Shuffle #1 Summer day, sugar plum shuffle. Lightning on the beach was a fourth of July in Virginia Beach. Michael Jackson was in duct tape at the fair. I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. Or is it the other way around? Click image to see the video....

RIP Kodachrome. Feeling older, anyone? June 22, 2009, Kodak announced the retirement of Kodachrome, long past the demise of the little aluminum storage cans. Off it goes into the harsh noon sun, its progeny stored in the likes of the Library of Congress photostream on flickr and countless shoeboxes across the land.

Credit: Lee, Russell, 1903-, photographer. Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range, Madison County, Montana, 1941 Aug. 1 transparency. color. Transfer from U.S. Office of War Information, 1944.

I dislike it when wildlife interacts with traffic. But so far, so good with the baby sea lion. (Swarkovski sea lion shown, not fog-covered, white-with-fright-pup).

Sea lion rescued from Highway 880 San Francisco Examiner

What to do this weekend? Avoid the news. Watch dachsunds race. Help out. Vaguely attempt to prettify our home in one way or another, if only to pick up everything that really should have a place of its own. Wait, back up. Perhaps it's a winner: the Weinerschnitzel(R) Weiner Nationals at Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley, a venue normally reserved for horse racin'. June 13, 2009. Noon. Apparently, according to an unclassified email randomly passed around, "in the fall of 2004, "documentary filmmaker Shane MacDougall began to chronicle the surprisingly cut-throat world of competitive dachshunds, Weiner Takes All. Not available on Netflix.

According to the Weinerschnitzel (R) folks, their motto is "Our Food: Pushing the Boundaries of Taste." Do you, like me, find this construction somewhat amusing? There are so many things whose boundaries can be pushed. Biomolecular simulations. Eco-friendly whatever. Insurgent behavior theory. *My* boundaries. When I think of the boundaries of taste, though, I tend to think of snippets like "John Waters continues to push the boundaries of bad taste." Apparently Weinerschnitzel(R) has a new product called the Sea Dog. Yikes. I haven't tried it, but here is one extremely biased review.

Nouns as Verbs. Googling. Treading. Authoring. Let's go Krogering. Krogering. Krogering. Let's go Krogering. The happy place to shop. I'm not sure that's the actual jingle, but it won't leave my head. Unannounced. For some neurological reason, no doubt. If you don't know Kroger's, you weren't raised in the midwest.

Thanks, Miss Kristen, perhaps in Knoxville, TN http://www.flickr.com/photos/misskristenl/1202908330/

Let's get stinky, in praise of sauerkraut and Sandorkraut.

Sauerkraut, I've made a few batches, I will make more. Especially when the local live kind costs about $11 for a teeny jar, if preciousness like seaweed is tossed in. Thirty some years ago, I dabbled with dandelion wine, candied the violets, and stalked the wild strawberry. Then I moved to California and became too stuck up and swept away. But Sandor Ellix Katx, professed fermenation fetishist and live-culture cuisinist, has revived my interest. His book, Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Food (Chelsea Green, White River Junction, Vermont) leads you through a briny wealth of fermented and cultured stuff and how to try it yourself: sour pickles. Nasturtium capers. Tibetan pancakes. Fruit kimchi. Cherokee sour corn drink. Pumpernickel. Shrub, yah. Choucroute fromage roulades. Cheeses, meads, and more. His web site is http://www.wildfermentation.com/. He has "no formulaic plan to offer for resisting the insidiuous process of globalization, commodifcation, and culture homogenization." But, as he notes, one teeny "but tangible way to resist the homogeniszation of culture is to involve yourself in the harnessing and gentle manipulation of wild microbial cultures." Let us go forth and ferment.

D-Day was our anniversary numero uno (not counting the other 15 years); to begin, we fought a little about bread boards or some such; silly, don't you think? Let's just say I'm more of a morning person, so it's ok. The big event of the day, beyond some editing shtuff, was to haul out of a pickup truck redwood furniture hand-crafted by Sherrie, up in the foothills or somewhere. He made a lovely dinner, since we just couldn't convince ourselves to leave the house. Now, if we can just get people to come over... on our first attempt to water-protect the wood, the stuff clumped out of the jug. Not good. We keep falling asleep at night to Lazyboy, our new favorite.