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Discolor Online

Weblog of the sweetest person you never want to piss off.

 

Giving to the Military's Wounded

Passed on from a friend.

Hi,
I promised to post info on the need for wounded soldiers to receive phone cards and other gifts at Brooke Army Medical Center and here it is. I received a very nice phone call from a Major Moon in Public Relations and he told me that they are very much in need of things for their wounded. Brooke Army Medical Center receives all soldiers who are burned - they are the top treatment center for burned victims worldwide. Sadly, they are expecting many more patients in coming days from this latest bombing in Mosul. These young soldiers are separated from their families and face long recuperation times as well as permanent disfigurement and disabilities. Also, family members who travel to be with them don't receive any monetary assistance or lodging past the first couple of days so they can use help as well. Here's what they need:


Phone cards in any denomination (they've received all amounts but most useful are those in 110 minutes increments or more as the soldier can make repeated calls to loved ones)

Gifts cards in any denomination for Target, Wal-mart, or other similar discount or department stores. Soldiers need to replace basic grooming supplies, underwear, and often require clothing to accomodate their new wounded bodies.

Cards and letters wishing them good will and gratitude - anything that cheers them and let's them know they are remembered and supported.

Note that NO FOOD gifts are allowed because of dietary issues.

As authors, you may also want to send copies of your books (soldiers can share these with their families and often are young enough to enjoy reading young adult literature themselves).

Send gifts to:

Attn: LtCol Jim Riley
Director of Logistics
Brooke Army Medical Center
Building 3600
3851 Roger Brooke Drive
Fort Sam Houston, Texas 78234-6200


Please forward this information to your friends and family and writer friends, as these young people really need our help and appreciation, no matter how one feels about the war.

 
 

Man vs. Skunk: A Photo-Essay

My high school friend J.D. has posted a fine entry to his weblog.

 
 

Travesty!

If you hated Gimli as comic relief in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, you won't be happy with the Return of the King extended edition. Ok, ok, Legolas is cool. He's dreamy. He can see ghosts and walk on top of the snow and run for days and nights without rest or water and kill anything with any number of arrows, blah, blah, blah. He gets to win every contest. But Gimli is the hero of the dwarves! The Hero of his race. Even the damn Hobbits come off cooler than Gimli and it pisses me off.

I actually howled in outrage upon seeing the extended Fellowship last night, wherein they added several additional minutes of Gimli as comic sidekick. The worst offense was the fucking drinking contest. If the dwarf can't even win the damn DRINKING contest, something is righteously screwed. Someone call the Dwarf Anti-Defamation League!

That said, the additional scenes with Saruman, the houses of healing, and the extended battle scenes and vignettes were enjoyable. However, ultimately, I enjoyed the additional material far less than I had enjoyed the extended versions of the first two films.

 
 

Recipe Pages Refreshed

 
 

Mishmash

Still juggling. Managed to get my external back-up drive repaired so I can access the data there, hooray form miracles. Brutal deadlines have been crushing our employees, Hal and Chris in particular. Lots of stuff that I can't talk about even in a friends-only post, feh.

Took Kate to see the Series of Unfortunate Events film after school on Friday, at the new-ish community theater in Columbia City, since it's just a short walk from her school. Found it true to the spirit of the books for the most part, though they added a subplot to the movie that was completely fabricated and took some of the events out of order. Both elements were added to make the movie a better experience than merely stringing together the three books would have been so I took it all in stride. Jim Carey, who I normally don't like, was good in his roles. I wasn't pleased with the too-happy ending, as the books are clear that there are no happy endings for the Beaudelair Orphans, but again I understand why they did it.

Mostly, I've been occupying myself in the kitchen. Lots of baking in particular, though I don't know what I'm going to do with all of the baked goods I've made. The joy is in the making, I just need to find someone else to do the eating.

Attending a great little party at J&J's on Saturday and had a fantastic time socializing. Working alone from home can get so damn isolating! Had lots of interesting conversations and sympathized with the recently laid off, as the tradition of Christmas-season layoffs continues. I've never understood Christmas layoffs, as I think they're desperately cruel, but I've seen them many times now. What I must say, though, is that if you have employees who have worked for you for over a year (and you are, personally, a wealthy person) laying off with two days notice and three days severance for your employee's hard work is OUTRAGEOUS. I can understand if your business is struggling, if you, personallyl, have no resources to smooth the way for your employees... but knowing you're sitting on a personal fortune when you've offered three fucking days of "severance" is galling. Do the right thing, especially at Christmas!! Ug.

Recipe page updates to come later.

 
 

Mishmash

Still juggling. Managed to get my external back-up drive repaired so I can access the data there, hooray form miracles. Brutal deadlines have been crushing our employees, Hal and Chris in particular. Lots of stuff that I can't talk about even in a friends-only post, feh.

Took Kate to see the Series of Unfortunate Events film after school on Friday, at the new-ish community theater in Columbia City, since it's just a short walk from her school. Found it true to the spirit of the books for the most part, though they added a subplot to the movie that was completely fabricated and took some of the events out of order. Both elements were added to make the movie a better experience than merely stringing together the three books would have been so I took it all in stride. Jim Carey, who I normally don't like, was good in his roles. I wasn't pleased with the too-happy ending, as the books are clear that there are no happy endings for the Beaudelair Orphans, but again I understand why they did it.

