Mish Mash

 

Every morning before the heat, I have been progressing on the cabin cabinet project. I made the doors for the lower front of the cabinet. They aren't your traditional style with a panel in the middle but will instead have hardware cloth for a more rustic look. Before I put the hardware cloth in though I am applying finish to the surfaces. Above I have 2 or 3 coats of a wipe on polyurethane and as I write this, I just applied the fourth coat and will probably do a couple more yet today before calling it good. Although not a real big fan of polyurethane, it has its uses, including high wear surfaces that will see a lot of water and wiping action. Unseen on the backside of the door frames are lots of joinery I had to do to make pockets for the hinges and a rabbet for the hardware cloth. 

I wouldn't go so far as to say the drought here has broken but since returning from our vacation, we seem to be getting a shower every two or three days that will leave behind another 1/4 or 1/3 of an inch of rain. While not enough to recharge the lower soil layers, it has been enough to keep everything green. Keen observers might notice the pea sized hail. I was standing there deciding if I needed to hop in and pull it inside the garage right quick but the pea sized never got larger and petered out quickly and so the van stayed outside and suffered no damage.

The small frequent rains has meant the garden is thriving in the produce department. The cukes are really hitting their stride and I probably have 30 pints of various styles pickled already. The peppers are starting to kick in along with the egg plant and some bitter gourd which must have been underneath. Our potato experiment from Row 7 who breads their potatoes for taste and not storability, are starting to wither so we will be digging them up soon. We dug up on hill just to see how they were doing and they are probably as big as they will get. My MIL's cabbage experiment was a huge success as we picked three more heads of it, all good sized and dense with no worms. 

It is times like this I wish we lived closer to Broadway. Here Lies Love is a musical about the life of Imelda Marcos told in an unflinching way to make sure younger generations never forget about what could happen again. The average age in the Philippines is young enough that they weren't yet alive during the Marcos regime which probably goes a long way to explaining why Ferdinand Marcos's son Bongbong (Ferdinand Marcos Jr.) is now president of that country. 

My understanding of this musical is that it has received less than stellar reviews from the traditional theater crowds, partly due to the open set design where the audience can dance on the floor during the show and partly because not many care about or understand the Filipino culture. But the Filipino reviews rave about it.

We briefly thought about going there one weekend for a showing before it closes for good but really couldn't justify the expense of it. Instead, I will just wait and hope that someone made a DVD of it and can purchase it at a future date.