My favorite "off the beaten path" magazine is AramcoWorld. If you deal the fact that it's linked to an oil company, it's really a high quality, wonderful (and non-political) magazine about the Arab world, and it's free! Here are some examples of their articles (click the photos), and here's a general description and link for a paper subscription. It's printed on nice paper too. We enjoyed , for example, Saving Sarajevo's Literary Legacy and Capital of Baklava. Also, to keep this in the spirit of a book thread, The Poetics of Suspense, an article about crime novels. This magazine is really good for getting all kinds of information about a part of the world that not often discussed in positive terms in the U.S. these days.

Despite the names, curry powder and curry paste are not really interchangeable. You could try making your own curry paste, though. There are different recipes depending on whether you want red, green, or yellow.

May you have a beautiful day filled with good friends, family, and feasting. :party:

I forgot to add the amount of potatoes. I usually use ~2.5 lbs for 2 quarts of stock, but I might make it 3 lbs if I'm not using the dairy and blending it instead. In that case, you need some of the potatoes to thicken as well. And don't under season, that much stock and that many potatoes need a lot of seasoning to not be bland.

Saute lots of leeks in olive oil (buy bag of frozen leeks from TJ's if you want) and when they are soft, add a couple of quarts chicken stock, salt and extra pepper to taste, thyme if you've got it. While it simmers, chop up potatoes into ~1 inch cubes (scrub but don't peel first) and add to soup. Simmer 15 minutes until potatoes are done. At this point I usually add heavy cream, but you can keep it dairy free by eating as-is, or if you have a blender, blending some of it to make it creamy. I use a stick blender for this if I'm making a dairy-free version for my SIL.

If they are in a room it's often a small room so people can use the walls for help if necessary. Elderly people often need someone to take them and help them balance and/or get back up. I remember taking my grandma, who could squat fine even in her eighties but needed some support getting back to standing. :)

I'm so sorry. :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

The older one, who travelled with us to Asia, does. The younger doesn't but I'm sure she would be fine with it. Stuff like that doesn't faze her and we have our kids do things in the squatting position every day so they keep that flexibility to squat flat-footed. It's easy to lose, esp if your ankles get tight. (Ask me how I know.)

I haven't tried it, but quite a few people around here seem to like The Virtual Instructor. They have pretty good cancellation terms as well; you get 30 days to try it out. One of these days I'm going to get around to fitting it into our learning.

Saraha, how'd it go today? :grouphug:

This sounds wonderful, yes!

The nautical theme works very well for me this week! I had already decided to scrap what I've been reading and start over. I'd either lost interest or lost track while traveling the last couple of weeks. After that decision, I was recently reading about how people discovered Hawaii and in general navigated around all of those Pacific islands. (Did you know that clouds can literally point to land, like this? I didn't!) Anyway, reading more about the subject online, I was lead to the idea of reading James Michener's 1959 historical novel Hawaii, and I received it from Amazon on Friday. As I said, the theme works well!

I'm also invested in this story and following along. I admit I am semi-scared of snakes. I don't mind planned encounters and will hold and pet them, but SurpriseSnakeInTheShowerDrain! would be a bit much. I hope you find it soon!

You'll be okay. :grouphug: I agree with spending some time developing new procedures and going back to triple-check all the old ones. Explain that on Tuesday. I wouldn't write a note today or tomorrow while you are upset, and if you decide to write a note, keep it very simple, with no explanations or excuses, just an apology. "I'm so sorry this happened, and I've taken steps to ensure it won't happen again." Your boss must have your phone number, right? If she really needed to talk to you this weekend, she would call. Just get your procedures done and try not to think about it too much for the rest of the weekend.

I'm so sorry this happened. She sounds like a lovely mom. :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

Sounds fungal to me, not sure what's up with the nerve disorder comment.

Wow, I'm so glad your DD was okay! Hang in there.

Sending positive thoughts to you and your mom both. :grouphug:

Wow, my kids will love this! This dovetails nicely with a book DS read a few years ago, Mr. Lincoln's High Tech War.

Yes, you need to get a lawyer. The stakes are very high, even without the government job. Good luck, and I'm sorry this happened to your family. :grouphug:

It was a great trip, and I have to credit Jane for giving me so many great ideas. I did finish Sergio Y. and I've been meaning to post about it so I'm glad you prompted me. It was a good book to have when I was wide awake at 3:00am in London because it was still 7:00pm in CA. I enjoyed the book very much. I had no idea what it would be about when I went into it, just using your recommendation and being so busy lately, the fact that you read it in one day. :blush: The opening chapters made me think it was going to be a book about a particularly disturbed individual, simply because of the narrator's profession and the name of the book, but as it unfolded I came to think of it as a mystery novel, but that changed again later. (Trying to be vague here and avoid spoilers.) My impression of it was of a spool of thread which as it turns, reveals new colors of thread. I think it was my first Europa Editions book, plus I rarely read anything from Brazil, so that was the icing on the cake.

I realized I should clarify that when I said I ditched the animal bones, we actually went back to the same area and returned them to the river. I didn't just throw them in the hotel bin. :) They were interesting. We found lots of bovine (both cow and goat) and porcine bones, so many we were joking that we could re-assemble at least one of each animal. We even found a cleaved goat head from at least a couple of hundred years ago. Many of the bones bore butchering marks and the archeologist was able to roughly date them by their color and wear. The coral was almost unidentifiable, as it's been worn almost as smooth as a stone, but the pattern is still there.

I don't know about a snappy comeback but I would probably open my eyes wide and ask what they mean, or what they think would make us look more like hikers. Put the ball back in their court, and they'll either clarify, or stammer and not say it again. ETA: Tanaqui and I were typing at the same time. Great minds and all that. ;)

Maybe it's an earthquake country thing, but here in CA you can buy high-quality ones at Home Depot. They're not specifically for the "kids' safety" market, but for the "wow, the ground is really moving!" market.

We had a great time fossil hunting and I cannot thank you enough for the suggestion! The first time we went out with a guide and I'm glad we did because he showed us several things we would not have known were fossils, especially belemnites. When you pile them together it's obvious, but just heading out and scouting, I think we would have overlooked them. When we went back later we found additional things as well, but the tide was coming in and we didn't make it to the place we had found so many the day before. It was worth it to be late, though, as we had a wonderful long (and late) lunch at HIX Oyster and Fish House after an impromptu tour of the restored town grain mill. We also took your advice on London Walks, and one of those walks was Thames Beachcombing (or "mudlarking" I soon learned) which resulted in us carrying around even more weird stuff such as Elizabethan roof tiles, Victorian table stabilizers, and old bits of pottery and animal bones. We decided to ditch the old animal bones we found on that walk due to U.S. customs. I did find a small piece of well-worn coral in the Thames, and the archeologist told me the ships used to use it for ballast when going to the Caribbean as part of the slave trade, and they would dump it in the river. I wasn't sure what customs would think of it, but I also didn't want to just leave it there for emotional reasons so I brought it back. I looked it up after I got back and there is a ban, but while this 2-inch piece may fall into the letter of the law, I don't feel it falls into the spirit of it.