Posts by Jonah

I was in Turin the week AFTER they ended the 1998 viewing.

Here’s an excellent site concerning the Shroud of Turin.

Here’s an article explaining why the 1988 carbon-14 dating test was flawed and how it’s actually much older. The first link goes into greater detail.

Nobody still knows how the image came to be, though a very interesting theory has emerged, explaining how a dead body in contact with linen woven using first century methods could leave such an impression. No one has been able to replicate it. It’s not painted–the image is a thin film of melanoidins, thick as the wall of a soap bubble. A forger would have to have scientific knowledge beyond what society has today to create an image like that. He’d also have to be able to accomplish this whole list.

Still, there are problems with the shroud. It doesn’t seem to jive with the Gospel of John, which says Jesus was buried with a separate cloth for the face and was bound in a cloth, which would surely produce wrinkles and distortion in the image. John also says Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus included a hundred pounds of spices, but there doesn’t seem to be much sign of them. And there are proportional problems with the image…the body seems elongated, one arm is longer than the other, the fingers are too thin and long, the head is too small, the lower part of the face is too big. Or maybe there aren’t enough distortions, if the cloth should have wrapped around the body.

Wikipedia also has a good overview.

Actual Fact: King Charles VI of France ordered the removal of the shroud, which was being displayed in Lirey, France, citing impropriety (the image consists of the front and back of a naked man). But the shroud was too popular, and the sheriffs were unable to carry out his order.

Things I would be if I celebrated the pagan holiday form of All Hallows’ Eve by dressing in costume:

Zoe (you can apparently buy a vest like this girl did)

Peppermint Patty (a green top–what is that, a referee shirt?–black shorts, flip flops, and freckles)

Martha Stewart (stylish pant suit and ankle monitor)

It’s been snowing all day.

I woke Berck up last night when I went to bed (he was fast asleep by the time I finished putting the potato soup away) and told him that the rain had turned to snow. He instantly jumped up and peeped through the blinds. He kept waking up all night and checking the accumulation.

So it snowed all night and has been keeping it up all day, but it’s warm enough that the snow on the ground doesn’t any higher. We’ve only got an inch or so. It hasn’t stuck to the roads at all.

Today is Columbus Day, so Berck gets the day off. I get the day off too because I set my own hours. We’ve been eating a lot of antelope summer sausage and watching a bunch of Firefly so we can watch the movie Serenity.

Also this weekend I made cider (“apple juice” according to Berck) on Saturday from the apples we picked on Brown’s place, using a juicer Michele lent me. Then I packed it all in Mason jars and put it in a steam bath which Michele also lent me. It’s very, very tart. I heated some up with some sugar and cinnamon, and Berck declared it was like drinking an apple pie.

Last Saturday, we had one of Berck’s co-workers and his wife over for dinner. We think they’re Mormon, because they’re from Utah and they’re really nice and they don’t drink. So much for buying two kinds of beer and two kinds of wine. But it’s a good thing we had plenty of IBC on hand.

For me, having people I didn’t know over for dinner is fun because we got to cook all day. Berck got me out of bed by telling me we had to go shopping. Grocery shopping is one of those things I do under protest without Berck, because there’s always something wrong with what I buy… whether he forgot to tell me to get what he wanted or I selected an inferior brand or I can’t find the specific item he wants. I also can’t go to Sam’s, because Berck is his dad’s partner card person, so he’s the only one with a membership. Berck keeps telling me just to hand them his card, that they won’t care. I point out that I don’t have a beard, in case they look at the picture on the back. Berck usually refuses to go grocery shopping by himself, so we both end up venturing into the world of retail food.

After filling the Miata trunk up at Sam’s, we drove over to Berck’s newest favorite store. Whole Foods looks like one of those places that only sells organic granola (which they do have), but it’s so much more too. It’s like a Fresh Market but three times as big. They have a WHOLE refrigerated display case of their own sausages. They have everything from wasabi rice snack chips to rendered duck fat. More importantly, they had juniper berries, which Berck just had to have for his leg of lamb recipe from the Italian cookbook he’s been working his way through. We also got a leg of lamb… well, part of one. “I don’t suppose you want to cut it up,” Berck said to one of the butchers behind the counter.

