"What would it take to get rid of an embarrassing symbol of racism and a very long time of shame of this country?"
(this is not the flag, but the original flag of the confederacy)
Amazon, Ebay, Alabama, flag manufacturers (who make flags for a living), and even freakin' Walmart who would sell grandma's organs in exchange for orphans' souls if it made a profit (I am speaking metaphorically, poetically, and for all intents and purposes legally comedic here, so please don't sue me, I have hardly any grandma organs or orphan souls for you to take)...anyway, all have said the price has been paid. done.
It was a price, a stupid, stupid price, not really a price, but enough just stupid evil that some woke up and said... enough.
You might say that the flag meant something else, you also might say that it is part of our collective history, but there is another symbol that has history, the ancient Greeks used it, Hindus and Buddhists, even the Navajos. It was a symbol of good luck, a symbol linking heaven and earth, hell, even early christians used it, but at some point (maybe roughly the latter part of the first half of the last century), we as a collective, said, nope, it was done.
(this is about as close as I am going to get to this, really, in a mirror?)
On the plus side, sometimes we all need to take a step back and watch a video of baby hippos swimming. I saw an advertisement for Tylenol, and generally we hate advertisement, but damn: "It is not who you love, but how you love," despite groups like one million (morons) moms, we are winning!
Tylenol, crap, now I need to get a headache, maybe sharpie on the face will do it.
(be forewarned, this is the post of the damned. It was started back in dark dark days of midspring, was doomed to that purgatory of "can't quite get the damned thing done", then suffered from "moron forgot to save it and much was lost and had to be pulled from that colander you call brain", you might already feel a chill, a coldness of the soul, a weakening of the vapors, a strange numbness of the loins, or maybe you put on the fairy queen's underpants by mistake, it can happen, don't judge)
now let's begin...
(His mom was from "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! F-yah!", and there is some story about her being from Jerome, AZ. Not the Jerome in England, but the one near Mexico... there was a copper mine where they found the only sample of Cu4O3 found in nature, look it up, we be all about the edutainment here at Phrodaux and the Fairy Queen)
You know what I love about the British, besides Doctor Who, their fondness for the comedic value of the nekid backside of middle aged men, and Dame Edna? {FQ Sidebar to Phrodaux: Dame Edna is Australian, dear.} {{Phr return sidebar - Commonwealthians}}
(the dame has left the building, not dead- wow, way to go dark, just retired, a girl needs her time away, ever notice that Winston Churchill and Dame Edna are never seen together, kinda like Clark Kent and Superman, Superman robots don't count, just tossing that out there.... )
The British!
They were in India (that is not the good part, who do you think we are? monster. Pakistan.) and when they all got malaria and needed quinine as a "tonic" they thought "blimey (as the Brits are in the habit of saying on 'merican sitcoms), you know what would go well with having malaria and taking a tonic of quinine? GIN! and maybe a splash of lime!"
That is much like the time I needed penicillin (no, not for that as far as you know) and thought that it would make a nice mixer with tequila (I was not only wrong, but still infected).
I know, get to the f-ing point.
...you should feel bad, as tonic was the point.
We not only made our own bitters (see previously posted ramblings) and our own "gin" (not really to be spoken of in mixed company, and when I say mixed I mean, more than just talking to myself, rommel, rommel, there might have been Saki involved) We made our own Tonic! with quinine and everything! (I tested it with my home made UV light, because, you know, I'm cool, home made UV light cool)
(what I really want to know is what happened to the Grimace's other two arms? was there some sort of hot apple pie accident that no one in McDonaldsland was to speak of ever again? or that one time that Officer Big Mac went off the book, and a much less happy meal, "do you feel lucky punk? do you want fries with that or should we just super size this sh!t")
ok. things got dark. let's talk about our feelings and maybe sing a song about how McDunderland is not "real".
(side note from future me, not the me that wrote most of this post above sometime in early April weird that I was on about the hamburgler, then sometime in early May, before I posted, the McDevils came out with the new and creepy pedo hamburgler who lived in the suburbs? WTF?!?! even more WaDaFaque than missing Grimace arms, not to mention those weird breast like pockets on his ribbed for pleasure fat folds that he kept the stolen shakes in... ewww.) (here is another note from future me to past me, make sure you save your changes, when you reboot you will lose a whole bunch and this damn post will be put off until f-ing late June)
hey!
