Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for February 23, 2013

Oh, I hope he doesn’t trip over a writer’s block!

Artie, luckily doesn’t suffer from writers block – he writes about every block or rather, everyone on the block !His mother said he was vaccinated with a Victrola needle when he was born, and his father said, Artie always had a bad case of verbal diarrhea !

Forget the narrative. Start with the sequel.

Sort of looks like me, on a typical Florida day….long grey hair, mustache and goatee, dressed in tee shirt and shorts, sans the notebook !

The story never ends just different stories get told

Hi Red…..

Fancy meeting you here!

Dunno how long I can keep my eyes open, but I just walked in.

Actually, Artie fits right in with this group…..

We live a winding narrative, day by day, here on Ballard Street.

Wow Red…. it sounds good….but I wonder….

Since I’m so drowsy now… oh heck…. how about hot chocolate with a little brandy.

I can always nap by the fire if I have to.Or whistle for Elvis.

Whether drinking is a good idea…actually I know it’s not….LOL

They make great hot chocolate at the Tiki, if you’ve never had it.

Starts with real cacao beans from Turdmunkestan.

Oh, thank you Red….Sure you don’t want to try it yourself?

Mmmm….

So this is a work weekend, I believe you said….

Nor am I…. and I can’t have coffee this time of night…. or any time of night.

About the only thing I can mix is maybe a beer after a scotch or a brandy, if it’s a while later.

Never beer and wine the same evening, especially.

I understand….I’m too tired for that stuff too.

But wait… the REO?Cos you posted the link.

It would have to be hours for me between brandy and scotch….

But of all hard liquors I can think of, brandy is most able to mix with other forms of alcohol.

I’m not crazy about bourbon…. but if I do drink it, almost anything else the same evening would upset my stomach.

I( go to bed between 2:30 and 5 or so…. would rather go much earlier…. but I can fall asleep in my chair at midnight, but not my bed.

Even so, my coffee cut-off is 4pm, occasionally 5 just to be sociable.Otherwise it’s even harder to sleep.

I don’t even like my bourbon blended, much less blended with pop.

A little Straight Jack Daniels, Wild Turkey, maybe.

I do like the occasional rum and coke, but not much else like that.

Believe it or not, I used to occasionally have a drink around a bonfire where they were always drinking cheap scotch mixed with apple juice to mellow it.

Not by any means great…. but not quite as awful as it sounds.

Bonfire is the wrong word…it was a neighborhood fire pit.

Funny thing is I call it pop, soda, soft drinks, sort of interchangeably.

Air force brat…. even though I’ve lived in California all my adult life I’m still a product of everywhere.

Midwesterner somewhere inside, I think…. but Californian by habit…. and we say “soft drink.”

Dunno whether I’ve drunk Ten High.

The bums called their drink Apple Jack too…. but I’ve had REAL Applejack.That stuff’ll knock you silly.

Oh…. G’night Red.

I was keeling over and now I’m waking up…. drat.

But maybe I can read my other strips now.

Bad Susan!

The only place we lived overseas was Libya. My adolescent years were there.

Good night, and sweet dreams!

Stel!

It’s the middle of the night!

Much too cold for you to be up and about.

Fenton…. I’m sure StelBel was just here, but I don’t see her.

If she shows up again, would you please tell her I said “Good morning?”

Looks like everything is under control…. and I can’t stay up anther minute…. so…um… good night…

Time zones are so confusing…..

I’ve been up since 2:30 am EST…couldn’t sleep. But, Susan, you should really get along to bed and get some sleep!

Artie Stallings tries to ignore, however, his writing rivalry with his Westie, Oscar Wilde Stallings…

I love how he’s out there old school, with pencil and paper instead of toting his laptop everywhere……like I tend to do!

Right now my Dr wants me to stay away from stimulants (cocoa) and dairy, but my lover and I were having a night time treat of good organic cocoa dissolved in just enough water with low heat w a packet of stevia and blended with whole raw milk – SOO yummy!For this year I’ll stick to herbal tea with stevia (as Scottish as I am, I make it with a pitcher of 3 cups of purified water to a single teabag and packet of Truvia). Not nearly as good, but OK for a year.

I forgot to ask Susan – when you use broccalli in slaw, stems, florettes, or both? Seems to me the florettes could not be grated, just sayin’ I’ll be making slaw, soup and possibly more today (did groceries yesterday).

Maybe I should take up writing. I would love to have that much enthusiasm first thing in the morning. Go get ’em Artie!

My next PC will be a laptop or tablet (so I can use out in the garden and in bed as well as anywhere around the house). This one is out of warranty in another 5 months or so, but this Inspiron with Windows 7 has done pretty well by me in general (as have all my Dells) so I expect to stick with them. I don’t even need the huge memory cache if I’ll no longer be using CAD (tho’ I’d miss it, even for making prints for the use of contractors in home repairs, or laying out a page of calligraphy after doing a big illumination header or border).

I had thought of writing memoirs to pass on, but after much thought (“TMI” and such) I decided it would not be much fun to do such an expurgated version.

No snow here in Phoenix, just a little too chilly for my taste.

There is a lot to be said for laptop computers, but they are for carrying around and using for short periods. Having a regular computer use station, with a big screen and keyboard and mouse that you place where you want , makes a big difference.

Don’t say that you were not warned

“In case I miss you again Stel “Welcome Back!!!!”++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Thanks, Red ! Good to be back!

