THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Our hydrangea plants are in bloom.

I took three pictures of the same mini garden. It also has some other plants, e.g., the tall one is a tomato plant and the feathery ones are astilbe plants. The mini garden in the left background also has hydrangeas in it. If you click twice on the images, you will get a bigger image with good definition.

For no particular reason I decided to use some filters and see what it looked like. The second image uses a blue filter.

The third image uses a red filter.

posted by Martin Weiss # 4:32 PM

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

We Have Dodged the Cicada Outbreak

As of today, I haven't seen even one Cicada nor do I know of anyone whose seen them in the neighborhood.

That is fine with me as they make a lot of noise. I remember back in 1996 when the previous outbreak happened and it was quite noisy and also the insects got on clothes and on the car.

The reason why the outbreak seems to have stopped just south of where we live (see map which shows mass cicada sights as of June 1) is disputed (weather, fungus, disease).

posted by Martin Weiss # 3:22 PM

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Gazpacho Soup via cheating

I've been meaning to try making gazpacho soup for some time. What has stopped me is the intimidating recipes which require a lot of different items and warn against using anything but fresh vegetables (the image comes from a 'simplyrecipes.com' site; the recipe claims it takes only 15 minutes to make something with 16 items including peeled tomatoes).

So I did it via cheating:

2 cans of diced tomatoes with juice
1 can of small black olives
1 large green pepper chopped
2 large onions chopped
some lemon juice, vinegar, black pepper and dried basil.

I used a potato masher to get the black olives into small pieces and to mash down the diced tomatoes (btw, canned tomatoes have more flavor than store bought tomatoes and furthermore, cutting up fresh tomatoes is a mess). I put it in the refrig for a few hours and it tasted pretty good. It is actually important to let it sit for a while because the tomato juice takes the bite out of the onion while the onion flavors the juice.

posted by Martin Weiss # 11:20 PM

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Interesting Device Problem

I dreamt I was on an assignment at one of the jewish day schools, presumably supervising kashrut.

The staff asked me to fix the basketball hoop. I asked how I was going to get up there and they gave me a hoverboard. I got on it and it worked but it wouldn't go up. I asked what was wrong and they said it just needed more electricity.

I got off the hoverboard and looked for the electric socket and couldn't find it. Then I woke up.

posted by Martin Weiss # 7:11 PM

Friday, June 14, 2013

Flowers Blooming

A lot of our flowers are now blooming.

I put these in the vase for Friday night sabbath supper. Click a few times for a bigger image.

From left to right: Hydrangea, Astilbe, Tiger lilies, Siberian lilies and Dalias (Tiger lillies, Siberian lillies and Dalias from front yard, others from back yard)

posted by Martin Weiss # 5:30 PM

Sunday, June 09, 2013

At Hillwood

M and A were at the Hillwood estate today. It is in the District, just off Connecticut Ave near Howard University and the Van Ness Metrorail station.

In first image, that's us at a statue at the edge of the back porch

This is the estate of the late Majorie Merriweather Post who inherited a fortune based on the General Foods corporation and married 4 times.

She collected a lot of objects from France and Russia and had extensive landscaping done to the estate.

The second image shows the back of the mansion.

The lion is in front of the columns and visible if you look closely.

The mansion is now a museum.

The third image is the dining room in the mansion. Ann has been meaning to visit this place for years but we never got around to it until today.

The fourth image is the french drawing room which has a mural done in the 18th century that was one of her early collections.

The last image is a Japanese garden on the grounds.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:09 PM

Friday, June 07, 2013

Two Rainouts in Two Days

The Nationals had never had consecutive rainouts since the return of MLB to DC in 2005.

Yesterday the game was called for rain.

Today the game scheduled for 705pm was called for rain at about 200 pm. We had somewhat over an inch of rain yesterday and already about the same today with more indicated to be on the way per the radar.

The image shows what the field looked like (from the perspective some someone in the upper deck 1st base side).

MLB playing fields drain much better than in the recent past. Back in May 1945 there were no games played in Detroit between May 13 and May 19 (games were played on those two days). This was according to the baseball almanac.

posted by Martin Weiss # 3:08 PM

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

The Bookclub Dinner

Ann needed a ride to her annual book club dinner yesterday. (They usually meet a few blocks away and she can walk there.) She asked me to drive her and to attend with her.

I hadn't read the book but Ann had told me enough about it that I could follow the discussion, at least what I was able to hear given that the ambient noise was pretty high.

There were 15 women and myself. One of the women was impressed that I behaved civility (a low standard which I achieved).

At one point in the dinner I was trying to image what it would be like if this were happening, say, in 1975 or so with the same people.

posted by Martin Weiss # 11:01 AM

Golf Cart Dream

At the dinner (post above) someone had mentioned a recent fatal accident nearby A woman had been killed in a parking lot near the Giant Food Store that we frequently use. The vehicle was an SUV.

A link to the news report is here.

Last might I had a dream in which I was driving a golf cart. Ann was in the vehicle also and distracting me. The golf cart overturned and killed someone.

The police came and told me I could play a round of golf and then they would arrest me.

Then I woke up.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:04 AM