2476 Days since retiring July 1, 2005!

"Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says "If an emergency, notify:" I put "DOCTOR"."

Read on and fall sound asleep

I cannot believe it has been three weeks since my last entry. When I started this beast almost 6 years ago I intended to use this as a daily way of talking to myself over the years. Since Jan 1, 2012 I have settld into a very dull routine. Only Sundays are different enough to allow me to chart the passage of time. Each day I wake somewhere between 9am and 3 pm, feed or have the cats and fish fed, read the comics and the news, solve a Sudoku, check into my Webtv grannies. Most days I would measure my blood pressure 3 times during the day. Each night I go to bed with full intention to start cleaning the swimming pool and mow the yards. Each morning I realize I lack the initiative to push through the pain. Oh I forgot. I spend a fair portion of each day indexing birth, death, or draft registration records in prep of the 1940 census.

As I read the records the information on the records whispers to me stories of human life so long ago. Recently I had occasion to index death records from a small Texas county and discovered what seemed to me to be sign of racial bias. Three out of 4 (75%) death certificates for blacks dying in that county were hand written. One hundred percent of the death certificates for white were typed. I have been trying to keep track of those incidents. Since first noticing the bias, in every batch, the black records are more likely to be hand written than the white records. Since I do not know who actually completes the record in each county I cannot assume a true bias, yet the practice seems wide spread.

Several friends send me an email with great graphics illustrating our national debt. After listing to both the Republicans and Democrats lying about the national debt and offering bogus promises about how “they” would fix the problem I built a webpage for the graphics. Click HERE for the site. We must drag the politicians away from the money pile. They are drunk on “bucks”.

3/28: Dear God, give us the strength of your word. Amen. 4/11: Dear Lord, help us to see the hidden worth of the people we encounter each day. Lead us to love as you love. Amen. The prayers are from the Upper Room. For your own free E-Mail Devotional visit : http://upperroom.org/devotional/email/ and click on the link “Other Ways to Receive the Daily Devotional”

Loquat Upside Down Cake

Loquat Topping:
1 Stick Butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
About 30 fresh, ripe loquats, halved and pitted

Cake:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp ground cardamom or cinnamon (optional)
1 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs at room temperature
3/4 cup buttermilk

Equipment: A 10″-12″ ovenproof cast-iron skillet

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
For loquat topping: Melt butter in skillet over medium heat. Reduce heat to low, sprinkle brown sugar evenly over butter, then cook, without stirring, for 3 minutes. Not all the sugar will be melted. Remove skillet from heat and arrange loquats, cut sides down, in a circular pattern over the brown sugar/butter mixture.

For cake:
In a small bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and soda, salt and optional spice.

In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 1/2 minutes. Beat in eggs, one and a time until mixture is creamy and has doubled in volume, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk. Beat until just combined.

Gently pour batter over loquats. Bake cake in the middle of the oven until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 40-50 minutes.

As soon as cake is done, invert a large plate or pan over the skillet and flip skillet over, inverting the cake onto the plate. Lift skillet off cake and replace any fruit still stuck to bottom of skillet.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Cake will last, covered and refrigerated, for several days. Reheat in a low oven.

Taken from the Straight Outta Chocolate blog

”A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ”
John Stuart Mill

SGGP