Mama's House

Found via The Corner:

After the funeral of his friend Pope John Paul II., Joseph Ratzinger thought he'd be able to return home to Germany after 24 years in Rome. He had a plan - writing stories, stories about cats.

Joseph Ratzinger had cats around himself for decades, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The CDF is on the Via Aurelia, one of the most traffic-heavy streets in Rome. Daily, cats are killed or injured. Quite a few drag themselves into the garden of the CDF, where Ratzinger resided and movingly cared for them, feeding them, bandaging their wounds, watching them lie in the sun and slowly get better. And he gave names to all of them.

He wanted to write about these cats, but the election to the Papacy foiled these plans....

If you'll recall, I promised myself to learn how to cook one new dish each week of 2008. Last night was the first occasion to do so. To help keep myself honest I'm going to post each recipe I try.

So the first thing I tried to make comes from Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook. The dish is called Mexican Style Lime and Cilantro Poached Chicken or something like that - too lazy to look it up in the book. Despite the lengthy name it's given - or that I've given it - it's a real easy dish to cook that requires very few ingredients and little preparation. So give it a try.

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken 3-4 lbs.
  
• 4 or so sprigs of Cilantro
  
• 1 lime
  
• 3 cloves of garlic peeled
  
• salt and pepper

Instructions:

• Wash and dry chicken
  
• Season chicken inside with salt and pepper
  
• Place chicken in slow cooker and squeeze the juice of the lime all over chicken
  
• Stuff chicken with the used lime, cilantro, and garlic
  
• Season chicken on the outside with salt and pepper
  
• Cook on low for about 6 to 8 hours
  
• Remove chicken from slow cooker and save the drippings and place in fridge
  
• When chicken is cool enough, remove the skin

That's pretty much it. The important thing here is to save the drippings because that's where most of the flavor is and you'll be able to use it as a sauce. You can either skim off the fatty part of the liquid or you could place the drippings in the fridge and later skim off the fat, of course that takes more time.

Serving Suggestions:

• Place drippings in a pot and heat up a little to further reduce to use as a sauce
  
• You can then either eat the chicken carved up with rice and beans, or
  
• You can pick the meat off the bones and use it to make chicken tacos, or
  
• Use the chicken meat in any mexican dish like tostada, quesadilla, or nachos
  
• Be sure to cover the chicken with the sauce though or otherwise the chicken may be a little too bland

How did mine come out? Well I tried to make soft chicken tacos but the tortillas we had weren't the best for that purpose and because I was feeling a bit rushed I decided to save the drippings instead of using it to sauce the chicken so it was a little bland. The chicken was also a little cold after I was finished prepping it for tacos so it may have been a good idea to have reheated the shredded chicken in the pan with the drippings.

Anyway, lessons learned and I've got leftover chicken and the drippings to try new things. By the way, do those new things count towards my new dish for each week? Or do I have to come up with something completely different for next week? Well one down, fifty-one more to go.

Lindsey (1:50:55 PM): now i know what it feels like to be bubba from forest gump
Bruin7089 (1:51:04 PM): why?
Bruin7089 (1:51:09 PM): You keep eating shrimp?
Lindsey (1:51:23 PM): no cause i feel like i have a fatty lip
Bruin7089 (1:51:30 PM): Why do you have a fat lip?
Lindsey (1:51:46 PM): i got my wisdom teeth pulled out this morning
Bruin7089 (1:52:04 PM): just go to bed
Lindsey (1:52:16 PM): i am and have been
Lindsey (1:52:23 PM): my stupid surgery was at 8 am
Lindsey (1:52:40 PM): whatever shit they use to knock you out was the best sleep ive ever had
Bruin7089 (1:52:46 PM): i don't know
Bruin7089 (1:52:50 PM): When i had mine pulled
Bruin7089 (1:52:59 PM): i kinda woke up right after it was over
Bruin7089 (1:53:23 PM): i woke up as they were wheeling me out to the car
Lindsey (1:53:48 PM): yeah same here
Lindsey (1:54:00 PM): i was trying to go back to sleep when i woke up
Lindsey (1:54:09 PM): and the lady was like no no dont go back to sleep
Bruin7089 (1:54:13 PM): that sucks
Lindsey (1:54:25 PM): lady didnt want to lift me from the chair
Bruin7089 (1:54:26 PM): ahahahahahahaha
Bruin7089 (1:54:30 PM): bitch
Lindsey (1:54:38 PM): seriously.
Bruin7089 (1:54:39 PM): i think that's why i woke up too
Lindsey (1:54:50 PM): hahah bitches
Lindsey (1:56:38 PM): but it was cool when i first woke up at home i thought i was alright and then everything started to go white and i got really weak. it was quite the experience

