Sesame Street favorites

Corrie and I spent this morning watching our favorite clips from Sesame Street on hulu.com. Here are some of my favorites:

-lady bug picnic




-making crayons



-David disco skates



-Orange singing Carmen-this one kind of freaked me out but I still liked it



-and this one flat out gave me nightmares

Happy Belated Fat Tuesday!

I made two king cakes this year, the first for us at home to test out Alton Brown's cinnamon roll recipe as king cake recipe and the second to take to work. The first one I made, which I didn't photograph for some reason, turned out pretty fat, and it took forever to bake. I thought it might've even been a little underdone, but at least it seemed moist. The one I made for work was a better shape, but I think I overbaked it a little-it was dry. The recipe worked well otherwise. This is the one I took to work, along with a photo of the king cake table.

Kooky Spooks!

Corrie and I were trying to remember what these plastic Halloween costumes with an inflatable head on top of your own head were called. I could only remember kids wearing them for one year, possibly two, back in 1980 or 1981. Thanks to Google and Corrie somehow remembering what they were called, here they are:


I'm sure there are tons of blog posts like this one where people are recounting these outfits. There are also a few still in their packaging for sale on Ebay, of course!

Classic Sesame Street film - A LOST DOG poster for Ace

I was reminded of this Sesame Street clip this week during the lost dog caper. A lot of things have changed in 30 years!

Reunited!

It was a great feeling getting up this morning on a vacation day, checking my phone, and finding a message that the missing dog, Watson, aka Rhett, had been located last night! Here's dog and dad:


It sounds like the discovery went down something like this: last night, Animal Control called Terence and Sabrina and asked if they were still looking for their dog. A woman near what we had been calling ground zero (56th and South, the last place the dog was reported being seen) had called Animal Control after she thought there was a dog in her yard and she had also received an e-mail from someone alerting her to this particular missing dog. Catching the dog involved laying on the ground and coaxing him over with summer sausage. Terence reported he's much more sociable now, and he's more interested in his food and water. What a happy ending!

Lost Dog

Since Sunday, I've been trying to help my friends Terence and Sabrina find their lost dog. There were sightings of him Sunday afternoon, but no reports since-it has really bummed me out, and it's not even my dog. I'm trying to keep the hope going. He has to be somewhere.

For those readers who live in Lincoln, here's a photo of the dog and the text from the flyer we've been hanging up all over town. It seemed likely that he could've stayed in the vicinity of 56th and South, however he also could've kept going.



DOGBREED: West Highland White Terrier
SEX: Male (neutered)
NAME: Rhett Butler
COLOR: White
WEIGHT: 16-17 lbs.
AGE: 3 1/2 yrs.
VACCINATIONS: All up to date

LAST SEEN around noon on Sunday (February 15, 2009) at 56th and South streets, heading south. He slipped his collar, so he has no tags. He was rescued from a puppy mill by the Little White Dog rescue up in Omaha, and they advised that it would be best to not approach him as he will be afraid and would likely run off. Instead please provide a thorough location of the sighting. If seen or found call Sabrina and Terence at 402-570-3783 (cell) Reward offered.

Varmints make good Valentine's Day gifts

I knitted this snake and mouse combo from mochimochi land for Corrie as a surprise Valentine's Day gift. Weeks ago when I was perusing patterns online, Corrie saw this one and said he had to have it. I wasn't going to overlook such an easy gift idea, so I secretly worked on it out of the view of Corrie for a couple of weeks.


The idea is the mouse fits completely inside the snake, which this mouse did fit in all the way before I felted it in the washer. (A project made from wool yarn will shrink and become a totally different-looking beast once it's been washed.) I think I felted it too much, which took out the elasticity in the snake, so now the mouse will only fit in its mouth. I told Corrie I could make another smaller mouse but he said that was ok. Oh, those aren't hats on their heads, either-those are toupees.

Mochimochi land offers tons of projects I'd like to make, like this groundhog in his own mound of dirt.

I like this one too where the mouse and snake have made an appearance.

My sister is on to something

My sister baked and decorated a beautiful cake for our mom's birthday. She had warned my mom that it looked bad. If this is her idea of a bad-looking cake, I'm not sure what a good-looking one would look like. I think she could go into a career of cake-decorating if she wanted to. (Her previous projects include my 2008 birthday cake.)

Super Bowl Snacks

Even though we stayed home, we still made some snacks for the game last night.

I tried making these mozzarella sticks that I saw Giada De Laurentis make on the Food Network a couple of years ago. They looked ok after the egg wash and breadcrumb covering.


It all went to heck after that. The recipe said to freeze them at least 2 hours and up to 2 days after they were coated. (so that when you fry them, the cheese doesn't melt too fast.) I probably froze them the minimal 2 hours, and when I fried them, most of them bursted out of their coating, then I had cheese popping out of the skillet. They were salvageable, but I couldn't bring myself to take a photo of the finished product, they were a mess. Corrie was nice and said it was a learning experience. I don't have any experience frying anything, so I suppose he's right. Next time we plan to freeze them overnight and see if that helps.

We also made this chili-garlic roasted broccoli recipe from Rachel Ray's show. I don't look too many of her recipes up, but this one was well worth it. Corrie and I will eat a huge batch of broccoli when we make it. I didn't use as much garlic as it called for-I only used 2 cloves. The picture looks a little gross, but trust me, it's tasty.


We rounded out the meal with a frozen stromboli I had made back at Christmas time.

Duck, duck, duck . . .

Corrie and I attended the Avoca annual Quack-off duck races yesterday. For those who aren't familiar with the race, this was the 29th annual running of the ducks, and every year you can bring a duck to race or rent a duck to race. The point to the race is simple-get your duck past the finish line first, and you can clap your hands, make noise, etc. etc. to encourage your duck's speediness, but you can't touch it.

Proceeds benefit the local fire department. I was glad that we decided not to participate this year but to just spectate, because it had to be a long day for the participants. Registration happened in the morning, then the heats of duck races (3-4 ducks per heat) began around 1:00. I have no idea how many first round heats there were-we left around 3:30 or so and they were on heat 60 something. The winner of each of those initial rounds goes on to participate in the next set of heats, so it must've lasted all day and into the night.

The warm weather probably drew a larger crowd this year. The other thing going on is a lot of drinking. I have no problem with that, although I'm getting to an age where people in their early 20s who aren't managing their liquor consumption very well get on my nerves. Overall it was a great time. It's not every day that you hear someone say over a loud speaker, "if you rented your duck and you did not win your heat, you need to return your duck to the trailer. Please return your ducks."

Here are some photos and video from the day:

This is the view of the start line. There were 4 lanes.


Here's the end of a heat-it looks like 2 different people think they won. I'm not sure what the official call was. It was very interesting to watch so many ducks stop short of that orange line.


Here's a winner being interviewed after their heat. Note the duck necklaces. Duck flair and costumes were everywhere.


Here's a picture of the crowd as we were leaving. A duck race draws a lot of people!

I took a few short videos. This is a typical heat-a winner sails through, then the other ducks get in a traffic jam.



I'm very glad we attended, and I bet we'll go again next year. I'm still not sure I want the pressure of racing a duck, however.