9/25/11

Oh, And...

I have a new phone.

Still not sure I like it. I've already taken one [of the same phone] back because it went through the battery overnight when it wasn't doing anything.

Cons:
- I have zero reception at work in my windowless office. Or anywhere else at work for that matter, except the parking lot. While the other two people who are on the same freaking network/plan have coverage all over the place and come into my office talking on their phones to taunt me. Joshua, my reluctant BF over at the AT&T store, said I should get reception in my office - since other people do.

- It's a smartypants phone with a big screen - yet videos are crappier than they were on my smaller not smartypants phone. What's with that?!

Pros: 
It takes pretty good pictures.
















Yesterday, after seeing it in the Southern Season weekly email, I bought some of this:

It is good but salty (lots of salt - 200 mg in 1 teaspoon); slathered some on my eggs this morning.
Figure it was offset by the lower sodium bacon.

I can see it pepping up soup or stews come winter. Or meatloaf.

Has It Really Been Two Weeks OR What The Hell Have I Been Doing?

Whoa, what the heck HAVE I been doing?
Losing weight for one. (-10 and counting...) Yay! "meat" diet.

Who knew a box of Popsicles a night (aka supper) coulda been throwing a wrench in the old losing weight game plan?! Heh.

Meanwhile, people torture me on their Facebook pages:
My niece made this crepe filled with vanilla pumpkin creme and drizzled with caramel. FOR BREAKFAST!

It's a good thing she lives in Alaska. :)
















Allison did this:
Sugar cookies with orange sugar syrup glaze
She makes sure to mention that about 1/2 of the cookies have tiny pieces of dark chocolate in them.

These two need to have a bake off. And a cookbook.



As CP says: pumpkin creme and orange sugar cookies can go to hell. (actually she said that about fruit - same diff.)

Ate at Gourmet Kingdom again last Sunday. Lotus root is my new favorite vegetable (thanks D. for the recommendation). I can't describe the taste, except maybe incredible.

What else? Lots of brain stretching at work.
Imagine being a dispatcher with: ten instructors, five or more classes a day in various parts of the world (two simultaneously in India every day), coordinating across multiple GMT zones, conference bridges, and virtual machines. Oh and the printing...40 books shipped here, 2 books shipped there, 60 books printed in India and shipped here and there...
Every day we (I) get three/four/five new rosters of 15 people each, which cannot be copied and pasted easily into the template we use to send out emails telling them what machine they're on, their access code, conference bridge, etc. First name needs to be in a separate cell from last name, then the email.
I have "the claw" by the end of the day from doing Ctrl c, Ctrl v 225 times.
AND we haven't even ramped up yet!

Here's another video from Ok Go, the folks that brought you the treadmill video a few weeks back.

Most of their videos are fun, but this is my favorite:


Also like Collections of Colonies of Bees: (just music) 



Been watching Pee Wee Herman's Playhouse. What a great show. I love Jambi.






9/11/11

Quotes

Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Macrina Wiederkehr, O.S.B.
I found that quote on a moon, worn as if it had been a shell. Googled Macrina's name and found her blog.


This quote was on Macrina's blog:
If you aren't happy with what you have, how could you be happier with more. Grandma Ros


I don't know who Grandma Ros is, but she pretty smart.





And now for something completely fun:



9/10/11

Tomorrow

 No post on 9/11 from me.

Click here if you want to read a great (in my opinion) post on the subject by Milton over at don't eat alone.

Here's another blog that a moon, worn as if it had been a shell posted on her [wonderful] blog.

It also has nothing to do with tomorrow; it is restorative in its loveliness. It's in Northern Ireland, so you know, I love it already.
I hope she writes more soon.

Photos of the Day

On my walk at Booker Creek this morning, there was a blast of summer:
Last of the honeysuckle




















Then some of the Gals met at in Pleasantville to get the low down on one of our own who was in the hospital last night after a possible heart attack. Enzyme tests say no. (yay!) She is home now and resting comfortably.

Three of us went out to Woodcrest Farm for the CSA, which is in a slight between season lull; there are still eggs, peppers, eggplants, melons, Roma tomatoes, and Tucker, the best, sweetest Border Collie ever. (no picture of him this time)


My first art purchase was a pastel of eggplants



Swiss Chard time again



After that CP and I went to Heavenly Garden Kingdom or Gourmet Garden or Holy Moly This is Good - a Chinese restaurant in Carrboro.
(real name is Gourmet Kingdom)

This is not your standard Americanized Chinese restaurant.
There was tripe, duck tongue, fish maw (great word!), lamb (not the first meat that comes to mind when thinking Chinese right?), Stinky tofu appetizer, and egg plan (hahaha).


We had the Salt and Pepper Prawns and Stir Fried Green Beans. We ate every last one of every last thing (no rice). The mystery stuff in the beans (which were delicious!) was pickled cabbage.
I stopped at the next table on the way out, embarrassing CP with her good Southern manners, and asked about their dishes. Tripe soup that looked amazingly good, (was informed it would be too hot for me), and the Pecan Prawns, those are on for next time.
(do you say pee-can or pa-con? I'm ambidextrous.)

This is going to be a European evening, meeting a friend at Saffron at 8 for dinner, then a movie at 9:45.