In case anyone forgot, it was Angelynne's 1st birthday yesterday. Some of the things we've learned about her over the course of that first year are:

• She likes avocados
  
• She likes to be spun around
  
• Her poo is green
  
• She crawls like she's Spider-Baby on cold floors
  
• She likes to be thrown up in the air
  
• She cries on really long road trips the entire way
  
• She likes mashed potatoes
  
• Her favorite toy sings the alphabet
  
• She loves crawling up stairs
  
• She will occasionally bounce around to GHIII or Rock Band
  
• She loves Mickey Mouse
  
• She prefers milk over hard liquor
  
• Her idea is Paris Hilton
  
• She has a bratty brother and sister
  
• She has the coolest and smartest first cousins once removed
  
• She loves her naps
  
• She prefers dogs over cats
  
• Her idea of a perfect idea is a romantic candle lit dinner followed by a long stumbling walk on the beach

Happy Birthday Angelynne!

Replacement for the legendary Steve Perry is Filipino.

Read the article from Journey's Official Website.

YouTube video of CNN story

Performance with his old cover band the Zoo

...that is all

If you didn't catch this item about The World Famous Mud Run from the sidebar or my Google Reader page then shame on you. Here are the essentials:

The Mud Run is a challenging 10K run with hills, tire obstacles, river crossings, two 5-foot walls with mud on both sides, tunnel crawl, slippery hill climb, and the final 30-foot mud pit. Along the course there will be 6 water points with personnel staged at each. This is the most fun you can have running a 10K!

There's also a $50 registration fee and the race dates are June 7th, 8th, and the 14th. Registration is open to the first 4,000 for each race. LAist says it fills up by the end of January.

Why do this? Well I think it's great idea as a fitness goal that will help motivate me to keep a few of my New Year's Resolutions. Every time I tire while doing cardio, the mere thought of "Suicide Hill" will make me pick up the pace. Every time I think of passing on bench pressing, the idea that I'll have to push myself up to get my face out of mud will keep me from ending my workout early. Plus, how cool would it be to make it through an obstacle course with one of the obstacles named "Suicide Hill?"

Anyway, you can race in teams of 5 so I'm trying to do it that way, but if we end up with a number more than 5 that doesn't break down into teams of 5 we can all race together regardless and make sure each of us finishes. Lindsey and Austin have already committed. I think I've got another friend who will commit by this weekend and Lindsey says she also has a friend willing to join up in the team if needed. So that might be 5 already but if anyone wants to join let me know so we can all register for the same race day. Also, Lindsey says we can crash at her place for the entire weekend so maybe we can make it a weekend trip to San Diego.

So not only will you motivate yourself to get fit by signing up for this but it promises to be fun a lot of ways too. So stop being a prissy bitch and commit to this already! Seriously, let me know soon because I want to register by the end of this weekend.

Surprised; that's how I would describe myself last night after I had asked people individually about their New Year's Resolutions. Not because people came up with exciting ideas to better themselves but because, other than EJ, everyone pretty much blew off coming up with resolutions for this year. At first I thought they were just too busy, lazy, or had forgotten to come up with one but given time they simply refused to come up with any. I joked that it was probably because they were perfect so there was no need them to partake in a time honored tradition.

The common attitude seemed to be, what's the point? Not that it was too hard to come up with something or that they simply had forgotten to formulate one but a definite "who cares" attitude prevailed. Or more precisely - since by asking, I for one did care - it was a "why should I care" attitude. When did a majority of my aunts, uncles, and cousins stopped caring to consciously commit - because I'm talking about New Year's Resolutions here I use the term "commit" loosely - themselves to self-improvement?

Anyway, I thought it would be both insightful to see what others thought they would like to improve themselves on and fun to encourage/discourage them from doing so. Instead I come away a little disappointed.

Picture Credit.

EJ's woman says that our innocent little Annalynne looks just like the not so innocent Tila Tequila. So I decided to do a side-by-side comparison to see if that's true or not. Try to guess who's who.



