my work here is done

Every woman in my life now either has or is considering a gun for self-defense. Many of them have gone on to get their CCW, including my mom.

I'm satisfied.

Messaging mom

My mom has an iPad, which means we can now iMessage (it's a verb because I say so) each other for free.

This evening I was telling her about a book I just checked out (I'm in blue):



See, I had quite a few "odd bits" experiences growing up. I learned very early on that if Mom said, "It's roast beef, just eat it." she was being honest. Kind of.

Anyway:



Damn you, autocorrect.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

lucky girl

Next year, when I turn 38, my father will have been gone for exactly half my life. I strain for memories now, wishing for nothing but the sound of his voice and getting a brief, odd glimpses instead - the scar under his thumbnail, his paint splattered boots, the way he'd pull his face when he shaved, the mysterious collection of coins in his pocket, the amount of sugar he'd take in his coffee, and oh, gosh, how he'd laugh. Sometimes he'll silently appear in a dream, smiling as if nothing is amiss and no time has passed at all. I'll carry him with me all through that next waking day, remembering that yes, once upon a time I had a dad who loved me.

when life deals you lemons...

Not many recipes begin with "Step 1: fly to Arizona" but on our recent trip out west Mom and I paid a visit to my cousin's house, or more specifically, his lemon trees.

We thought that we'd pick a few lemons, box them up and ship them home at a flat rate. Lemons are so expensive in Ohio, around 80 cents each, that we figured it'd be worth the trouble.

Despite my love for every- and anything lemon, I had no idea about how they grew. I figured they grew on trees somewhere vaguely south but as far as I was concerned, they might as well have been little zesty jewels filled with yummy wonder and sunshiney goodness magically delivered by citrus fairies. I just had never really thought about it. My best guess involved a yellower version of an apple tree, which has been the sum total of my experience with fruit trees thus far.

I wasn't too far off, except I wasn't prepared for just how many lemons a lemon tree can hold. Or how large lemons can become when they're allowed to fully ripen. My cousin's wife apologized for how small this year's lemons were, while holding a fruit about the size of a softball. I boggled...and quickly came to realize that the lemons I'd been loving and treasuring my entire life were just a sad parody of the real thing. (If you will, "lemons" vs. "LEMONS!!!!") I was standing in the sunshine picking fruit off its tree in January and my hands were sticky with lemon oil - the world was warm and smelled wonderful. I was in heaven.

Needless to say, within about 20 minutes, I had picked five or six grocery bags full - far more than would fit in our flat rate shipping boxes. Luckily, my aunt offered us a spare suitcase and, after some careful packing, weighing and stashing extra citrus in our other bags, we were able to check our bounty in with our other luggage. All in all, I think we had 60 pounds of citrus. (navel oranges and tangelos too, but mostly lemons) Dreams of all that lemonade made the blizzard we came home to a little bit easier to bear.

A few days later, Mom and I realized that the lemons were going to go a lot further than we thought. Just how much frozen lemon juice and dried zest would someone need, right? Mom made limoncello, which used 12 lemons...but we still had bags left over. What to do, what to do. Suddenly, I had an idea.

Marmalade.

All that sunshine, preserved. Gorgeous, isn't it?

(here's the recipe)

Handpicked

Edible sunshine.

(My cousin in Arizona has citrus trees. We brought home a suitcase full.)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

long ago & far away

I've seen a lot of old family photos recently, and I thought I'd share one.

The uncle of my uncle is shown here, walking tall at the front of the line, just to the left of the man saluting. They were marching in some sort of small town parade in Abbeyleix, Co. Laois - back when Irishmen still carried guns.


Perhaps someone could help me identify the rifle.

a funny thing happened

While in the (warm, sunny, beautiful, snowfree) southwest last week, Mom and I had a chance to meet some fellow gunblogians* for a Mexican dinner and a margarita as big as my head.

Since I didn't inherit my mother's sense of direction, I navigated by iPhone and we arrived just when we promised we would. Inside we found that David, Mrs. David, and Hank had already gotten a table for our little gathering - so we settled in to wait on Kevin Baker, king of the gunblogs.