9/9/11

Friday Wrap-up

My next door neighbor's a nice girl. We share the garbage can and split the bill.
Her father has a brain tumor.
He's my age.
I can't stop thinking about it.
She told me yesterday that his scans don't look good, but they're getting to spend lots of time together.
In a weird way something like this is a blessing - because we have a chance to be with them, kinda wrap things up a bit. Something you don't get when they die suddenly.

*********************************************************

After work I wandered around Kohl's because there were not one, but two coupons - 20% off and $30 in Kohl's cash - burning a hole in my pocket. I'm not walking outta there without using them.
I avoided the Petite section since it makes me sad.

Feck off sad.

And it did, for a while.

After Kohl's I went to see Mom.

She was sitting outside with two other women, enjoying the not sweltering almost fall weather, having a conversation. Conversation is a relative term I guess, but they were all on the same page and enjoying it. Mom pulled up her pants leg and the others did the same. Then they compared whiteness.

We left their fine company and went off to her room to try on the new clothes I procured last week. On the way I discerned something was rotten in Denmark. Oh la.

And then...I had to do the thing I said I NEVER WANTED TO DO AGAIN (hello?! Is anyone listening?) and change my mother's Pull-ups. We both felt better when that was over.

She tried on two pairs of pants and two shirts, which is like an Olympic event for her. The third pair of pants - we're saying they fit because the other two did.

Say cheese came out something like sprayed knees.

That ship has sailed = he's healed?

Okay, you are going to think I am SO mean, but she reminds me of a troll doll in this picture. (I LOVED my troll dolls - so there.) But even more way cuter.  See?














She wanted to leave the room and walk about in her new finery. We sat for a few minutes in the living room without the TV (no one is ever in there), holding hands.

"Light of God, light of God," she said out of the blue.
"I'm going..." (to sneeze I think)
"The ladle thing. How'd he look?"
"I don't know. I was done one one one."

Then it was time for her shower and my release back into the real world.

I was heading like a horse towards the barn for Only Burger when I realized the cats were out of kitty crack, which necessitated a drive in the opposite direction to Phydeaux.  Burger King is right next door. I am now regretting my dinner choice.

*********************************************************************
Check this out: http://www.jeanniejeannie.com/2011/08/29/the-art-of-clean-up-sorting-and-stacking-everyday-objects/

9/4/11

Know What I Like?

Thousand Island dressing. I really, really like it. A lot. I could eat a million hard boiled eggs with Thousand Island dressing.

Here's the white trash way of making Thousand Island: Mayo, pickle relish, ketchup - in proportions you like.

Here's another way, using Stonewall Kitchen's Country Ketchup. (for the local folks, Southern Season carries it)

Cuts out the relish middle man and elevates it to just-above-white-trash magic.

Yes, there is a bit of sugar in there and on the "meat" diet, sugar is technically not admissible.

Don't care.

I'm "modifying", as CP called it (when she modified at the movies with Junior Mints).

Cleaning House

Here's how the housecleaning ritual works for me:

Step One: Get the vacuum out of the closet.

Step Two: Let it sit in the living room for days, (okay, okay!), I mean, weeks, waiting for it to magically clean the house by itself. Or maybe those damn cats will stop using the hose as an attack launch site, GET THE HINT and learn to vacuum. (Or stop shedding completely.)

Sigh. None of those things ever happen.

Step Three: Go on a tear and clean everything - in the front part of the house that is - including steam cleaning the floors.

Then I'm sweaty and exhausted and NEVER want to have to clean again. That never happens either.

When I was little (around three) I had a crush on Mr. Clean. That's right, you heard me. The bald headed, earring wearing, genie-in-a-lamp-looking, cartoon man. This cartoon crush led to my liking of bald men.

Pretty sure this should be addressed in therapy.

 It's quite possible he was the reason I married my ex-husband, since his pate was clean shaven at the time of meeting.
(The power of advertising!)

(Want to win at trivia? Mr. Clean's first name is Veritably.)

Once, a bald man bought my mother and I lunch. We were both wearing hats and looked pretty stunning and it's possible he thought  we were high priced call girls...escorts. Joke was on him.

That's the only time anything like that has ever happened to me, unless you count that time in Ireland when this young man asked if I cared for a "bit of sport". He took it pretty well when I declined. He wasn't bald or I might have considered it. (just kidding people.) Also, he was very drunk and I was not. It might have turned out differently if things had been reversed.


(An aside: Proctor and Gamble, Mr. Clean's parents, has taken to assuming that I want Febreeze in my Magic Erasers, (which I am totally over the moon about - Magic Erasers, not Febreeze). P&G, I would like to go on record as Do Not Like-ing. I can't get the perfumey stink off my hands.)

While we're on the subject of my cartoon boyfriend - someone told me he was gay. They said that about Bert and Ernie too.
I find this hilarious.

First - Are you kidding?
Second - My cartoon BF is not gay!





9/3/11

Cat Fancy


The decorator


I don't know what it is about this picture, but Finn cannot stand for it to be straight.

Some of his work

The Ninja of Sadness

According to Wikipedia: 
ninja or shinobi was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations.[1] 


There I was in Kohl's with my 15% off coupon, slinking around in the Petite section, (obviously not for me). when the ninja snuck out from behind a stack of Croft and Barrow shirts and kicked the shit out of me. 


I mean, one minute I was fine and the next - I was tearing up over a Cathy Daniels sweater - because it was something she would have worn before. Now it's elastic waist pants (zippers and buttons are too hard) and over your head shirts.