Category: Family

Witness to a car crash

We witnessed a crazy car crash tonight.

The gold car blew through a T-intersection and t-boned the pickup truck. The gold car’s front end was smashed, radiator fluid everywhere. The truck had some impact damage between the cab and the bed.

That isn’t the crazy part.

The silver Honda drove up at a high rate of speed and very decidedly boxed in the gold car (which wasn’t going anywhere) and the occupants got out and started yelling at the gold car’s driver about how she hit them and they’ve been following her for miles, honking their horn while she ignored them. She seemed to mostly ignore them and kept apologizing to the pickup truck’s driver, who finally said “I’m just an innocent bystander!”

I had stopped to see if anyone was hurt. Everyone ignored me – silver car, gold car, and pickup truck drivers.

I decided that things might go south. I had my family in the car and didn’t want to be involved so we split right after the end of this video.

Personal Best Walking

I’ve been on a speed-walking binge for the winter, in an effort to get/stay fit and lose a few misbegotten pounds.

I walk Aka Lana Lana nearly nightly, though a little less often during the winter.  No matter how much I coax the dog along, though, dogs will be dogs and our average speed tends towards a reasonable 25+ minutes/mile. So I started going out after dog-walking to get some real speed on.

I started walking, and tracking, at the end of November 2021 with a 28:26 average around the lake – about the same as walking the dog.  Admittedly, I wasn’t pushing too hard at the time, but I wouldn’t have done significantly better if I had.

Just over three months later, and the same walk is now a 14:22 per mile average, or 4.17 mph.

runkeeper screenshot showing 14:22 minute walking mile

Ignore Runkeeper’s “3rd fastest” headline, I’m pretty sure I’ve never walked so fast in a long, long time – and this has been most decidedly walking, not jogging or running mixed in.

4 mph has a certain significance in my psyche, because I grew up thinking that it’s a reasonable walking speed for the untrained, after reading The Long Walk, not a breathing-hard kind of pace.  In retrospect I think Mr. King got that particular detail of the story wrong; I’m not sure you could expect people to last very long at that pace, and maybe 3.5 mph would have been more realistic for walk that should last more than 24 hours.  Then again, I’m the one who might be wrong.

I’ve also dropped a few pounds along the way, but I won’t publish figured on that quite yet.

Nature Is Metal

Driving home, down by the lake, we spotted a bald eagle at the water’s edge of the beach, with… something.  We thought it was a fish.

Pull into the parking lot to snap a picture.  Before we could get a camera on the bird, she took off with her lunch in her talons.

Her lunch was a seagull.

We’re not that far from the sea, seagulls like to come hang out on the lake during the winter for some reason.  There were hundreds yesterday, while Megh and I sat and watched them during our lunch.

There were none today.

The Vaquita Project

Beta has taken an interest in the plight of the vaquita, and made a website as part of her school project.  Check out The Vaquita Project.

Garlic Baked Whitefish

This is a super-easy recipe.  My first time trying I went from pre-heating the oven to dinner on the table in under 30 minutes.

The source recipe calls for tilapia, but it should work with nearly any white fish.  Really there’s no reason it couldn’t work well with darker fish like salmon or tuna, though being thicker you may need to cook longer and flip the fish halfway through, as well as increase the other ingredient amounts.

This pairs well with rice and roasted vegetables.

Garlic-Baked Whitefish

Print Recipe
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 12 minutes
Servings: 4 people
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: American
Ingredients Equipment Method

Ingredients
  

  • 1.5 pounds White fish (Tilapia or similar)
  • 6 tbsp Butter melted
  • 3 cloves Garlic minced
  • 1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
  • Juice from 1/2 lemon

Equipment

  • Cast Iron skillet

Method
 

  1. Pre-heat oven to 400° F, with cast-iron pan inside
  2. Mix up the melted butter, lemon juice, garlic, and red pepper flakes
  3. Toss fish into the pre-heated pan and sprinkle on some pepper. You don’t need to grease the pan first, dry is fine, the fish won’t stick.
  4. Pour the butter mixture evenly over the fish
  5. Bake for 12 minutes

Adapted from https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a19665918/oven-baked-tilapia-recipe/

Dashcam to the Rescue!

This shall come as no surprise to anyone that lives in or near Boston: my car got hit by another car while driving in downtown Boston.  This is an every day occurrence, and is why many people avoid driving downtown.

The downside:

  • my car got hit
  • it must be fixed
  • we didn’t make the appointment that I was picking up Alpha child for

The upside:

  • nobody was hurt (in either car)
  • the damage is relatively minor
  • it wasn’t my fault
  • I have a dashcam 🙂

youtube's closed-captioning symbol Turn on the closed captioning for additional viewing fun!

