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THE WEISS CHRONICLES
Chronological Account of the Weiss family with contextual remarks, some weather, sports and other news.
You can write to me at: mhw20854@yahoo.com
The people in the Weiss family are: Martin, Ann, Beth and George. I also sometimes write about other people or our pet.
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Frozen Grapes Beat Frozen Cherries
Some years ago, someone (I think it was my brother, Irwin) told me that he puts grapes in the freezer in the summer and uses them for a snack after they freeze (they keep for months).
This sounded like a good idea and I did it a number of times. This year I thought I would try frozen cherries.
It turns out grapes were much better. I think this is because the skin of the grape seems to gain flavor when it freezes whereas the skin of the cherry loses flavor when it freezes.
The first image is frozen grapes dusted in powdered sugar. No doubt this tastes good but the increase in sugar calories is pretty steep.
The second image is frozen cherries dusted in powdered sugar. Both images are from the internet.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Low Budget Picture had something pretty
Katie Holmes was only 24 when she made this movie in 2002. She was, however, well known from a TV role in "Dawson's Creek" " The movie "Pieces of April" got numerous awards but none went to Holmes (personally I thought her performance was marvelous - I especially liked her doomed attempt to mash uncooked potatoes). The movie was made for $300,000 with the writer/director getting only $20.00 of which half was for directing, half for writing. The actors (including Holmes) got $250/day (I presume they ended up getting portions of the gross also but I can't be sure of that). The movie grossed about $3,000,000.
The two main plots are 1 April (Holmes) attempts to make a thanksgiving dinner for her family that will visit her tiny apartment (with non working oven which requires April to interact with her neighbors) in a rough section of NYCity (second image), and 2. her dysfunctional family journeys through various scenes arguing while April's mother (Patricia Clarkson who in the movie is dying of cancer and who got over a half dozen awards for her acting in the movie) melting down occasionally. Another subplot involves April's boyfriend looking for a suit to wear at the dinner.
Some good laughs although there was a lot of depressing scenes. The movie only lasts about one hour.
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Another New Waterslide experience
The image on the left shows the waterslide at the Shiver Aquatic Center in Rockville, MD. It is about a 30' vertical drop on a triple bank slide about 200' long.
Today, I was there when the slide was open (I think the first time this happened, and of course I verified that adults were allowed on the slide) and I walked up the multi flights of stairs. There was a dispatcher at the top to regulate entry into the slide and a life guard at the end to, I guess, watch for injuries and make sure the end pool was quickly cleared after each slider.
Nice experience but it goes too fast to really enjoy a lot.
Soto hits HR five days before his MLB debut
Juan
Soto of the Washington Nationals hit a two run HR in the first game of a
sort of double header yesterday. The game was the conclusion of a game
in which the first 6 innings were played on May 15. Soto's MLB debut was
on May 20 but the game goes in the May 15, 2018 record books.
So the HR was either Soto's 1st or 6th of the year.
Since the National's won, it also retroactively shortened a NY Yankee May winning streak from 8 games to 7 games.
A similar thing
also happened to Barry Bonds in 1986. Bonds had a debut on May 30 but
played in a game on August 11 which completed an April 20 suspended
game.
Dave Parker also did something like this in 1973
Articles about this are
here,
and he
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Pictures from our North Carolina trip in late May
Ann and I took a trip to North Carolina at the end of May.
I finally got around to completing a blog on the subject.
We saw a fair amount of museums and so forth and discovered an odd fact about Walmart Ice Cream (discussed in the blog).
We also met with my cousin Ellen and her husband (first image) and with my cousin Al and his family (second image).
My blog (with more pictures) for the trip is at the link.
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
A Surpise at Derwood
I went to get my car inspected for emissions today. It was the first time I had gone for this in two years.
The neighborhood near the vehicle emissions inspection station has changed. Two years ago, the homes nearby were small somewhat run down, pre -1960 houses. Now there are three story townhouses there with rooftop gardens.
According to the ads, these new townhouses have up to 4 bedrooms, up to 4 bathrooms, about 2600 square feet and sell for $800k and up (its only about 0.5 miles from the Shady Grove metrorail station).
Friday, June 08, 2018
Flowers again and balloons fading
The tall purple flowers in the image are Siberian Irises.
The flowers with the spread out pedals and big central heads are cone flowers (a.k.a., Echinacea).
There are also some pink and red roses.
For various reasons, the deer have not attacked these plants.
Near the chairs are the balloons from Ann's April birthday gift delivery package. They still have some inflation. I'll be popping them and disposing them today. .
Wednesday, June 06, 2018
Deer Weiss Family
The image is from 2008 (of our back yard) but we did have a deer attack on my flowers today.
I put the dry granulated deer and rabbit repellent on the flowers about 10am. I left the house about 1130am for some errands. When I came back deer had bitten the flower buds off many of my lillies and phlox.
I think the dry granulated stuff requires wetting to activate it and I had planned to do that tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 05, 2018
Flooding on the Mall
We've had a lot of rain in the past three weeks and especially over the previous weekend.
The water has come downstream and at times was flooding the mall near the Washington Monument.
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