NO ugly cookies

NOTE: guess i forgot to post this one for some reason

for the 4th of july party i decided to make cutout cookies in the shape of stars. i thought cookies won't melt in the sun and everybody likes a cutout cookie.
very appropriate don't you think?

i mixed them up, chilled them, rolled them, cut them out, baked them, and then i made the frosting.
it was a new frosting recipe and it actually was an excellent one.
but after i got the frosting on and started in with the sprinkles, i could see that they just were not going to be pr'E no matter what i did. and of course, i made a double batch - so then i had about 60-70 uglyUglyUGLY cutout cookies - and no time to try to make something else to take.

the ugly cookies were going with me to OK.

i made mention of the ugly cookies on the facebook page - where the OK! cousin can see.

i tell ya, those OK! cousins are some real shits!

when we pulled into their driveway they had these signs posted in the doorway - check out the 'examples' of what is 'excellent' and what is NOT ALLOWED.




and my reaction:

the 4th here and gone

we were in Oklahoma this past weekend. another couple went with us over to the OK! cousins.
sometimes people mix well, and sometimes not so much. i'm trying to make this work - but the truth is, the other gal and i just don't have much in common. and the more she tells about how her financial relationship is between her and her man, the more i'm losing all respect for both of them.

of course it's NONE OF MY BUSINESS! but she keeps telling me - why do you suppose that is? i have asked her why she puts up with that crap and all she says is, "it's better than being alone."

i guess we all have our price that we will pay to avoid being alone, eh?

ok, so i cracked a beer kinda early that day and ended up being a passenger rather than one of the drivers on the ATV - thank GOD i remembered the salt shaker so i could continue drinking&riding.





Below is a dilapidated tribal graveyard - each of the roofs are from these little 'houses' they build over the graves. inside they place some of the deceased's favorite things - usually articles of clothing and such. it's quite interesting to see. this particular graveyard does not get much maintenance - as you can see. the other one we went to was for indians of foreign wars - that seemed to be kept up a bit better - there was even one of the 'houses' with a red tin roof.








i caught the hen and her chick in the hen house settling down for the night. we were surprised to see that the chick could get up to the top rung of the roost. the chick stayed safely tucked under the hen's wing - the flash of the camera did not seem to startle them in the least.




check out the bench seat 'molded' between the trees. this is on the farm where the party was on the 4th. part of the land used to house arock quarry. on the backside of this is this oldOldOLD shambled rock building. one of the "farmer's daughters" told me she thinks that is where the owners of the rock quarry lived - unfortunately, my camera would not get any decent photos of it in the dark - and i was not going to chance crawling under the electric fence to get closer - and going over the electric fence - well that is just dumb



some of the OK friends killing worms and minnows.

some more of then

I haven't mentioned lately how much I am enjoying my new ZEN V Plus player. I ripped and burned several books on CD to it before the trip and am still going through them on the morning walk. It's Grrrrrrrrrrreat! But unfortunately, when I lie down to listen, I fall asleep. Then I have to playback until I figure out where I dropped out at. That is not so grrrrrrrreat.

One of the things my Dad was adamant on, regarding the AK trip, was that we bring lots of salmon home. Well, that we did - about 40 pounds worth. There were 5 in the fish wheel when we arrived outside of Glenallen. One was a big king red. Tony (the owner of this fish wheel) swapped it out with someone else's down the river as the red salmon are really only good for smoking according to those that fish salmon and we weren't going to be there long enough to wait for that. Yeah, I did not know that the reds are generally used only for smoking by the natives because when a king turns red, they are about to die. Imagine that -- cuz in the market, the canned red salmon is considerably higher priced. Interesting, huh? BTW, fish wheels are illegal for the non-Alaskan natives, but that does not stop the seven owners of the seven wheels that were set in this area. A little rebel in us all.

Here's a pic of me after grabbing one of the silver salmons out of the fish wheel on the Copper River (which is a glacier river, hence the silvery gray color of the water). Obviously, it has just dawned on me that coming down the ladder was a helluva lot easier than going back up and I'm contemplating how many strides it will take me to get back to land ... without getting wet, of course.



Before I left, Peg gave me this pic. It's so appropriate for us. I hung it in the office across from where I sit so when I look up it is the first thing I see. I miss her.

back home blues

The poop plugging pills that the doc gave me the day before leaving for Iowa worked wonders and I was able to make it up there. I was in discomfort and kept my distance from Dad and the family so as not to give IT to anyone. The next morning I got up and felt much better and the best news was that Dad felt good and it seemed we were going to Alaska.

We boarded the plane and off we went. Peg picked us up at 8:30 Thursday night and the vacation was on. We had decided to do an 'on' day and then an 'off' day in order to keep it paced well for Dad to be able to enjoy all that we had planned.

I can never put into words how fabulous it is to see Peg. We just click. And when we laugh, we laugh til it hurts ... and several times we ended up peeing our pants. I love her so much, it tears me up when I think about how I wish we lived closer, but know that it's not going to happen any time soon.

To keep it short, we did see a lot and I got to drive the 2.5 mile tunnel that goes into Whittier and we saw the lazy man's way of fishing salmon and ended up bringing home about 40 pounds of the stuff. We took a train trip (now THAT'S the way to travel!) and then on a 5 hour boat cruise through Resurrection Bay where we saw 2 orca whales, a humpback whale, harbor seal, puffins, black bear and cub and much more. It was a wonderful time and Dad says he's going back in two years.

I'm in!