Note several so-very-Boston things that occur in this video:

  • a car crash in perfect driving conditions (shouldn’t happen)
  • the two guys on the sidewalk that briefly glance in our direction, then keep going (principal of don’t-get-involved)
  • the woman who takes advantage of the break in traffic to jaywalk (no fucks left to give)

Sadly, the other driver was scurrilous and claimed that I had swerved from the left lane into the right before stopping suddenly.  (That would also be a very Boston thing to do, if it had happened.)  Our insurance companies found in my favor after reviewing the dashcam footage, and my car’s damage is fully paid for – nothing out of pocket, no deductible.

I will not drive without a dashcam ever again.  I wish I could provide a review of my particular unit but, sadly, it’s not made anymore – a review would be pointless.

I do recommend that anyone and everyone get a dashcam, though.  Besides proving the details of driving incidents, you can accidentally capture some really cool stuff.

If you like watching dashcam footage, may I recommend dashcamgifs on reddit?

Only Child

I was an only child… but it took a lot of effort.

—Alpha Child

We had been riffing on the Steven Wright joke, “When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box. I was an only child… eventually.”  Alpha’s ad-lib made the joke that much darker.  I am quite proud.

Indian Butter Chicken

 

Indian Butter Chicken

Delicious chicken and cauliflower. Pairs well with rice and/or naan bread.
Print Recipe
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Servings: 6
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • Olive oil
  • Onion, yellow, small diced
  • 4 cloves Garlic
  • 2 tbsp Ginger, fresh
  • 2 tbsp Butter
  • 3/4 cup Chicken Stock
  • 6 oz Tomato Paste
  • 2 tsp Cinnamon
  • 2 tsp Cumin
  • 2 tsp Garam masala
  • 1 tsp Tumeric
  • 1 tsp Salt
  • 1.5 pounds Chicken diced to bite-sized pieces
  • 1 head Cauliflower chopped into bite-sized pieces
  • 2 tbsp Lemon juice
  • 1 cup Heavy cream

Equipment

  • 14+ inch skillet w/ lid

Method
 

  1. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in the skillet until it shimmers
  2. Add onions, garlic, and ginger, and sauté for a couple of minutes, until the onions begin to soften
  3. Stir in, and bring to a simmer:
    butter
    chicken stock
    tomato paste
    cinnamon
    cumin
    garam masala
    tumeric
    salt
  4. Add chicken and cauliflower, and stir until coated
    Don’t be alarmed: the previous steps leave you with a paste, not a sauce, and the chicken and cauliflower might seem a little dry.
  5. Cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes (or until the chicken is cooked through)
  6. Stir in lemon juice and cream, and bring back to a simmer
  7. Simmer, uncovered, for a couple of minutes

Notes

A variation of a traditional Indian dish, my recipe is adapted from The Modern Proper.
This is one of those recipes where your significant other may saunter through the kitchen and compliment the fragrance; children might run away in fear and loathing.  The final product is smooth, tasty, and not nearly as strong as it seemed while you were cooking.

Cape Cod 2021

Highlights From Cape Cod

“Baba” plays the part of the matriarch and rents a house on the cape, then invites the families to come stay with her.  Our responsibilities include making dinner (plus cleaning up) and enjoying ourselves.

This year was one of the rainiest summers in a long time, among the top 5 since record keeping began, but we still had plenty of time for fun.

seals in the water
Swimming was poor for humans but great for seals on Saturday evening

We went on a whale watch out of Provincetown on Wednesday.  It was really foggy and we didn’t see any whales, or anything at all, for almost two hours.

barely-discernable boat in the fog
There is a boat in the center of this picture, less than a hundred meters away

Suddenly, out of the fog, we stumbled across some whales that really showed off for a bit.

We discovered Skaket Beach, on the bay side of Orleans, on a beautiful afternoon.

sunset at skaket beach
Sunset at Skaket Beach

The beach is very flat so as the tide retreats you can walk out very, very far.

looking back on skaket beach from the water
Looking back at Skaket Beach after walking out to meet the retreating water

There are natural tide pools that trap crustaceans.  The kids had fun hunting hermit crabs and minnows.  Tim dug up a couple of steamers to show the kids what lives beneath the sand.

Beta child made some new friends, as usual.  Baba did, too, with a couple that lives in the next town over from us.  Meghan and I had fun talking with them about local stuff, and listening to the husband grouse about local contractors and the crappy McMansions they put up.

A couple of days into our stay, a local hawk mother decided that her chicks were ready to leave the nest.  One of the three wasn’t quite ready and complained, loudly, every remaining day of our stay.

fledgeling hawk
This newly-fledged hawk haunted his former roosts while complaining, loudly, and calling for mom.

The mother hawk, to her credit, never strayed too far away.  The siblings showed up as well to coax him off his branch.  This one, however, mostly hopped from tree to tree and demanded a nest and food.

Other highlights, of which there are no photos

Alpha’s Graduation

Alpha child officially graduated from high school today!

Hot day, graduation was moved to morning to avoid 90+° F in the afternoon.  (92° as I write this, expected to top out around 94° in a couple of hours.)

Afterwards, lunch with the grandparents at the Emerald Rose.

I’m very proud of Alpha.  I’m also very proud of myself and @mom that we successfully launched a tiny human to adulthood.