Don Julio VIP Margarita

The Mad Mex North Hills is my favorite place for a margarita in Pittsburgh, and my go-to variety is the Don Julio VIP.  It comes with a floater served in an inside-out, used lime shell.  The margarita is made with Don Julio Blanco (Silver) Tequila, Cointreau, a premium orange liqueur, and Mad Mex’s signature sour mix/citrus blend.  I asked for the Tajín rim (a Mexican spice mix consisting predominantly of lime, chili peppers, and salt) for an extra kick.  A full menu and a list of their nine locations are at the link below.

https://www.madmex.com

Proxy Wedding

A neighbor of ours told us that her niece was wed to her husband in a "proxy wedding", a term I had never heard of before.  I looked it up and found, "A proxy wedding is a marriage ceremony where one or both individuals are not physically present and are represented by stand-ins, known as proxies."  The husband is in the military, and proxy weddings are often the quickest way to get married and afford the other spouse financial benefits like legal, financial, and healthcare protections.  

Proxy weddings are only legal in Montana, California, Colorado, New Jersey (active military only), and Texas, so one party must be physically in one of those states, and the other party is represented by a stand-in.  Montana allows a double-proxy wedding with neither party being physically present, but it is available only to military members and residents.

More information can be found at the following link.

https://www.boydlawlosangeles.com/what-is-a-proxy-marriage

You're Not Listening

While out on one of my frequent walks, I heard a mother telling her young daughter, "You're not listening to me."  I listened for a few moments to the exchange, and it was clear that the girl was listening to her mother; she just didn't want to do what she was asked.  That got me thinking more deeply about what was going on.  Sometimes the choice of words reveals an underlying motivation.

I concluded that the mother should have said, "You're not obeying me."  But that would put the resolution on the mother.  By saying you're not listening, she's trying to put the resolution on the young girl, and she wasn't going for it.  The mother is not accepting who's in charge, and she needs to figure out how best to get her daughter to comply.  

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see how this exchange ended.  Did she just give up or try a different approach?  I'll keep my opinion on that to myself.

Long-Handled Squeegee

Windshield bug splatter on a long interstate road trip is going to happen, particularly in summer.  I hadn't noticed before, but Love's has both short- and long-handled squeegees available in their suds-buckets.  Since we typically take longer trips in our larger SUV (Infiniti QX60), reaching the middle of the window usually requires opening the front doors and stepping up to reach.  The longer pole made this an easy, keep-my-feet-on-the-ground chore.  Thanks, Love's!

https://www.loves.com

Tortilla Pizza

This is probably better labeled as a "use the leftovers" pizza.  We started using a couple of flour tortillas that had been around for a while, cooked up what was left of a package of chorizo, some Cotija cheese that somehow hadn't gone bad yet, and some corn and sliced cherry tomatoes.  The only "fresh" ingredient was a few leaves of basil growing in a pot on our back deck.  A few minutes in the oven and it made a tasty lunch and made some space in the refrigerator.  

Fancy Bloody Mary

The wild Bloody Mary you see below comes from Luke Wholey's Wild Alaskan Grille on Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh.  It features a whole fried soft-shell crab that forms a body, arms, and legs, a pickle spear for a mouth, and pimento-stuffed green olives for eyeballs.   Add crispy bacon, jumbo shrimp, and a couple of celery stalks, and you have an afternoon cocktail, a delicious appetizer, and a sideshow for the thousands of people strolling down the street.

https://www.lukewholey.com

Hoarding Disorder

I couldn't resist; I used AI to remove the street address from the picture below.  Too embarrassing.

To be fair, this house has no basement and only 1,040 square feet of living space, so it's understandable that the garage is being used for storage.  Before they cleared a path to their back door, all the stuff in the driveway was also in the garage.  Given that the valued possessions include a green, circa-1940 classic car (or at least the front part, as shown on the left) and most of it is junk, this is way beyond storage and into the realm of hoarding.

As the article at the link below begins, "Hoarding disorder is a chronic difficulty with discarding possessions—even those without any monetary value—accompanied by a dysfunctional attachment to often worthless or unusable items."  It also gives some good advice on how to overcome hoarding.  It's a good read even if you're just trying to do some spring cleaning (or fall cleaning) and get rid of some marginally useful possessions.

https://www.helpguide.org/mental-health/anxiety/hoarding-disorder-help-for-hoarders

Double Tap The Back

Unlike yesterday's feature, I wouldn't have thought this might exist.  On both the Apple iPhone and the Google Pixel, you can configure an action to take when the camera detects a double tap on the back of the device.  As you can see below, I've configured mine to take a screenshot, so instead of the cumbersome combination of pressing the power button and the volume down simultaneously, the double tap involves less movement and coordination.  You can read more about the feature at the links below.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/111772

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/7443425

Volume Button Shutter

I am totally ashamed that I did not know this camera feature until a few days ago.  Instead of using the round white button on the camera app's screen, you can use either the volume up or the volume down button as the shutter.  So instead of holding the camera in one hand and pressing the white button with the other, you hold the phone in both hands, making it much steadier.  Works on both Gourmet Chef Elaine's iPhone and my Google Pixel 7.  

https://www.isumsoft.com/iphone-tips/take-photos-with-volume-buttons-in-iphone.html

Texas Toast Tomato Pies

With this year's tomato crop delivering some of the best we've tasted, Gourmet Chef Elaine found this simple recipe that was a hit.  It combines Texas Toast (our favorite), a layer of Boursin cheese and mayo, and thick tomato slices topped with shredded sharp Cheddar cheese and chopped chives (from our own patio-grown pots).  Directions and spices needed can be found at the link below.

https://www.southernliving.com/texas-toast-tomato-pies-12008235