Now for those who may have been confused that's Annalynne on the right and Tila Tequila on the left. Ok, so maybe that wasn't a fair comparison. What about the following?



I still don't see it. I mean other than the lounging on the couch thing there's not much to confuse the two. So let's do a couple more just to be really sure before I call EJ's woman blind.





Ok, those are fair comparisons and you know what? I think I'm actually coming around to seeing what EJ's woman was seeing. Ok one last comparison to be completely thorough with these comparisons.

Well what can I say other than I stand corrected. I think we can all agree that if Annalynne maybe just grows out her hair a little more then EJ's woman was correct in saying that Annalynne looks just like Tila Tequila.

On the way home from Vegas we passed over the Hoover Dam.

Darryll: Does anyone know what a dam is?
Paloma: A bad word.
Darryll: Okay, well besides that?
Kids: No clue, what is it?
Darryll: Well, its something built to restrict the passage of water.....in some cases its a way of capturing energy for other uses and beavers also build dams as part of their habitat.
Angela: Well how many beavers did it take to build this Hoover Dam?

Paloma and Angela spend the day on the couch as punishment. Yelling is limited to 10 cusswords and 4 sentences distributed at an aggravated level. Darryll does nothing because Sonia has shopped all the money away and I lost my spending money in Vegas, but I did try to eat my money's worth at various buffets. I currently weigh CLXXIII pounds.........doesn't look so bad in Roman Numerals.

UPDATE: By the way, in an attempt to get more responses, if you don't leave a comment about your resolutions I'll come up with a few for each of you. Do you really want that to happen?

Leave a comment telling everyone what your New Year's Resolutions are and maybe we can keep each other honest. I think a couple of mine are more than obvious to anyone:

• Get a job.
  
• Lose 25 pounds.
  
• Eat healthier.
  
• Keep going to the gym at least 4x a week.
  
• Bench press 225.
  
• Run 5 miles on the elliptical in 30 mins.
  
• Post on this blog daily.
  
• Read 1 book a week.
  
• Get better than Darryll on Rock Band drums.
  
• Don't let Jayden get better than me on Rock Band drums.
  
• Spend less time in front of tv.
  
• Learn to cook one new dish a week.
  

Relatedly, who is showing up tonight?

I know my political posts here are probably going to fall on deaf ears considering most of you who read this site are either avowed Democrats or apolitical. But I'm going to post it anyway so feel free to skip - really, you won't be hurting my feelings - or consider something new for a change.

Seriously, how can you not vote for Fred Thompson after watching this video? I'd like to echo the following sentiment,

While the other contenders are frantically saturating the Iowa airwaves with 30- and 60-second attack ads... Thompson has sat himself down, looked into a camera, and spoken for a quarter of an hour, calmly and straightforwardly making his case. I myself find this impressive—in a way, moving. Thompson seems to have stepped out of the eighteenth century. He trusts voters to think. And if the comments on YouTube are at all representative, plenty of people agree.

Politics as, from time to time at least, they really ought to be.

I'd like to emphasize that this video highlights how different of a political campaign Fred Thompson is running from the traditional campaigns that his opponents are running. It's that difference that I believe has led to the poor coverage of Fred's campaign. Coverage that I hope has led many of the talking heads on tv to underestimate Fred and his chances. And who knows, but if Fred were to be successful maybe this could be the start of getting more politics as they "really ought to be" and shouldn't that be reason enough to vote for Fred?

Now even if you're a Democrat you've got to consider him after his Reaganesque appeal towards the end.

You know, when I'm asked which of the current group of Democratic candidates I prefer to run against, I always say it really doesn't matter…These days all those candidates, all the Democratic leaders, are one and the same. They’re all NEA-MoveOn.org-ACLU-Michael Moore Democrats. They’ve allowed these radicals to take control of their party and dictate their course.

So this election is important not just to enact our conservative principles. This election is important to salvage a once-great political party from the grip of extremism and shake it back to its senses. It's time to give not just Republicans but independents, and, yes, good Democrats a chance to call a halt to the leftward lurch of the once-proud party of working people.

So in seeking the nomination of my own party, I want to say something a little unusual. I am asking my fellow Republicans to vote for me not only for what I have to say to them, but for what I have to say to the members of the other party—the millions of Democrats who haven't left the Democratic party so much as their party's national leadership has left them.