Last Snow Fall Of The Season?

Pride Birthdays and Memorials for the Week ~ March 8th to March 14th

Romeo Receives A Package

With instructions to give the contents to me.  I have such strange and wonderful friends!

Winter Ewok?

My Happy Buddha is incognito as an Ewok!

Sweet Surprise

Post card from a friend and memories of "Johnny Crow's Garden" from my childhood.

Smothered Chicken with Herbed Stuffing

Little Free Library

Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Snow....   Well, maybe snow!

My Little Free Library #8921 remains open, even if there were no takers today!

Four Views Of The Winter Storm

View One: My backyard

8:40 AM 

10:10 AM 

12:40 PM 

 2:40 PM

3:10 PM 

5:10 PM

View Two: Looking South in my Neighborhood

8:40 AM 

 10:10 AM

12:40 PM 

2:40 PM 

 3:10 PM

5:10 PM

View Three: Across the street

 8:40 AM

10:10 AM 

 12:40 PM

2:40 PM 

 3:10 PM

View Four: North from the office window.

 8:40 AM

10:10 AM 

12:40 PM 

2:40 PM 

3:10 PM 

5:10 PM

Romeo's Reaction to Winter

My better half is Romeo.  He just turned three.  He was rescued by an organization called Animal Rescate in Costa Rica.  I adopted him through them and he arrived in the United States via continental airlines at Dulles International Airport in April of 2013.

I am often asked by friends what he thinks of winter.  Today's snow storm provided the perfect opportunity to show you.

 1)  I want to go outside!  Let me go outside!  I have to go outside!  Please, please, please!!!

 2) Oh no.  Not this stuff again....  Oooo

 3) It's everywhere.  It's cold.  It doesn't even smell good!

4) Make way!  I'm coming back inside where it's nice!

Egg Salad

So what's wrong with Egg Salad?  NOTHING!

Hard boil 8 eggs and peel.  Cut in half lengthwise and remove yokes.  Mash up yokes with a healthy dollop of mayonnaise and a generous squirt of spicy honey mustard.  Mix in a healing tablespoon of sweet Salad relish Cubes.  Dice up the whites and fold them in.

Toast the bread.  Lay down a bed of celery greens and then the egg salad and top with second slice of toasted bread.  Prepare to enjoy a taste of egg salad heaven.

Icy Night In Randuwa Town!

My home in ice seen from my friend's home across the street.

Beef Stroganoff With Green Beans

Beef Stroganoff and green beans. Pretty simple, with one switch up. Besides the usual beef, onions and mushrooms in the stroganoff, I also include carrots. I think they're a compliment to the slight tartness of the sauce.

Scrambled Eggs--Loaded With Melted Cheddar Cheese

Sauteed some smoked country deli ham and onions, tossed some red pepper and scrambled eggs--then slid into baking dish, added grated cheddar cheese and into the broiler to melt then topped with some dried oregano. Pulled it out of my....bag of tricks, every step of the way! 

114 Congress Judicial Confirmations

After all the uproar about judge confirmations in the 113th Senate, the new Senate seems to be working just fine--if more slowly--in this capacity. After every election, all the appointments from the executive branch that have not been approved before the election are dissolved. POOF. Gone. And they must be resubmitted.

In the past nearly all of them were. This time, many were not. For example, the guy nominated to a seat in the Federal District of Northern Georgia was dropped for good reason. The sub-committee process unearthed some racist statements he made a couple of decades ago and so bye-bye, dude. Game over. And the lady nominated to a seat in Eastern North Carolina was not resubmitted after waiting through two previous congresses and being told by the Republican Senator (Burr) from NC that it ain't gonna happen--no Obama judge in Eastern North Carolina, m'am. The defeat of Senator Kay Hagan was the end of that person's aspiration. Politics happen.

Now that the Republicans are in charge and pissed off by the rapid last minute barrage of Democratic confirmations, it would be natural to assume that Obama would no longer get any judges confirmed. However, this doesn't appear to be the case. And I give Senators Grassley of Iowa, and McConnell of Kentucky props for this.

In the face of such troubling possibilities, president Obama has only resubmitted 9 of the two dozen + nominees left hanging at the end of the last congress. To this he's also offered up 4 new nominees. Of the the 7, 4 have been reported out by the judiciary committee under Senator Grassley's authority and will be voted on in the next couple of a weeks or so. This is a good thing. While elections have consequences, they are not sporting rivalries where winner lord their victories over losers and trash the town like imbeciles celebrating.

The maps I'm including show the present parity of District Judges between those appointed by Republican Presidents verses Democratic Presidents as the district courts are presently divided, 

AND as it would change if all of the openings were filled with Obama nominations.