“Well, I don’t really want to…” but he cut it into a more manageable size for us. We also got bread there, because it’s really good. I don’t think we would have had time or oven space to bake our own anyway. They also have great cheeses from around the world. We got one that appeared all moldy, but I think its rind and the vein running through it was actually ash. It was really tasty. We also got some sheep cheese, which Berck didn’t find impressive (or maybe he found it left TOO much of an impression), but I liked it.

We crammed Whole Foods’ grocery bags into the space between the headrests and the Miata’s rear window, and I held one bag in my lap with a big container of laundry detergent between my feet. Back home it was time to cook. Berck managed to whack the too-long lamb femur down to pot-size. In went the juniper berries and some chopped carrots and celery. Along with the lamb, Berck planned to have stuffed pasta. I guess after a year or so, he forgets how difficult a certain dish is to make and breaks his vow to never attempt it again. Or maybe he was thinking it would be a snap with the pasta-making attachment to the Kitchen-Aid and a Jonah to do all the stuffing.

Colorado Springs has a very dry climate. When stuffing pasta, this environment becomes a liability. The rectangles I was spooning clumps of ricotta, prosciutto, and Swiss chard into would immediately stiffen and harden before I could fold them over and pinch their sides together. I’m not sure how much of the pasta unstuffed itself during boiling, but Berck solved that aesthetic problem by serving it smothered in opaque tomato cream sauce. This dish is so tasty, but I’m not convinced it’s worth the trouble of constructing.

But before the pasta course, we had wilted spinach salad, which is always a hit, even if we forgot to buy mushrooms while at Whole Foods. Add to that roasted potatoes and the Swiss chard stalks, which the Italian cookbook suggested using as a medium for butter and parmesian, and we had a feast.

I love food.

Well, yesterday I informed Michele and Duncan that they might not have me around much longer. “Duncan,” said Michele, “can we afford to hire Joanna full time?”

“That’s what you can spend the afternoon figuring out,” Duncan told me. So I filled out an application for a workers comp insurance quote and called a paycheck service to ask them to give us a total number for what it would cost to hire a full time employee at $25,000 a year. This includes FICA, FUTA, unemployment insurance, the paycheck service–including direct deposit, withholding, and tax deposits. What I discovered is that it’s darn expensive to hire someone! And I thought the respective government hand were taking enough out of my own wallet already. I didn’t realize they raided my boss’ even more.

Today one of my duties was to drive down to the Division of Wildlife and fill out a roadkill form. On Saturday someone out near Baptist Road hit a doe and her fawn. They called the game warden, who gave them the Michele and Duncan’s number and told them to call. So they went into action. The fawn was already dead, but the doe had to be put down. Then they skinned and dressed the carcasses, wrapping them in sheets and hanging them from the porch ceiling. I can now say that I’ve tasted fawn… something I will probably never taste again.

So I got the roadkill paperwork, allowing the holder to legally possess a carcass. Which was a good thing, since I had the doe in my trunk. Then I drove up to Black Forest to a house with a meat processing operation in the basement. “That’s really big for an antelope!” said one of the white-coat-wearing butchers with a sandy handlebar mustache, pulling the carcass out of the trunk and hanging it up on a hook.

“Probably because it’s a mule deer,” I said. “It was roadkill.” I don’t think deer are in season yet.

“Had to drive through some fences and fields to hit it, did ya?” the butcher teased me. He unwrapped the sheet from the carcass. “I don’t see a bruise on it!”

“Well, she had to be put down,” I suggested, “so maybe her leg was broken.”

“From steppin’ in a bear trap?” he laughed.

Michele had told me that this operation had really good summer sausage for sale, so I bought a huge one marked ANTELOPE and brought it home to Berck tonight. We haven’t tasted it yet, waiting for it to thaw. I hear their elk summer sausage is the best, so maybe I’ll get some of it if I get sent back out to pick up the venison.

In other news, I finished entering all of the information from nine years of deposit slips, check stubs, and bank statements today. Then I started matching up ins and outs. More of that tomorrow.

Unless I get to go running more errands.

Michele has pointed out that if I work anywhere else, I won’t get my daily smoothie. (Wild-cherry peach is the best I’ve had so far.)

Actual Fact: Gabriel Duvall, associate US Supreme Court Justice from 1811 to 1835, served his last ten years deaf, so oral arguments left little impression. He apparently refused to leave the bench until what he considered a suitable successor would replace him.