My post on Tour of Ca, etc

Yesterday, when the Womens Club Book Club met at my house, I mentioned my mention (are you following?) of the bike race/tour coming in May. Dixie gave me a big "duh" and reminded me this was OLD news. Yes, I know Dixie, but I now know that I have at least 19! readers, and some may be out-of-towners (and in fact are) and I wanted them to know in case they wanted to rent their 2nd homes here in the shores for that weekend, or attend, as NCity is woefully short of housing for the humongo crowd that will be here AND the Bay Area (where most of the 2nd homers live) may not be covering the event as much. So "duh" back.
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By the way, I concur on Dixies wish to go vegetarian. I was a vegie for a full year in my 20's, and it felt great. Fell off the wagon and never went back. Plus it DEFINITELY conflicts with my love of animals, AND the fact of feed lots and all that anti-biotic use, ugh! Anyhoo, Phil recently got a bad report card on his cholesterol count, so it's time to take a 2nd look at living at least without the red meat (oooooh, how we love our bbq'd tri-tip) or lots less (oxy moron). Now, I like to say I quit smoking (at 25) in one day, but truly, I just quit BUYING ciggs in one day. Instead, I would appeal to my still smoking friends "do you think I could bum one little ole cig from you. I'm trying to quit, and if I buy a pack, lord knows I'll suck up the whole darn thing in a day, pleeeeeaase." This worked for about a year, which by the end they were "on" to me, and cut me off the free ciggs. So then I quit in one day (well, a year and a day). Where's she going with this??? Well, 2 weeks ago I started trying to cook with little or no meat, rather than going COLD TURKEY (no pun intended). Here's how it goes: instead of having pork chops, use 1 chop to make a huge pot of green chili pork stew, with lots of veges, green enchilada sauce and black beans. Eat in whole wheat burrito, plain in a bowl, or over brown rice. Voila, only 8 oz meat in about 3 meals. Same with chicken. One chicken breast, 2 caesar salads with chicken, plus chicken/vege soup (more vege's than chicken). Stir fry is a snap with very little meat, lots of veges. Want that steak? Just have 1/2 a filet with 4-5 jumbo prawns, surf AND turf, voila half the red meat as usual, say, twice a month. This may seem like all common sense stuff, but I guess we just got accustomed to making meat the main event. Anyhow, we'll see if the cholesterol and weight go down without actually "dieting." I know the grocery bill has already gone down. Thought I'd share that "food for thought."
PS: The bloggess's blog on the cat on Morgan Freeman's head made me cry (for happy). She sure can improve my day! check my link.

You do know that the Tour of California Bike Race

is going to start right here in Nevada City in May, right. I have added a link to Cascadeshores.org home page so you can get the details easily. Lots of great info on their website, like, did you know that the reason for this race is to help people living with cancer? You can submit your name as a volunteer. You can check the full route, and they have a awesome video tour of Nevada City, Grass Valley, Foresthill Bridge in Auburn (tallest bridge in Ca, and 3rd tallest in US). All this I learned from the site, and all of which I will probably forget by tomorrow. This is huge folks. We could see upward of 100 thousand visitors on that weekend, and it could mean gazillions of dollars for local merchants. We definitely don't have the hotel rooms for as many as will need. Not sure where they will put everyone, but if you have a rental for the weekend, I would put it on Craigs List pronto.

Thank you all 11 readers

OK, two big events. I have had responses from 11, yes, countem, 11 kind/bored people who read my blog (and one has even gotten hooked on bloggess.com, frikin funnest woman ever) cause of me, SO THANK YOU ALL FOR ANSWERING. I figure there must at least another half dozen who read but didn't respond, so thanks to them too. The overall comment I got is that folks read by blog to get news about the shores. I have been rambling lately, as there has been no real news in the shores, but when there is, I'll be right there telling you what I know. I'll even jazz it up as I feel appropriate.
Now second, confession. I joined facebook (after much pressure from friends pretty much calling me out-of-touch with the 21st century if I didn't) and the first faux pas I committed was accidentally inviting EVERYONE in the 200 list mailbox to join with me! I have not done any housekeeping in my mailbox for about 13 years, so god only know who got an invite from me. No doubt some people who thought/hoped I had fallen off a cliff years ago. Anyway, seems I have inspired about 10 old/new friends and some barely acquaintances to join. Go figure. So welcome all you new facebook participants. It appears to be a pretty good stalking tool, yes? I only wanted to join to play scrabble with my friend Alva in Oakland and Sue in Aptos. But if anyone else is interested, let the games begin!

sucker for tiger jokes

sorry, I am compelled to pass on. Did you hear Tiger called a press conference to announce his new name. From how on, he is to be referred to as LionChettah.
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Hey, 4 reply's to my inquiry as to who reads my blog. THANKS 3 best friends, and Kenny! I knew there were 4 of us. . . . .
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ITS COOOOLD OUT THERE, AND FEELS LIKE SNOWS ON THE WAY TO ME. We'll see. . . .

Do me a favor, will ya?

Just curious, if you read this blog even occasionally, will you let me know via the comment option, or in an email to caindenise@yahoo.com. I would totally appreciate that. So hard speaking into a void . . .

How cold was it here this winter?

Cold. Apparently cold enough to bust a water pipe in the shed a t LML. So if you have a "vacation home" here and have not checked lately, you might want to. FYI. Pipe at lake will be repaired and INSULATED.
Also, the last of the bark beetle damaged trees have been cut at LML, leaving the kids play area rather shadeless. So, hopefully new trees, not succeptable to bark beetles, will be planted. They probably won't provide shade in my lifetime, but as Warren Buffet said, "someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago." Nice to know that action taken today bears fruit (no pun intended) for many a future day. I'm pushing for fruit trees. Feed the birds, feed the kids. Apples and cherries do very well in my yard.

OK, I caved, and joined Facebook

I tell ya, even at 56 you can cave to peer pressure. I just felt soooo left out. No, actually, my friend Sue was looking for a venue that we could play scrabble on, (she lives in Aptos) and I heard you can do through FB, so I joined. Like I stated on my profile, it feels like just one MORE room to clean (I gotta maintain email, which by the way has, like 4800 unread messages, and I never clean house there) and my blog (always feeling guilty when I don't write in it, even though only, I don't know, something like FOUR of us read it) and now I'll have to monitor FB. Well, actually, by error, I sent an invite to EVERYONE in my much outdated and 13 year old phonebook on yahoo, (I'm sure some folks in it don't know they are still there, and probably would be deleted if they had their way), so a little egg on my face there (great first move D). Yet, low and behold, I got something like 24 new friends in the first 24 hours (ooooh, 1 friend per hour) and that was a total surprise. So, I'm still feeling my way around the site, but gleaned some interesting "factoids" already about long lost friends and acquaintances. So, quite the powerful network I guess. I'll keep you posted (all 4 of you) on how many friends I accumulate in the first 30 days. I guess this is the 6 degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon (except, in Nevada County it seems to be 1 degree). Here we go!