We made tonic!
(Am I the only one a little turned on now?)
We may or may not have met Witchy Poo in the process [did I mention that Sid and Marty sued McDamian's for more or less (it was more, way) stealing H.R. Puffinstuff for McPurgatoryland? no? ask me about it sometimes, fascinating shite that there is...]
TONIC!
(apropo of nothing, this is a picture of a formerly happy, happy dog, who is about to be much less happy and much more manic as he is heading toward the third bath of the weekend. Thus came the often quoted phase "these are not Lake Oswego Westies")
We mostly followed the recipe by Jeffrey Morgenthaler, but as it might have been mentioned, Phrodaux may have issues with following recipes, so not so strictly Jeffrey's recipe, and not so strictly repeatable, but we all have issues. That damn flute wasn't really a flute now was it...teenage boys and all, even the British ones).
Did I mention tonic?
(I may need a moment here)
RECIPE! damn it! RECIPE!
(yes, looks kinda nasty, smells wonderful, kinda like Ernest Borgnine who apparently smelled like Belgium...waffles... prove me wrong)
mix some stuff together, it will smell good, look like cat vomit, but get over it. Boil, cool, filter, add some more stuff, more filter, put in oh-so-fancy bottles, mix with ice, lime, gin, a bit more gin, some soda water, and some gin.
maybe a bit more detail. TONIC RECIPE!
here is his basic recipe, you should go look at his site, we may be bad people, but not completely horrible.
4 cups water
1 cup chopped lemongrass
¼ cup powdered cinchona bark
zest and juice of 1 orange
zest and juice of 1 lemon
zest and juice of 1 lime
1 tsp whole allspice berries
¼ cup citric acid
¼ tsp Kosher salt
agave nectar, roughly 3/4 cup per cup of other goo.
(cinchona
bark, no matter how many times the measuring scoop goes through the
dishwasher the film of powder remains. Don't taste it. Phrodaux did, see
next picture)
(it was bitter, so bitter my beard fell out and I became an old woman... sphincter.)
Like I say, recipe-ish. I add a bit of dried citrus zest, sometimes orange, sometimes lime, sometimes something I find behind the old cookbooks that talk about "aspic".
then maybe random spice, but random is as random does... plate of shrimp.
Boil all the ingredients except the agave, turn down to low and let steep for ~20ish mins.
then let cool, filter.
here is where we and Herr Mixologist Morgenthaler "differ" he says filter, you can use coffee filters, it might take an hour. Have you seen "Interstellar"? hour on his planet=3 days on ours. And "coffee filter"="half a pack of 1000 coffee filters" swapped out every 7 mins over three days. Just go ahead and quit your job (it will kinda be worth it).
(I guess I live here now)
Since this batch we actually found a "reusuable cold coffee filter" at the grocery store, seems to work like a champ. Fill with stuff to filter, squish like you're squishing something squishy that really, really needs squishing (king of metaphor, thank you very much), and Bob's your uncle, done (my Uncle was named "Joe")
once it is filtered, Jeffrey (can we call you Jeffrey? I feel close to you now) says to reheat the filtered liquid, then add 3/4 cup of agave syrup to every cup of other goo. This tends to make it a bit sweet for us, but still. I also am not sure about the need for reheating. Seemed to disolve pretty good without, but so.
Let said mixture cool, put in fancy, fancy bottles to impress the townsfolk. Don't fill when still hot as you don't wanna go breaking the bottle, or my heart, you could even if you tried.
(this would be the musical interlude. Kiki Dee, Kiki Dee, Kiki Dee. I may have just summoned Ms. Mattews)
you might say "But Phrodaux, how does one use this tonic in everyday life such as mine, my life being all beige and less interesting than yours?" to which I would say "no, I am not interested in an extended warranty on my 25 year old car, how did you get this number?" Then I would say...
(the fruits of our labors, the cocktails of our labors, the fruit cocktails of our labors... plate of shrimp...I may be batman)
Recipe! (two in one post, I should really stretch first)
Tumbler about half full of ice.
