i L i n d . n e t

Meet Mr. Piko.

He’s a delightful little Cockerainian, a cross between a Cocker Spaniel and a Pomeranian. If he’s awake when we pass his house, he’s extremely interested in the dog biscuits. He usually gets two. We have to stand around and wait for him to finish eating every crumb of biscuit #1 before he’s ready for #2.

Anyway, I took a little video of him yesterday. Warning: It’s a very large file, so if you’ve got a dial-up connection, I wouldn’t advise watching. Otherwise, click on Piko’s picture. And if that link doesn’t work, for whatever reason, try this one.

Why do some little things seem so aggravating?

Yesterday I was trying to dig through a stack of mail received in the past week, and opened an envelope from Hawaiian Airlines. Along with an accounting of Hawaiian Miles, their frequent flyer reward program, there was an advertisement for something called the Hawaiian Wine Club. Now that sounded good, so I followed the instructions and went online for more information.

Apparently you can sign up for the club and have six bottles of wine automatically selected and shipped to you every two months, or you can shop from their online store of recommended wines.

Still sounding good. Then there’s a chart of shipping charges which didn’t look too bad until I got to the caveat tucked away in the page of text.

An additional surcharge will be added to all deliveries in Alaska and Hawaii.

But here’s the kicker. The “Hawaiian Wine Club” doesn’t tell you what the additional charge for shipping to Hawaii is going to be. Doesn’t that seem something like sort of key info for a Hawaiian wine club?? Aaarrgh!

And then there’s Mr. Peacock.

This beautiful guy wandered into our yard and up to the front steps yesterday morning. He was quite a sight. Before coming over here, he was down and across the street, and for a short while had his plumage in full display mode, tail feathers all extended. Of course, I didn’t get there with a camera in time for the full display. And when he got to our yard, he never turned on the whole tail feather thing. Maybe it’s a good ting. It would really have surprised the cats.

Finally, I forgot about the camera while cooking last night, but at least got this photo of the finished product.

I started with a pork tenderloin. After breakfast, I mixed up some wine, lemon juice, red pepper, garlic, rosemary, and thyme, then put the mix in a large zip lock bag with the meat and left it in the refrigerator all day.

When our friend Chris arrived for our regular weekly dinner, I started some potatoes boiling. Then heated a cast iron skillet with some olive oil. When it was good and hot, I dropped in the tenderloin and browned on all sides for about 8 minutes. When it was looking good, I threw in the rest of the lemon/wine mix, along with another 1/2 cup of wine and 1/2 cup of chicken broth. Mixed it up, and then put the skillet into the oven (preheated to 400) until the meat got to 140 degrees. That took maybe 20 minutes. Then it came out of the oven. I took the meat out and let it stand while whipping up the mashed pototoes (some nonfat milk, heated in the microwave, and a bit of “I can’t believe it’s not butter” for flavor. Finally, mixed in a little corn starch to thicken the remaining liquid in the pan into a wonderful gravy. Served on vintage plates in Vernon Kilns’ Organdie plaid pattern. Meda dressed her salad, the wine was opened. Time to eat!