Oh, I can’t even imagine shoveling snow like I did during Nemo!! I move the wrong way and it feels like I’m being stabbed with a stiletto!! lol

The only thing more depressing about more snow coming is if this was November rather than February…..thank goodness Spring is like the light at the end of the tunnel that we can finally see.

You take it easy, as well, I.M. !!! Just shovel enough so that Spot can “do his business”, then… hunker in!

He/She/He with manboobs has found his muse..

Oscar Wilde Stallings and his best friend, Beau Brummel (“Bomber”) Barton….…have all but taken over the Ballard St. Arts and Letters Society that Artie Stallings founded. Unless Artie abides by the new dress code — he’s out.

@Pcolli,Definate purpose. I find that I have very high BP (even though I’ve never had any symptoms), my lover and I discussed eating less meat (though I did not have much beef, I DID have a whole turkey breast in 6 week periods and often had 5 slices on an individual pizza. Breakfast was a slice of buttered toast with either an egg over easy or yogurt and always a few servings of fruit); I thought that was healthy and my workouts sufficient to maintain my weight at 24 BMI.

Book fromDr Dean Ornish (on Reversal Diet) convinced me I should TRY something more extreme I told friends and my chiro (who I seldom saw more than once a year) but she told me about my current Dr in Scottsdale who is Holistic as well as a normal MD. I gave him a copy of my bloodwork from the last 2 years and he did some this month as well.

The new supplements (in addition to what I WAS taking) and the new diet will, I hope, permit me to drop the10 mg Lisinopril that current doctor proscribed just to keep me out of extreme danger zone. I need to develop more recipes and I have 5 pages of dietary advice on all categories (one little one was more garlic) so I decided on the omelet as a way to painlessly have a good serving (totally OK with the egg white and my spice mix -recipe above gives more flavor and good color). I’m still having problems finding dinner menus that fit and I like. Today was chili and wild rice mix for 3rd time. I LOVE my bean salad but best with a sandwich or such No meat or cheese is a problem. Even my slaw will need a bit of Gr. yogurt for mousture and creaminess.You can see that it is not a “WHIM”.

Those ceramic cups are cute but these are my favorites to use all the time (has copper as the top layer cut in patterns and fused somehow). I’ve had them probably at least 5 years:They only have birds on the 1 cup.

Hi Bev!

I’ve been feeling bad for all of you getting hit with this latest batch of bad weather.

It seems so unfair…. you’ve already had so many storms this year.

Wanna come to the Tiki?

We can sit by the fire and I’ll buy you a drink.

Bev! Did you go?

Rats! I just stepped out for a second….

Anyway, yeah, there’s actually a map online that someone compiled showing which art of the country uses which word for soft drinks.

But I, like many military brats, have never felt “from” someplace….

My mom was from Illinois and I was born there, but we never lived there after I was two.

Still, my relatives there said “soda-pop” like it was one word… so I probably did too, when I was little.

Cola to me is only for …. well… cola. Coke, Pepsi, Shasta Cola, etc.Not for other flavors.

When talking about mixing liquor with Coke, 7-Up, etc, I didn’t want to call it “soda” cos in a drink that means plain fizzy water.

I’m late coming in. Went to the Symphony. Brought a date this time. It was fun. She was a good sport.

Hi Brian — hey, that’s great!

Oh… hi Red!

Hope I didn’t miss you….I was in the ….um…. another room…..the back room…. that’s it.

Brian seems to have disappeared….

Did you, too?

Oh…. me too, Red….I think we both dozed off.

After the turn ….. OK…. that’s about 20 hours from now!

Where IS everybody?

I know the street is closed…. but is everybody staying home?

There’s no snow on Ballard Street today!

It’s chilly but the sun is shining, the birds are singing….I’m making soup in two places….the chicken vegetable in the salon kitchen is ready, and the yak noodle at the Tiki needs another hour….

I’ll be back and forth but stop by either one…And no charge for a nice big bowl, even at the Tiki….

Speaking of bowls…. I meant to say yesterday when Bev was talking about catalogs…

Stel…. you asked about the Tiki dishes…

In a way, yes, I did design them…. with the Monkey’s OK, of course.

Dishes have to be sturdy when the wait and bar staff includes monkeys, dogs and even a gorilla… So these were ordered from a cartoon restaurant supply catalog….

Cartoon dishes are expensive due to all the time it takes to make them…(as you recognised….) but they can bounce and roll, and can be used over and over.

We only ordered a few to try out….but the Monkey says I should get some more….I chose the lettering…. and the next ones will have a little design too.

I liked a pretty little blue palm tree… but the Monkey kind of liked a little blue banana, and it’s his bar…. we’ll see.

Bev — I’ll certainly look into that!Maybe we’d get a discount if we bought enough to sell some at retail…then they wouldn’t be so expensive for the bar, as well.Do you think palm trees, or bananas?

Good to see that at least Susan and Bev have stopped by – I’ve taken a peek in the door a couple of times since this morning, but trying to get a full workout in, and I cooked a pot of chili as well as my bean salad and I just had a snack of 3 crackers w/hummus and celery sticks (inside stalks left from cooking).

Plates are nice at the Tiki but my color is RED (Though my dishes are not – only the everyday ones are red pressed glass).I used to live in a Barony that used a pair of crossed palm trees, but Monkey wants a blue banana so he should have THAT; it is original.

Cafe Press had the stuff for a while but I found these palms you might use (in blue)

This is cute – the guys might enjoy the hammock!

“Not out loud while we’re having our afternoon nap!!!”

OK; here’s a story worth telling – again and again and again…

https://cleoandcompany.net/february-23-2023/

Good morning Balladeers and Tigressy!