(start with that it will make the rest nice and frosty
2 parts gin.
1 part tonic (you made this, don't you feel proud?!?!)
(DO NOT PUT CHICKEN IN YOUR GIN AND TONIC!)
A bit of lime zest (do this before next step) it makes it fancy, we are all about the fancy. Just a twist.
The juice of a lime (harder to zest once juiced).
The tears of a small child who gets no chicken for dinner... (optional)
Drink at dusk, sitting on porch, watching the shift change from swifts to bats, while discussing trivial matters of the day (or as spell check tried to make this, "tribal matters of the day", your choice. I prefer trival matters as it goes better with gin and shaking your fist at random cars that dare drive past.
You will love this, once you get over the fact that it is a) nothing like "tonic water" found in stores b) brown c) less sweet (depending on the amount of agave you add) and d) just better. If you don't think so, we feel a bit sorry for you, you might need professional help, or maybe a telethon.
Has the Fairy Queen mentioned that she is a black and white sort of person? Gray areas and ambiguity and uncertainty are not her thing. But right now she's swimming in all that, as it is June, the time to be on the cusp of things.
Five more days at school with kiddos. One of the many things they don't tell you at teacher school is that every single year it breaks your heart to let them go. I said that to Phrodaux yesterday and he said, "Really? Even that first year, the year you cried EVERY DAY?" Yes, even then, because the good ones got drowned out by the bad and partly I cried for how much I needed to learn and how much better I needed to be.
But this year, THIS year I won the teacher lottery: lovely children, nice parents, the world's best assistant. A combination that doesn't come around very often. One that made me close my door and keep my head down while colleagues were dealing with lousy version of all those things. So on the last day of school, when I go down the line at 3:12 and say to every single kiddo, "Hug or handshake?" I will shake and embrace while fighting back tears because I got to learn and grow with these particular children and now they disperse, never to be "mine" again.
So one gray cuspy kind of thing is that this week floats between real school and not. We will do some work but we will also have field day and go to the movies (!) and eat green-frosted cupcakes to celebrate Hulk-smashing the horrible tests and make paper airplanes and show off at our classroom Expert Day and clean up our Google drives and play.
And then, at 3:15 on Friday, they go. I work a little more, then on the following Wednesday it is summer vacation even for me. Which is why, right now, I don't quite know how to be. Teacher self or regular self? In charge of things person, or let it all go? Person too tired to contemplate major projects or well-rested person with all the time in the world?
I'm the first one of all those choices but can see the others out of the corner of my eye: soon, soon. But the transition isn't seamless. Without a pile of schoolwork in my capacious teacher bag, I feel sort of twitchy. Endless hours to read and putter? What? And the kids will show up in my dreams for a while, crashing or thriving or just doing what they do and the insane part is that you never really get to know if you had any effect at all. Letting go of outcomes is NOT my thing. I hate that part.
I know, I know, such a problem to have: brain melt before a few weeks off. I am shutting up about it, promise. In mere days, I will take some Mo advice: roll around in the grass, then take a nap. Everything will be clearer after that.
Spring break.
That most magical time of year for people that you may have seen once on MTV back in the day when it had some "M" where the young went to drink to excess and experiment with new and hip genital warts.
eww. Sorry. I promise never ever to use the word "warts" in association with the word "genital" ever again. I will promise to use those words independently, but not together. "Surprise prostate exam" is also one of those phrases (I may use those words together again, as there is a story, not about me, about a friend, really, a friend, not one of those "so, I have this friend with warts...." no really someone other than me...)
...shut up.
(this is my belly, apropos of nothin')
...but I digress.
we recently had spring break. {Fairy Queen sidebar: Well, we say RECENTLY but really it was 2 months ago and life just got in the way and you are just going to have to live with old news. The pictures are good, so deal with it.} {[Phrodaux: we are within the statute of limitations on spring break, which is either until the resulting prescription runs out or the summer solstice occurs, P-man out.]} There was no beer bongage, no showing of teats (well, some, but mostly Phrodaux's and on at least one occasion in response to a yellowjacket attack).
our spring break was farm based, and not in an "Arnold Ziffel" farm way, but in a "how much can we pack into a 9 day period in rural Oregon way (yes, Oregon, now you know, and knowing is half the battle, yo."
