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Emiko made us some summer noodles for lunch today. It’s rice noodles, shiitake mushrooms, green onions, and ginger in a soy-saucy broth. It’s yummy and a nice thing to eat on a summer day or anytime.

Lunch

It’s one of Susan’s favorite things to eat when she is home. This bowl looked so nice sitting in the indirect light hitting it from the backyard, I just had to take this pic.

An old friend from KU days, Ian Duffy, stopped by on his way from the airport to Lawrence on Friday. He was in town for a wedding. Ian now lives in the San Francisco Bay area and does product development for CLIF Bar. When I asked him what exactly he does, he said that he “plays with food.” Ian has always been quite a gourmet type, and I was the beneficiary of many of his successful experiments during the time we hung out together. I remember one time I was working on a late deadline at the KU newspaper - he and one of my other roommates brought some of that evening’s creation for me to enjoy. It was some sort of stew, as I recall, and it was delicious, and an incredibly nice thing to bring someone at work.

Smudge would never try to do this to a stranger.

Ian is also quite famous in the baking world, having been the head baker at Daily Bread in Boulder and teaching for a few years at the world renown San Francisco Baking Institute. I think any sort of enthusiasm for baking I have now, stems from the passion Ian had for it, during our time in Lawrence.

The dog displays her utter disdain for the camera.

Smudge seemed to remember Ian quite well, even though she had only met him once, when we went to visit for a couple days in Colorado. It’s been at least ten years since they have seen each other. That may be a tribute to Ian’s calming effect on animals or to Smudge’s apparent elephant-like memory.

A couple days ago I noticed a few tunnels in our yard and realized we had moles. They had dug several tunnels along one side of the house in the backyard, and a few mounds attached to about a twelve-foot long tunnel coming off the patio. I think the excavations are much more extensive than what I can see since there was one spot in our landscaping where something seemed to be digging. I’d replace the mulch from that spot only to come back the next day to see it dug up again, so I’m sure there is a whole mole-tropolis under our pear trees and lythrum.

Smudge investigates a sprung trap. This one turned up empty.

I did some research online about how to get rid of them and what I found was that the only effective thing you can do is trap them and kill them. Some think you can get rid of them by putting grub killer down, the idea being that if you take away their food source they will move on. But their main food source is earthworms. Poisons and repellents also have limited effectiveness. Moles bite the worms and paralyze them with a chemical in their saliva, then they store the worms alive in a special area of the tunnel network, to be consumed later.

So I got me a super mole trap from Wal-Mart and put it into action. This kind of trap has a sort of cage that springs down into the ground, trapping the little critter. You set it over one of the active tunnels after you have collapsed the roof of the passage a little. When the mole tries to come back though the tunnel, the trap is sprung and he is trapped. I trapped one today on my second try, but the worst part was my having to play a real-life game of whack-a-mole to finish the job.

Smudge has been very curious about the moles and she does like to stick her nose inside the tunnels she has uncovered, but these little guys are quite feisty, and can bite. I didn’t think I had one cornered in the second trap that sprung, but when I brushed away some of the turf on top, it started thrashing violently, and I’m sure if I had stuck an ungloved finger in there, I would be at the emergency room right now getting stitches and a course of rabies shots.

I’m hoping that this wasn’t the first of a whole troop of subterranean invaders, and if I’m lucky there will be just one more mole I’ll have to whack.

This afternoon, UPS delivered a special little care package sent from my parents and my aunt Janice: five pounds of Sahlen’s hot dogs form Buffalo Foods. We knew a mysterious package was on its way and neither of us could figure out what it might be, so it was a really welcome surprise.

Yum!

You may recall the unfortunate incident that befell the last batch of Sahlen’s. To make sure that didn’t happen again, I made sure to place these on the top shelf of the freezer, not hidden by anything that they could be confused with. These dogs showed up just in time for prime grilling season. Maybe we’ll have some tomorrow with our wings.

Thanks Mom & Dad and Janice!

Susan’s parents are here from Cimarron and Emiko’s hair is really coming in thick and nice. She still feels like she has to wear a cap but we think her hair is really cute and sophisticated the way it looks now. James said he wished his hair would grow like that!

For dinner I made pizza and tried a new crust recipe I found online. I think I may have found the prefect crust, and will use this one from now on.

The last one we made: mushroom, sausage, onion and spinach pizza.

The pies were really good and the crust was a big hit with everyone. It reminded me of a good New York style pizza crust. Can’t wait to make some more.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my Scion xB, and I thought I’d share a couple of stories, both from when it was pretty new.

I was never very touchy about getting my new car dirty or scratched or dinged. I just considered it would happen eventually so why worry about it. One day I had the iPod playing through the stereo and Susan was in the passenger seat. When the iPod is connected, the stereo displays text from whatever you have playing. It can show the song title, artist name, or in this case the title of the album. Susan was a lot more nervous about scratching the car, especially when I was backing out of the garage, since the xB is quite a bit wider than the Civic was.

So as I’m backing out the Shins are playing on the stereo and all of a sudden I hear Susan shout “Chutes too narrow!” as if my car somehow was telling me I was about to tear off my rear view mirror on the garage door opening. We both had to laugh when I told her “Chutes Too Narrow” was the name of album playing, and the xB proximity sensor would only be an option in the 2024 model year, but only if you purchase a flux capacitor too.

“Chutes Too Narrow” an album by The Shins

Shortly after I got my new car, the neighbor kid, Jake, came by to take a look at the Civic, which he eventually would buy. I don’t remember doing this, but at one point I must have said something about opening or unlocking the doors as I had my key fob near my mouth. He was all, “That’s so cool. Dan’s new car has voice activated locks!” That WOULD be cool, but again - only available on the 2024 model.

I was playing with iMovie for the first time and of course my first little movie is about Smudge. Susan discovered that the puppy really sounds funny when she has a Kong in her mouth and tries to speak. A Kong is a dense, rubber toy that you can fill with treats. Smudge is not much of a “chewer” so to encourage her, we usually give her a couple of treats every day in her Kong, and she gets really excited.

iMovie is pretty cool, and you can put together a little movie very quickly. I also wanted to try out Vimeo, which is kind of like YouTube with some extended features. Check out the staff picks. This one by BLU was on top of the list today.

I find eating some dairy products, especially yogurt and mushy ice cream, to be more enjoyable with a plastic spoon.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the occasional metal taste you get with real utensils that sometimes seems more pronounced when eating dairy. We have a nice collection of plastic spoons that were brought home one by one from Chipotle. We like Chipotle, so we have tons. I think a plastic spoon really let’s you enjoy the full flavor of a sweet dairy treat.

Yoplait French Vanilla

This Yoplait French Vanilla reminded me of this diminutive cyclist I used to ride with in New York. He received a flyer for a bike race that was sponsored by Yoplait and for some reason felt the need to read it to me. Each time he came to the word “Yoplait” he would substitute the word “yogurt” instead. “You should really do this race, sponsored by YOGURT!” I think if I didn’t know how to pronounce Yoplait and wanted to avoid looking like a fool, I’d say, “Here read this flyer yourself!”