After my mouth had achieved a satisfactory burning sensation from the chips and green chile, I thought I should probably check my email (iPhone again), in case Kevin had sent me a message saying he'd been delayed. Nothing. Where was he?

Just then I got a text message from Alan of Snarkybytes. It read: "Did you just try to contact me? I just got a call from Arizona."

Hmm, I hadn't, but what an odd coincidence.

I checked my email again. There was a Twitter message from Mr. Boomershoot Joe Huffman. "Kevin Baker is trying to contact you. Please call him immediately." Joe helpfully supplied Kevin's phone number.

I called Kevin right away, asking where he was.

"I'm in the restaurant, waiting for you!" he said.

I was puzzled. "Los Dos Molinos? In Mesa?"

"Yes. Where are you?"

"Sitting at the table, waiting for you."

As Kevin made his way over to us, I got another text message, this time from Chance of SayUncle. "Kevin just called," it read. "I gave him your number."

I laughed. Friends from Arizona, Texas, Idaho, and Tennessee had been relaying messages in an attempt to locate the gunchick from Ohio...and I'd been on the opposite side of the same restaurant the entire time.

Isn't the internet amazing? You meet the nicest people here.

__________

*gun·blog·i·an [guhn-blɒɡ-ee-uhn]

–noun, plural: -i·ans.

1.
a person who contributes through writing, reading or commenting, to an online community that focuses on firearms and Second Amendment rights.

2. a term invented just today.

traveling.

I'm headed to Arizona this afternoon for some family time and a funeral.

I don't know what the wifi situation will be like so I may have to rely solely on my iPhone, so blogging will probably be light (-er than it has been lately.) I'll be back late Saturday.

I still have to pack and prep for my TSA tango, so I'm off.

And if you hear news about a tiny berserker cane-wielding librarian having to be pulled off some guy named Mohammed after he set his underpants on fire? Yeah, that'd probably be me.

1st funshow!

This past Saturday, Mom went to her first gun show. She did all the requisite activities - joined the NRA and got a free hat, peered in cases full of WWII memorabilia, handled lots of (pink and non) guns while keeping her finger off the trigger, admired the unique and antique, wandered off with me while Mike got lost in the earthtone and denim crowd, waited patiently while I looked at knives, bought something from the military surplus booth, picked up some literature on CCW classes...you know, the usual.

It was a decent gun show and we had a good time, with one exception: STILL NO JERKY. Sure, you can buy giant smurf blue ropes of sour licorice or even cranberry apricot trail mix, but no spicy dessicated meat. What is wrong with Ohio that there is never any jerky at our gunshows?

going dark

This afternoon, our family lost our hero...and though it happened the way these things usually do, I don't think any of us were really prepared for a world without him in it.

I'm going to need time and silence (and the Arizona desert) to say goodbye.

Mother daughter day

Mom's been delighted with her first ever gun purchase, but needed to learn how it worked. So a few weeks ago, we went to the range to try it out.

I'm familiar with how the Beretta 70 functions because it's very similar to my Bersa (the blow back design and one button mag release make things simple), so I felt fairly confident showing Mom how to load and shoot. The pistol came with only one 8 round magazine, so we were going to get a lot of practice.

I took the first few shots with it, and was really impressed. I like a bit of recoil so shooting .22LR is disappointing for me. I usually plink for a while and end up getting bored but the Beretta's size offered a sturdy little push and felt fairly substantial in my hand. The trigger was a dream - smooth and crisp, just what I like. And accurate, wow! I could have shot it all day.

Instead, I happily handed it over to the reason I was there. (at the range and, well..on the planet)


Mom did great! She handled the pistol like a pro - loading, unloading and racking the slide - and her shooting was good too. She wasn't getting bullseyes every time but she kept her shots on the target which, considering it was a new-to-her pistol, she had a broken shoulder last year, and she hadn't shot in a very long time, is a huge accomplishment. I'm quite proud of her.

You can see how well she's doing on this target we shared. That's her shots there on the left and my group on the right. I was shooting .380.