(this is pretty much what the farm was like over spring break, but more compost and less Lady Jaye, though Duke was kinda dreamy... shut up.)
There was hiking, again Nubie showed us all up, how does that little dog never get tired? Opal creek, steam engines, perdy waters, etc.
The hike was something like 6.5 miles. We broke the little dog, but Nubie? He was ready for the next walk before we made it back to the car. The path there was mostly a road, more than three miles of road, but still.
The way back? The other side where you can better see the oh so pretty green creek (yes, green like some sort of stone, maybe topaz) that was more path. Well, not path, but active stream bed. Mo, who has never passed a puddle that didn't have little dog feet in, was digging it, splash, mud, splash, more mud, repeat.
Before: Trail is a creek, whoohoo!
After: So tired but I am NOT sleeping, not sleeping, not....
Nubie? while not actively enjoying the "this is not the couch" time, just kept going, and was only really pissy when he was not leading us all back to the couch (and better when the couch has a pile of pillows for small dog to sit upon)
(yes, yes, I know portrait, not landscape, blah, blah, I'm so not...look a cute dog. You monster, he takes like 6 pills a day...you monster)
pictures here, aren't they nice?
There were new garden beds, compost, my fabulous truck (that FQ hates, but she is mistaken, we feel sorry for her for this) post hole digging including removing a significant chunk of the earth's core (rocks can be f-ers), electrical work (the next owners will curse me, but I will kinda deserve it), beets (beats, yo.), blah blah, this all needs many wordlings changed...but given impending Junedom, likely just posting and saying "who actually reads this anyway"... should I be worried that my imaginary friend is giving me the silent treatment... that bastage... like I believe that "I'm the imaginary friend"... hello?
(this is where we will be growing the pod people who will not be replacing you while you sleep. Go ahead and take a nap... really, it will be fine)
(Beets, not by Dre, but by the Fairy Queen. Really, given the choice, which would you really want to jam into your head, and remember, this is for posterity so be honest.)
(I'm not entirely sure of what I am pointing at here, could be a tree, could be a turkey)
(I am more proud of this than I should be, a) new (sorta, well, not, it is old) tool b) welded cast iron cause it was broke c) you can't weld cast iron, even if it is broke d) I WELDED CAST IRON so no longer broke! e) all of the above - it works!)
(this is my new (to me) table saw. I had to take it all apart to get it out of the old guy who passed away's shop as it was so full of cool stuff. My goal in life is to be the old guy that you have to take apart the table saw to get out of his shop because it is so full of cool stuff, after he passes away. I have a dream.)
(welcome?)
{Last FQ Sidebar: Pretty! Spring break is daffodil season. In the last 5 years we've planted something like a thousand bulbs. Look!}
... and like James Bond movies, "coming soon... Octobooby", but not octobooby, as Boobys are not a native bird here, and if there were eight, it would be sad, as they would be very cold. But their blue feets are so so cute.
If left to her own devices The Fairy Queen would live In an apartment of books and spices (With a kind and patient landlord down the hall).
It's been written here before: the FQ is not a fixer, really. (Phrodaux: not entirely true, FQ on an early date showed potential mate her pipe wrench and told the tale of the evil P-trap, she has done plumbing, but as all wise and knowing people do, deny the fact when others are willing to deal with that oh so evil task, f-plumbing) Though she did put the coffee press back together recently, and was very pleased with herself. And Phrodaux is not just a fixer, he's a maker. In fact, in PPL (Pre-Phrodaux Life), it would never have occurred to the FQ that regular people who live in regular houses and have actual jobs would make a whole number of things. Such as, you ask? Well... * Furniture
* Giant rebar flowers
* Gates
* Prosthetic finger tips
And it certainly would not have occurred to her to make bitters from scratch, because really, who would do that? And what are they, anyway? It's just a little bottle that gets lost in the door compartment of the fridge, right? And they're all the same anyway so what is the big old deal?
Wrong and wrong and wrong again. I officially apologize to Camera Guy S, who once asked if we had Peychaud's bitters for the drink he was going to make and I said, "We have some kind of bitters, how can it possibly matter?"
