Pittsburgh peeps - are you looking to adopt a dog?

From the Mon Valley freecycle group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MonValleyFreecycle/message/5562

"I know someone with 3 dogs that need good homes asap! All are females, not fixed tho, they are very friendly and lovable! One is an Akita, I think she is around 3 or 4 years old. Mostly white with a little brown. The other 2 are Akita mix about a year old, they are the pups of the Akita. The pups are full grown, mostly black with white on the paws and chest, sooo cute! The person who has these dogs is not feeding them. I have been taking food and water to them cause I feel so bad for them. I have 2 dogs of my own so unfortunately I can't take any of them. These dogs are starving and are in bad shape."

There is a phone number to call at the above link.

(This sounds like a very bad situation - not sure if the woman posting is actually in a position to give these dogs away, but if you think you can help, please check out the link.)

kitchen escapades

For those who have been following along for a while, my caution in the kitchen is vaguely legendary. I didn't grow up cooking; my ex-husband was very kitchen-possessive; and whilst I can make one helluva good grilled cheese sandwich, I am in general very skittish about cooking. When I *do* get creative, I end up 'inventing' something that isn't all that new after all, but is certainly palatable.

Last night, I had a hankering for spaghetti and didn't realize until after the pasta was boiling that all I had was a can of peeled tomatoes, so I diced those and threw them into the drained pasta. Ok, so not that original (though my version was much simpler).

I've been experimenting with veggie gardening, and it's not going all that splendiferously, so I decided to start eating the lettuces that are living but not thriving. And hey, I bought some lemon grass, which is starting to grow fairly nicely, so maybe I could try using that..? I glanced online, got the general idea, and then winged it...defrosted some pork, chopped up waaaaaay too damn much grass, threw it into my wok with some olive oil, added the pork, decided to add some lemon juice, lime juice, and sea salt. While that cooked, I ran outside and made a small salad of varied lettuces.

I'm not sure I'd make it for anyone else, but it was encouragingly tasty! (This may be coloured by the fact that I've not really eaten a meal in a few days and was STARVING.) I do need to not use so much lemon grass next time, and I think I need to try actually following a recipe next time, as I'd like to attempt a Thai dish I faked my way through a few months ago.

In Other News, made great progress on the basement, added much to the Goodwill pile, took much trash to the dumpster, dropped off some yarrow to Ex-Landlady, and feel altogether like much has been accomplished.