Month: April 2011

Many people like salt water reef tanks for the colorful, active fish, but most hobbyists I know are even more fond of their corals. At least for now, I’m finding myself among them. Some of the most colorful corals (Cnidarians, to those in the know) are found in order Zoantharia. We’ll revisit genus “Zoantha” in a couple of weeks, but today is “P” and that means Palythoa – a genus within Zoantharia (and family Sphenopidae). TL;DR: Nuclear Green Palythoas: Palythoas, or “palys,” are polyp corals that tend to grow taller and larger than other zoanthid polyps (though not always –

Today’s letter is “O” and we’re talking about Okra. Yes, that Okra – “a flowering plant in the mallow family…valued for its edible green seed pods.” In my case, “valued” might be too strong a word. Along with “enjoyed,” “appreciated,” “eaten,” and “capable of being ingested without impolite faces and inappropriate comparisons with things we don’t discuss at the table.” You might say I don’t like it much. Saturday night I had dinner with friends at an Eritrean restaurant in San Francisco. We’ve eaten there before and I love the food. It’s worth the four hour round trip drive and

This week the Sacramento SPCA is holding its annual used-book sale. The sale runs for nine days (starting last Saturday) and this year it’s being held in a vacant store on the corner of Sunrise and Greenback (in Citrus Heights, for those who know the area and want to support the SPCA). Some of you won’t think that much to crow about, but the bibliophiles among us understand. Nine days of constantly-replenished stock, with everything from fine and rare books to bestsellers, biographies, travel/adventure and everything in between. As usual, I’ve visited half a dozen times and brought home three

I have no book to review today that starts with the letter “M.” I’m working on one for next week’s “S”-ignment that should definitely fill the bill, but in the meantime let’s muse about mercy. It’s easy to think of mercy on a grand scale – the Roman Emperor “giving” life to defeated combatants and knights allowing a worthy rival to live. God’s mercy that forgives the sinner, and the mercy we should show to those whose powerlessness places them within the “appropriate” sphere for consideration. It’s equally easy to overlook the smaller mercies we so often fail to give

Thursday means dinglehoppers, so L is for Lemonade. Let’s look longingly (and lovingly) at this lemony treat. Lemon trees originated in the Middle East (or possibly Central Asia). The first references to cultivated lemon trees appear in a treatise on tenth century farming methods. The work didn’t describe the lemon’s uses, but it stands to reason that mixing lemon juice with water didn’t take long to figure out. (Early native Americans poured water through ground acorns to remove toxic tannins before eating the acorn meal. Asians were steeping tea leaves before the birth of Christ. Squeezing lemons into water is

Today’s “K” lets me put a new spin (or at least my spin) on an old saw: “Writing What you Know.” We’ll start with unfortunate truths: 1. What you know is boring to most people. (And the rest of them heard it already.) 2. The non-boring parts of what you know are generally the bits you made up to make the other bits interesting. 3. You know both more and less than you think. Writing what you know is important in the sense that you look fairly foolish if the facts and characters don’t add up to something coherent. If

Last week I mentioned that we have two dragonets, Flappy-the-green-spotted-mandarin and a red and white starry dragonet (aka “Scooter Blenny”) named Johnny. Short for Johnny Cash. We brought him home about two weeks ago. I went to the reef store to pick up some corals. Tesla went along to pick out one of his own (and probably to ensure that I didn’t spend the entire afternoon fishgazing … something I might have a proclivity to do) and instantly latched onto a bright red and white spotted fish flitting around one of the coral tanks. I recognized him from the list

I like cupcakes (as anyone who follows me on Twitter knows only too well). Not without reason, either. Cupcakes are happy on a plate. I approve of desserts generally, and have seldom met a pastry I didn’t like. (I’m of Danish descent, after all – what would you expect from a breakfast roll?) I’m not terribly fond of cakes, however, which makes my special love for cupcakes seem just a little odd. I’m not even sure I can explain it – or that an explanation would do any good. Cupcakes are like that. My more recent appreciation for cupcakes is

Today’s “G” entry comes at a perfect time. I recently finished reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, an epistolary novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Two things about the novel stand out for me: first, I never would have picked it out by myself, and second – I stayed up until 3am on a work night to finish it (something I did a lot in younger years, but which only happens now if I don’t notice the passage of time). The novel consists of a series of “letters” between a London author and the residents

Most of you know I’m participating in the A to Z Challenge. What you don’t know is that my incompetence knows no bounds (and my brain knows no alphabet). After writing “E is for Exit, followed by a bear” on Tuesday night, for posting Wednesday, I came down with a mild flu. Last night I dragged myself out of bed in order to write today’s entry: “E is for Eggbeater” – completely missing the fact that today is actually F…not E. F. As in…Fail. So today you get two entries for the price of one. The first on Eggbeaters, now