A Little Better

Since I owed amberley for giving me a copy of Old Man's War, he asked me to donate it to a good cause. And since I was feeling bad yesterday, thought I'd give/lend more than that to someone on Kiva and donated the cover price towards their operating expenses. It's micro-loans person to person, rather than the Graeme method of getting a lot of money from donations and having the people local to the situation make far more informed decisions on who gets what loans. Graeme is really effective. But I guess I wanted to make a choice for myself this time.

Uhm... yes, now that you mention it, I did just finish reading The Ghost Brigades. *grin* It was a really, really excellent read and agonizing at the end. *sighs* Cathartic, too, for someone that's known for 40 year what they were for.

incandescens introduced me to Kiva, and I'm still a little baffled about how it actually works... but I'll trust it does.

If you don't know about micro loans... just ask in a comment or something and I'll expound.

A Little Better

Since I owed amberley for giving me a copy of Old Man's War, he asked me to donate it to a good cause. And since I was feeling bad yesterday, thought I'd give/lend more than that to someone on Kiva and donated the cover price towards their operating expenses. It's micro-loans person to person, rather than the Graeme method of getting a lot of money from donations and having the people local to the situation make far more informed decisions on who gets what loans. Graeme is really effective. But I guess I wanted to make a choice for myself this time.

Uhm... yes, now that you mention it, I did just finish reading The Ghost Brigades. *grin* It was a really, really excellent read and agonizing at the end. *sighs* Cathartic, too, for someone that's known for 40 year what they were for.

incandescens introduced me to Kiva, and I'm still a little baffled about how it actually works... but I'll trust it does.

If you don't know about micro loans... just ask in a comment or something and I'll expound.

Vanilla Ice Cream

It's so odd to think of vanilla as being equated to "standard, conventional, and unremarkable". Perhaps it's just the prevalence of the chemically-based false flavorings in the grocery market shelves and on the ice cream shelves.

Real vanilla, the slender, brown, gently moist, intensely aromatic seed pod from a tropical orchid is anything but unremarkable. I bought three of those gorgeous things from Penzey's just two days ago and when I gently pulled the rubber stopper from the glass test tube they'd been nestled in, they filled the whole kitchen with their rich perfume.

( Cut for the full recipe for our homemade ice cream for a quart ice cream maker. )

Vanilla Ice Cream

It's so odd to think of vanilla as being equated to "standard, conventional, and unremarkable". Perhaps it's just the prevalence of the chemically-based false flavorings in the grocery market shelves and on the ice cream shelves.

Real vanilla, the slender, brown, gently moist, intensely aromatic seed pod from a tropical orchid is anything but unremarkable. I bought three of those gorgeous things from Penzey's just two days ago and when I gently pulled the rubber stopper from the glass test tube they'd been nestled in, they filled the whole kitchen with their rich perfume.

( Cut for the full recipe for our homemade ice cream for a quart ice cream maker. )