whereupon we learned the second thing-- when we called, he came right back.  Immediately.  This was astonishingly reassuring, and he spent most of the next hour or so off leash, running back and forth around the group, making friends and getting valuable experience interacting with other dogs.  Much love to Martha, the 9 year old lab who was willing to smack him around verbally and physically until he behaved.  (Side note-- we're beginning to suspect, based on some of his reactions, that his dam was a lab, and his father the shepherd).  He learned a lot about good behavior, and we learned that we could trust him off leash, at least in some circumstances.

Word for the Day -- ???

The tank in which sugar cane juice is clarified by treating it with a reagent (such as lime), heating it, and then separating out the scum and sediment, is, or at least was in the late 1800's, called a defecator.

Because deep down, I'm still 13 years old.

Ok, it's not really that deep down.

Ikea names

IKEA (all caps, that's apparently important) has a certain... reputation?  Image?  I'm not entirely certain what to call it, but whatever it is, IKEA's definitely got it.  And what it is?  Is kind of silly.

Now, I should disclaim, I don't think there's any IKEA ware in our household.  I've certainly never shopped at an IKEA store, or ordered from their catalog.  I can't completely swear that this is also true for my wife, but I'm reasonably sure.  So I don't really have any opinion one way or another-- I really just haven't had to buy any furniture in the last, oh, dozen years or so, with the exception of a couple of Sauder bookshelves, which are sort of IKEA Lite.  Or IKEA LITE.  Anyway.

So what I've learned is that all of those names that have inspired such amusement actually have a rationale-- different categories of items have different types of names.  Bathroom fixtures, for example, are named after Scandinavian rivers and lakes, etc.  Beds and wardrobes are Norwegian place names.  Garden furniture are named after Swedish islands.  Bookcases are sort of split-- a bookcase "range" will have an occupation name, but an individual bookcase will probably have the name of a Swedish man (curtains have the names of Swedish women).  Supposedly, according to this short article from The Guardian a few years back, the founder of IKEA was dyslexic, and found common proper nouns easier to remember and recognize.