Random thought: taxes

Just sent off a tax installment today.

“… taxes [are] the membership dues we pay for the benefits of living in a well-ordered society.”

Base cuisine: cheesecake

This is one of the world’s simplest pies, especially if you’re afraid to make pastry

Apricot cheesecake with gluten-free crust

I didn’t have graham wafers, so I made an oatmeal crust that I made in advance for the easy cheesecake filling. Aside from the 3-ingredient crust, it has three essential ingredients (sweetened condensed milk, cream cheese, and lemon juice) and two extras (almond extract and apricots).

The oatmeal crust was just rolled oats, maybe 1.5 cups, mixed with softened butter and brown sugar until it would stick together. Then I patted it into a pie plate and baked for maybe 12 – 15 minutes. It softened and swelled and collapsed into the bottom of the dish, so when I took it out I used a spoon to pat it back into crust shape and let it cool.

For the filling I followed the recipe on the milk can. 1 small can of sweetened, condensed milk, mixed with one 250-g package of cream cheese, softened. Add 1/3 cup lemon juice. The recipe called for 1 tsp. of vanilla extract but I used almond extract. Mix it up, spread it in the pie, and let cool in refrigerator for 3 hours. I put the can of apricots into the fridge, too. Before serving, get them out, drain the apricots, and arrange them artistically on the pie.

The recipe actually called for chilled cherry pie filling. I think any canned or cooked fruit would work.

Sock bankruptcy

I’m going to declare sock bankruptcy: get rid of all my odd socks instead of waiting for the other ones to turn up. I realize this will lead to a rash of Other Socks turning up but to hell with it.

Next week: e-mail bankruptcy.

What good is God?

Over at Pharynula, Caine wins the thread with today’s quotable quote:
“How does injecting your particular nasty ass god into my life make me better?”

Poem: The Passing Strange

“The Passing Strange” by John Masefield. Verses from Sanjeev.

Out of the earth to rest or range
Perpetual in perpetual change,
The unknown passing through the strange.

Water and saltness held together
To tread the dust and stand the weather,
And plough the field and stretch the tether,

To pass the wine-cup and be witty,
Water the sands and build the city,
Slaughter like devils and have pity,

Be red with rage and pale with lust,
Make beauty come, make peace, make trust,
Water and saltness mixed with dust;

Drive over earth, swim under sea,
Fly in the eagles secrecy,
Guess where the hidden comets be;

Know all the deathy seeds that still
Queen Helens beauty, Caesars will,
And slay them even as they kill;

Fashion an altar for a rood,
Defile a continent with blood,
And watch a brother starve for food:

Love like a madman, shaking, blind,
Till self is burnt into a kind
Possession of another mind;

Brood upon beauty, till the grace
Of beauty with the holy face
Brings peace into the bitter place;

Prove in the lifeless granites, scan
The stars for hope, for guide, for plan;
Live as a woman or a man;

Fasten to lover or to friend,
Until the heart break at the end:
The break of death that cannot mend;

Then to lie useless, helpless, still,
Down in the earth, in dark, to fill
The roots of grass or daffodil.

Down in the earth, in dark, alone,
A mockery of the ghost in bone,
The strangeness, passing the unknown.

Time will go by, that outlasts clocks,
Dawn in the thorps will rouse the cocks,
Sunset be glory on the rocks:

But it, the thing, will never heed
Even the rootling from the seed
Thrusting to suck it for its need.

Since moons decay and suns decline,
How else should end this life of mine?
Water and saltness are not wine.

But in the darkest hour of night,
When even the foxes peer for sight,
The byre-cock crows; he feels the light.

So, in this water mixed with dust,
The byre-cock spirit crows from trust
That death will change because it must;

For all things change, the darkness changes,
The wandering spirits change their ranges,
The corn is gathered to the granges.

The corn is sown again, it grows;
The stars burn out, the darkness goes;
The rhythms change, they do not close.

They change, and we, who pass like foam,
Like dust blown through the streets of Rome,
Change ever, too; we have no home,

Only a beauty, only a power,
Sad in the fruit, bright in the flower,
Endlessly erring for its hour,

But gathering, as we stray, a sense
Of Life, so lovely and intense,
It lingers when we wander hence,

That those who follow feel behind
Their backs, when all before is blind,
Our joy, a rampart to the mind.

“Arrogant arborist” from Faultline

Could be a rock band, but it’s a blog: Toad in the Hole from Faultline points out some bad pruning: ” Tree pruning: Basics and butchery.”

• Do not leave stubs
• Do not cut absolutely flush, either: leave the branch’s growth collar at the base.
• Do not cut off major branches if you can help it. They may not be able to heal.
• Do not encourage poorly attached branches to grow at the ends of stubs. They will fall on someone.

I, too, cringe when I see badly pruned trees.