Apparently there is a whole world of bitters, maybe a universe or at least a galaxy or two. Now that we have taken one tiny step in that direction, it seems that we are hooked. This is a journey, pumpkin heads, so get a drink (maybe a cocktail...which must have BITTERS) and relax.
It all started with the Professors, who gifted us with this at Christmas:
So of course we had to make them. Turns out, there are a lot of ingredients. Seriously. And not stuff you just have sitting around, either. I mean, we had the coriander seeds and peppercorns and cardamom pods. But cassia? QUASSIA??? (yes, those are two different things) So, picture a cold but sunny Saturday in January. We are on a mission: bitters ingredients. First stop is the nice spice store. There we knock off 2/3 of the list. No luck with the gentian root, though. The nice spice lady assured us we could find it at a spot just down the street.
We headed off with our fragrant purchases, looking for the next store. No, not a store, a house. An old, creepy house with nasty aging hippie patchouli stink wafting out of it. So much worse inside: crystals and dream catchers and posters for drum circles and covens and all manner of stupid quasi pagan sh#t (Phrodaux here: don't forget the magic knives). The FQ knows, she ran with those people for a time. Camped with them, actually, out in the rainy woods, where there was nothing to eat except oatmeal for breakfast and millet all other times except at the erotic feast where there were strawberries and chocolate but you had to have someone feed them to you and they were too stoned and I was starving and cold and really, really hungry. But that is another story.
ANYWAY. Dippy black velvet-clad girl on a sagging fainting couch sees us and says, "Did you need me?" To which FQ gets to reply, sternly, "No, we need gentian root." Which you buy in a tiny ziploc for something like $1.25.
But we still need quassia and dried black walnut leaf. Phrodaux finds, while we Portland-out at the food cart/wine store combo, another herb store. We go with much trepidation: please, no more patchouli, no runes, no divination. We are happily surprised, though. This place is bright and clean and not stinky. My only complaint is that the black walnut leaf is filed under B for black, not W for walnut, black. Quassia, by the way, is tree bark. (Phrodaux: not even tree bark, but just ground up wood, granted, really really bitter wood chips, yes I tasted them, why do you ask?)
Good gravy, this is a long post. Are you even reading anymore? Let's fast forward to bitters assembly:
What is all that stuff? Oh, I forget. High proof vodka for one recipe, high proof rye for the other. Piles of dry citrus rind Phrodaux had been hoarding for weeks. That tree bark thing. It's a lot of stuff. But once you have all the stuff, it's easy - you pour it all into a jar, leave it on the counter, and shake it once/day for two weeks. Voila! All ready to take to your lovely friends on your annual beach weekend exactly 2 weeks from now! Right?
Hmm. This, lovelies, is when we remind you to read the entire recipe first.
While we were enjoying beach weekend, the bitters were in phase 2.
There was straining through coffee filters and adding of uber-syrup+water, and more sitting around, and eventually more straining. Altogether, this is a 4+week process (keep that in mind). But look! Look what we did!
OK, granted, it doesn't look like much, given the hunting and gathering and pagan-suffering and shaking and straining. But, oh, bunnies, if only we could convey the scent of this stuff. The orange bitters smells like every kind of citrus, back when you could only get oranges in winter and MAYBE one kind of super seedy tangerine and when the FQ's dad brought home a box of Texas ruby red grapefruits from a kind trucker customer, there was much rejoicing.
And the aromatic bitters, which is something like (but of course much better than) the Angostora bitters we saw for $15.95 per tiny bottle, smells like every lovely thing. Like Christmas, and a kindly great grandma's spice cupboard, and nice things baking in the coffee shop/bookstore you always meant to open.
Seriously, this stuff is EVOCATIVE. They are bitters, but the process of making them has been pretty sweet. (Sorry, didn't that joke have to be made?) At any rate, we are now stocked up with two kinds of bitters, but plotting the next batch. Rhubarb, maybe, or wild carrot. Who knows? Our cocktails and our spice cabinet will never be the same. (Phrodaux: they have been giving us blood oranges at work lately, that he has been squirreling away, like a squirrel does with nuts, but with blood oranges. Kinda feel like a vampire without the scurvy.)
