2001-05-20 - 4:04 p.m.

Peculiar Google hit of the day: "gossip about loreena mckennitt"

Quote of the day: "When I get really low I put on Louis Armstrong's version of 'Stardust.' When we were interviewing people about Armstrong, I ran across this woman who, for lack of a a better word, is a psychic, a very interesting woman. And I told her, 'I just don't understand it, everybody says the same thing [about Armstrong], that he's a gift from God or an angel.' She looked at me and said, 'Biggest wings I've ever seen.'" - Ken Burns in Interview (January 2001) [reprinted in The Oxford-American]

Successful cooking experiment of the day: salmon with plum sauce. Bought a salmon steak, slathered it in plum sauce (top and sides only), and placed it in a 9" square baking pan lined with aluminum foil (no oil). Set it in the oven with the broiler on "high" (did not preheat). Left it in there for oh, five minutes or so? When I returned to the kitchen, the plum sauce was bubbling and the salmon was cooked to perfection - still moist, still rare.

An unexpected side-benefit to keeping an online journal: the next time I want to cook salmon this way, I can use Google to look up when I wrote about it.

I also brought home a spicy seaweed salad and boiled some spinach with garlic. For dessert, I'm having a glass of milk and a candy bar. Then I'm going to nap for a while before spending the rest of the evening cleaning and filing. Decidedly unglamorous, I know, but I can't mail anything out until I find the sheet of 34-cent stamps I've managed to bury under one of the stacks of stuff to be read and/or mailed.

Gardening accomplishment of the day: repotting the three basil plants I bought on Friday. Now to keep the puppy from munching on them...

Reading today: an article in an old New Yorker about Cleopatra, a sample issue of The Christian Science Monitor, and A Serpent of Satan by Barbara Cartland. The hero's name is Rake, the heroine's name is Ophelia, and her evil stepmother is named Circe Langstone. Hee.

Admiring today: my minister's acting talent. She would've made a great children's theatre actor/director had she chosen to go that route.

Wearing today: one of the BYM's old black shirts. Old black pants that an ex's mother gave to me for Christmas back in 1990. New black leather sandals. The lavendar parure.

Moved today: during services, when a member read a passage ("Mud...") from Catch-22 in memory of a fellow yogi and skydiver.

Rejoicing today: because I hear the garage door opening, which means the BYM has returned from riding his bike around the wilds of southeastern Tennessee, which means he hasn't broken any bones or gotten nabbed by the boys in blue.