Mostly, I've been occupying myself in the kitchen. Lots of baking in particular, though I don't know what I'm going to do with all of the baked goods I've made. The joy is in the making, I just need to find someone else to do the eating.

Attending a great little party at J&J's on Saturday and had a fantastic time socializing. Working alone from home can get so damn isolating! Had lots of interesting conversations and sympathized with the recently laid off, as the tradition of Christmas-season layoffs continues. I've never understood Christmas layoffs, as I think they're desperately cruel, but I've seen them many times now. What I must say, though, is that if you have employees who have worked for you for over a year (and you are, personally, a wealthy person) laying off with two days notice and three days severance for your employee's hard work is OUTRAGEOUS. I can understand if your business is struggling, if you, personallyl, have no resources to smooth the way for your employees... but knowing you're sitting on a personal fortune when you've offered three fucking days of "severance" is galling. Do the right thing, especially at Christmas!! Ug.

Recipe page updates to come later.

 
 

Onion Soup

Nothing like homemade onion soup on a cold, rainy Seattle night, I say. Comfort food in the extreme, and really yummy to boot.

ONION SOUP GRATINEE

 
 

Stressball

I'm so far behind.

After weeks of not being able to work more than a couple of hours a day, I'm crushed with things that need my attention.

Of course, today is also my darling daughter's 9th birthday. I didn't even have time to make her a cake today, I'm so sad. Luckily for me, her idea of "a grand feast" was (at her special request): hot dogs, canned baked beans, and canned creamed corn. With a candle.

At least it was easy...

 
 

Recipe Page Updated

I've finally been feeling up to cooking a little bit, and have taken advantage of the recent issue of Cooking Light for my inspiration.

ZITI WITH SAUSAGE, ONIONS, AND FENNEL

STUFFED PASTA SHELLS WITH SMOKY MARINARA

RED RASPBERRY VELVET CAKE

 
 

Pain Free!

I woke up this morning entirely pain free! For the first time in nearly a month I feel fully functional. I swear, I nearly jumped out of bed and did a dance, it was such a shockingly wonderful feeling.

I'd jump for joy, but I don't want to jinx it.

 
 

"Best Birthday Ever"

So age nearly-9 is the perfect age to go to the ballet, as it turns out.

Kate had a wonderful time and declared this the best birthday present ever. Hooray!

Our good fortune started with the bus ride downtown. It was a direct ride, no changing buses or anything. We stopped at Larry's market so I could get a coffee on the short walk to the theater and the streets were crawling with families and little girls dressed to the nines. Kate spent her own $2 on six Lindor white chocolate balls: she's turning into a white chocolate fiend. "I've been yearning for the taste of white chocolate!" she enthused.

The ballet was fantastic and we had excellent seats. Jenny and John were very sweet with Kate, took her down to view the orchestra pit during intermission, brought some old opera glasses for her to try out. After the show, Kate bought herself a pink, frilly ballerina tree ornament as a memento. We'd suggested going to Buca for dinner, which would have been fine with me, but Kate piped up "I'd been hoping we could have sushi," so plans were made to go to Ohana in Belltown instead, where we were joined by Ray and Christine (who came bearing gifts) and we enjoyed various sushi items and Hawaiian-themed mixed drinks. Kate collected fruity paper umbrellas to her heart's content.

A candle-lit, fruit-topped creme brulee was brought out for the princess, who scowled that a perfectly good creme brulee had been ruined with fruit juice (making the crisp-sugar top "best part" soggy) but made a good dent in it anyway before she finished off the last of her chocolates and then complained of a stomach ache as we were leaving. "Could it be the giant Shirley Temple, the chocolates and the creme brulee?" I asked. "I think you're right," she admitted. She IS growing up!

Today Chris returns from GenCon SoCal and we'll decorate the tree. Why am I awake at 5:00am? Hell if I know...

 
 

Decrepitude

I've been largely offline the last few weeks. I just haven't been well, haven't been able to sit in front of the computer, haven't been able to do much in the way of household chores, nothing. Cooking has suffered, laundry has suffered. Kate, thankfully, has not suffered because I've been spending a lot of time laying down and we've been watching television together or reading together, or just talking. We accidentally ended up down town at the same time as the public tree-lighting ceremony and fireworks, and rode the Christmas carrousel. I've made a few jaunts out of the house (out for Thanksgiving, a bit of Christmas shopping, driving Kate to her dad's or going off to the post office) but I've ended up paying for it every time. I'm depressed about the condition of my body: I have an okay range of movement but pain in my low back, ass, hip, and down into my leg. If I forget to take Aleve, I feel it. I just can't afford to go to the doctor right now: I'm still paying off Kate's allergy testing and therapy from this spring and won't be out of that hole until February.

Add to this my back-up hard drive (that I use specifically for backing up business documents I'm working with) was damaged in a system crash and now can't be mounted or repaired by my computer. Ug. Keys out of order, or some BS. Laptop and desktop Macs are refusing to talk to each other on the Mac network, but I got the PCs talking to each other.

There is some good in all of this, though. Last night I had to take Kate to her dad's, so I stopped and got a Christmas tree on the way home. The house now smells wonderful, mmmm pine. We'll decorate the house for Christmas when Chris gets back from GenCon SoCal. Tomorrow I take Kate to see the Nutcracker as her early birthday present. God, I hope she enjoys it.