Everyone has a signature recipe, and I'm sharing mine with you...   6-8 apples, peeled, cored and sliced. 1 cup pecan pieces 28 Kraft caramels 2tbsp water 1 9" pie crust (preferably deep dish) For the topping: 1 stick butter, sofetened. 3/4 cup all purpose flour 1/2 cup sugar (white or brown - I prefer brown) 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Placed sliced apples in pie crust.  Sprinkle pecan pieces over apples.  Melt caramels and water over very low heat - ...

I'm inspired to recount this tale by Myrrander's article about people smelling..... I read this in a British magazine's 'Agony Aunt' column a few years ago, but it has stuck with me ever since - you'll see why. As some of you may know, the British have a reputation for having horrible personal hygeine and bad teeth.  The following will only reinforce that reputation.  'Dear Deirdre, I am a 42 year old man who has had a lady-friend for the last year and a half.&nb...

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has called the 2005 installation closure list 'the mother of all closures'.  Roughly 100 bases, posts and stations are slated to close, saving the government up to $6.5 billion.  You can check out what the projected list looks like here: Link The base we just moved from is on there.  Ellsworth needed to close years ago.  It's a tiny base, it has a limited function...the planes that are stationed there could easily be incorporated into...

A 'friend' of ours (I use the term very loosely, you'll see why in a bit) is going through a mid-life crisis.  I swear, this guy's losing his freakin' mind! 'F' is a detective.  He's been a detective for 6 years.  As a detective, you would think that he would have learned from his subject's mistakes - first of all, to not be decepetive, but secondly to cover your tracks and to not get caught.  F and I have never really done well together.  We kept eah other at arm...

In my local newspaper there is a section entitled 'Sound Off'.  People get to call in and 'sound odd' about news stories and public affairs. In this morning's paper, I found this little gem: It always amazes me how many retired military are political conservatives.  They have spent 20 years or more in the service with free food, clothing, housing, unlimited medical care and a pension after 20 years - all provided by government tax-payers.  Other Americans have to struggle an...

You know, I am  amazed at the lengths people will go to to make each other's lives miserable.  Is that all they do?  Spend their every waking hour thinking of new ways to be mean to someone else?  Plan to the letter what they will do and what they will say to hurt someone else?  How do people like that live with themsleves?  And, more to the point, why do they do it?  Are there feelings of inadequacy that they feel they have to overcome by being vin...

And it's not nice. I had my gallbladder removed 5 years ago because I had stones.  I've had the same kind of pain that I had when I was trying to pass a stone since saturday...it's ranged from pretty uncomfortable to downright painful.  I stuck it out, but this morning gave in and went to see my doc. Apparently, the greasy burger I ate on Saturday afternoon, combined with the big glass of warm malted milk I drank that night, added to the dark-meat chicken I had...

My daughter will be 12 this month.  She's in the midst of puberty, and we're all having a hard time with it.  Her dad especially. See, when he left to do a year in Greenland last summer, he left behind a pleasant girl who, even though she was showing some physical signs of maturity, was for the most part good-natured and sociable. He came back to a pimply faced, 'A' cup wearing, armpit shaving, growling monster of a child who will bare her teeth and snarl when asked what she want...

I syumbled across this story this morning: Link Basically, this couple in England named their son Drew.  Nice, normal name, right? His last name is Peacock.  Slightly unusual, but still pretty tame. But put the two together.  Drew, Peacock.  Drew Peacock.  DrewPeacock.  I'll leave you to figure the rest out by yourselves. The sad thing is they didn't realize what they had done until the dad googled 'Drew Peacock' and the default speller came ...

Henry is wall eyed.  I noticed it at first a couple fo days ago, and thought that it was a one-off ocurrence. Not so.  He's looked wall-eyed numerous times today.  I think it's cute; Dave thinks that it's a physical confirmation of his belief that Henry's "not all there".  I think he's "all there", he's smarter at this young age than our other dog was at 2 years.  He asked to go outside today, he sat by the screen door and whined until I opened it, and then he tro...

There was a fire on my street tonight.  Someone's central AC unit started smoulder...produced a lot of smoke, but that was about it. But the fire department came.  And members of said fire department were very....yummylicious.  I had quite a pleasant time outside, watching them unroll their big hoses and run around in their bunkers. The best part, though, was when they got done and had to roll the hoses back up, because they took off their bunker shirts and were working in ...

I have a questions for all you dudes. I have noticed recently that a lot of you are uncomfortable talking about sex. Why? Us girls share things about our sex lives...but I can't say that I've heard a guy talk, and I mean really talk about it.  I've heard them brag, but not discuss. Why is that?  Does it have something to do with women being 'talkers' and men being 'fixers'?  You know, that old adage about women being from Venus and men from Mars, man the silent hunter ...

For no particular reason (other than I was thinking about it), and in no particular order (just as they come to me) I proudly present my list of books and authors I highly recommend you read.  These are all things I have read or am reading: Anything by Jack Kerouac, but particularly 'The Dharma Bums' and 'On The Road'. 'Slaughterhouse 5' - Kurt Vonnegut 'Plainsong' - Kent Haruf 'The Reader' - Bernhardt Schlink 'She's Come Undone' and 'I Know This Much Is True'  - &n...

I'm going to ramble here.  Just so you know.  If you want, you can leave and not read; I won't be offended. There is nothing going on around here.  Nothing notable, anyway.  Not that that's ever stopped me from blogging about it before...I mean, I wrote a blog about pie crusts, for crying out loud!  This time, though, I really can't think of a single topic that's deserving of an entire article all to itself, so I'm just going to let my thoughts meander and blame it on...

I just saw this: Link And I was wondering if it meant that they'd be staying away from here....seeing as how we're 'the enemy'.  I wonder too if we can report any of their henchmen for fraternizing or interacting with us?  This all sounds to good to be true.....