She took the target home to add to the growing collection on her fridge.

It was a good day.

The new country

My father arrived in New York City on November 23, 1955 in search of a brighter future.

It was the day before Thanksgiving. I will be forever grateful.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

think pink

As the daughter of a breast cancer survivor, I'm happy to be able to promote this charity auction, which will support the fund-raising goals of the GunBroker.com family team, which includes walkers and crew members in the Atlanta Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, held Oct. 22-24. All proceeds will go to the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, which funds innovative global breast cancer research and local community programs supporting education, screening and treatment.

Specifications for the AR-15 style DPMS Panther Lite 16" Special Edition Pink rifle can be found on the auction page.

Milestones

Filling out your first 4473 is always a special moment. There is a heady mix of excitement and hesitation. You think, "Did I fill it out correctly? Is there something I don't know about in my permanent record?" You fill in the blanks, neatly fill in your X's and 10 minutes later...

Mom passed and is now officially a gun owner! (And it's a beaut!)

She's already talking about needing some pink grips and since the pistol came with only one magazine, I guess we'll be hunting for accessories (which seems to be a search akin to the one for the Holy Grail. My librarian fu has turned up nothing so far)

Range report coming soon!

grand gunchicks

Maxim has a list of older actresses who have packed heat on film.





But I know for a fact that it doesn't only happen in the movies. Everyone congratulate Mom Fallacy on buying her first gun, a Beretta 70 Series .22!

bleg

Does anyone have just a few spare rounds of ammo for one of these? (.38 S&W, I think?)


I have a very special gun that I need to shoot. (& yes, there's a story to go along with it.)

I have paypal...let's make a deal.

I love this woman.

(Happy mother's day!)

off the clock

Research is what I do - and it seems that I do it so often that it's become a habit. Any time an "I wonder..." question comes up in conversation, I immediately feel the urge to go find the answer.

Today, during my brother-in-law's birthday dinner, somehow the topic turned to beer bellies and ballet.

"I'm sure that somewhere on the internet, there's a video of that," said Rob, the guest of honor.

I sighed, resigned to my fate as everyone's personal librarian. "Okay, fine. I'll go look it up."

And with a couple of beers under my belt, this is the closest I came to a match...



I guess you can take the girl out of the library but you can never take the library out of the girl.

(hope everyone is having a great weekend! I had steak!)

spellcheck!

(from my IRC and Blogorado shooting buddy Sal)

(tattoo fail)

One of my favorite family stories is the one where my mother had a fight with the lady who was registering new kindergartners about my name. The lady insisted my mother was misspelling her own child's name.

No, really. It's Breda.

Saturday snowday cookies

For this week's new recipe I was going to write about these tropical porkchops but while the sauce was really delicious - a little spicy with a tang of pineapple* - the chops themselves turned out dry and disappointing. We ended up dicing up the remains of the pork and using it in a stirfry with some of the leftover sauce. Good, but not what I was aiming for - the recipe would be fabulous with a juicy little pork tenderloin or perhaps boneless, skinless chicken thighs (my new meat discovery, I cannot sing their praises enough.)

Anyway, I wanted cookies today but didn't want to leave the house. We didn't quite get the snowpocalypse everyone else has been fretting about but it was bitterly cold - far too cold to venture out just for cookies. Plus at 4PM I was still debating on getting dressed.

I pulled out Mike's mom's recipe binder, hoping to discover a recipe that called for things I had in the pantry, which really wasn't much. I found the perfect thing...chewy brown sugar cookies, the easiest cookie I've ever made.

Mix one well beaten egg with 1 cup packed brown sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla. Add one half cup unsifted flour, one quarter tsp. each of salt and baking soda and one and a half cups chopped nuts. Drop spoonfuls on cookie sheet and bake @ 350°F for 7-9 minutes.

Perfect on a winter's afternoon with a cup of tea. Enjoy.

_______________________
*just the thing (I thought) for celebrating our first ever Netflix delivery, a Burn Notice disc. The show is set in Miami and I had a taste for something thematic.