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Making Your Reality a Little More Sur - LiveJournal.com
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How about now? Now? Is now good?
Sitting out my last 20 minutes at work, mostly out of guilt.
Yesterday we had a Picnic of Mandatory Company Sponsored "Fun". It was supposed to be from noon to 4pm, but everyone started to abandon ship around 2, because it was TOO GODDAMN HOT. Diligent drone that I am, I went back to the office to both do some work and to bring my core body temp down to somewhere in the double digits. But I still left around 4.
Today, it's a typical Friday in which no one is in the office and thus uninterrupted (well, except for a completely blown morning in a meeting with my boss. I mean, the meeting was actually USEFUL and will result in good things, but I didn't get to the stuff I wanted to do today until well after lunch.) I've finished everything I set out to accomplish.
So I signed on to Spotify, and I'm listening to Mike Doughty's last album which I hadn't bought yet. Spotify IS pretty nifty, and I've tried other such mechanisms before.
Now I just want it to be five, and then I will go home to burgers and beers with my beloved.
Okay, what?
Work was awful today. Just. Awful.
And I find we're getting more beets in our CSA box tomorrow. Now, I love me some beets (BORSCHT!) but seriously, we've been getting beets in 50% of our boxes. TOO MANY BEETS.
Also it is hot. And the cats want to be on me. WHYYYYYYY?
Guess what I made!
It was BORSCHT.
It was delicious, but mostly I got to say the word "BORSCHT" a lot. Examples:
"I'm having borscht anxiety."
"I will achieve victory and borscht!"
"Borscht borscht borscht."
I've determined that you can't be sad when you're saying borscht.
Woohoo!
Finished Dance with Dragons!
Non-spoilery review: Feels like everything's coming back together, though not as I had thought, which I think goes for most of the characters in this book. "Everything was going great! Until my plan got totally derailed!" My one niggly question did not get answered, but there was plenty going on, so I didn't truly miss it.
Where Feast for Crows seemed to be more focused on the common people of Westeros, and how war sucks for them, Dance with Dragons had a broader birds-eye scope on how war sucks all around. I mean, you start out meaning to accomplish X, but to do that you need help from both Y and Z, but Y and Z hate each other, so they start trying to accomplish objective J which you had NO IDEA EVEN EXISTED. And then there's a plague.
Life is not a song. Heck, it's not even straightforward!
I will re-read again, more slowly, at a later date.
Is it 5PM yet? I have reading to do.
Non-spoilery things about reading Dance with Dragons:
1 - I'm finally past all the chapters that GRRM had teased us with in the interim between books. It was kind of like fake reading, because I was a) impatient to get to stuff I hadn't already read but b) concerned that something may have changed! CHANGED! I don't think anything significant changed.
2 - The only thing I want to be spoiled about is if Brienne ever shows up and we find out what ONE WORD she said. I don't want to know the word until I get to it, but if you know, could you tell me if this mystery gets resolved? THANK YOU.
3 - There will be much reading this weekend.
Shoes, sleep, book
I'm wearing these platform wedges that make me six billion feet tall. It's kind of great, I won't lie. I feel all imposing, stomping around, six+ inches taller than usual. I'm taller than the cubicle walls!
Went to Pub Quiz with CMC last night and we did pretty well for a group of two. The quiz itself was wide ranging and well-managed. May do it again! But we had too much beers, which meant that we both slept very badly. Booooo!
MY COPY OF DRAGONS IS WAITING FOR ME. WILL THIS DAY NEVER END?
Not that I'll be reading right away; I've got a movie night planned. BUT THEN READING OMG.
Things
1 - CMC and I made THE best dinner sandwiches yesterday. Roast beef + blue cheese + horseradish mustard + caramelized onions = OMG Also there was turnip puree and roasted brussels sprouts. NOMNOMNOM
2 - ONE MORE DAY UNTIL DANCE WITH DRAGONS
3 - I'm thinking about checking out a local pub quiz tonight. Dunno if I'll join the quiz, but I want to see what it's like.
4 - There is no four.
People being wrong on the internet
I know why Yelp doesn't allow negative feedback to reviews; the clusterf**k that would ensue would be epic. You can only push a button to say that a given review is "cool" "funny" or "useful". I would argue, however, that there should also be a feedback button indicating that the reviewer was "fundamentally unclear on the concept of this location."
For example: Reviewers of Hot Doug's who complain that all he has are hot dogs. FUNDAMENTALLY UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
Reviewers of the deli whose prominent feature is that it only stocks organic and/or locally grown foods, and then b***hing about how Subway is way cheaper. FUNDAMENTALLY UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
Reviewers of a brunch place that give 1-star reviews because it's not open for dinner. FUOTC
HOW DO I STOP THEM FROM BEING SO WRONG?
*seethe*
How many ribs is too many ribs?
So, CMC and I hosted our very own Ribfest for 4th of July. There was only one vendor (CMC) but the reviews were excellent. For my own part, I manfully ate of many ribs. Too many ribs. Enough ribs that all night long, I felt like I was sweating out meat juices and BBQ sauce. Sexy, right?
And there are still ribs in our fridge. HOW?
I think all I did this weekend was eat and clean, which is, fyi, not a terrible way to spend a weekend. CMC and I went to brunch TWO TIMES (not on the same day) at two COMPLETELY NEW TO US places. As we tend to find a nice comfortable rut and stick with it, this was quite an accomplishment. We went to:
Marmalade, which will become a regular haunt of ours, I think, seeing as how it's all of a block away from our home and the food was good. CMC had the french toast, and I had a bout of indecision which ended in the ordering of a two-egg plate, a bowl of tomato soup (SUPERB), and a side of bacon, just to make sure we were getting a good spread of what Marmalade had to offer. The coffee was good, the food was tasty, and the atmosphere was cheery. A+ WILL BRUNCH AGAIN.
The Publican, which is a whole different level of excellent. Wine-poached egg with prosciutto and bearnaise sauce? Yes please! Slab of fancy bacon with real maple syrup? Thank you kindly! Country-fried steak and oyster sauce? DON'T MIND IF I DO. The only thing I didn't like so much was the coffee, which was good but not to my taste. You know, how when you have a beer or wine that you can tell is good, but that doesn't gel with what you like in a beer or wine? An IPA, say, or an oak-aged Chardonnay. That's what this coffee was like. It was VERY acidic, which may be your idealized cuppa joe, but is not mine at all. All the same, A+ WILL PROBABLY NOT BRUNCH AGAIN BECAUSE IT IS FAR AWAY.
Tonight, I will follow up on eating Too Many Ribs by eating Too Many Sushis at the $20 sushi buffet with friends. Then maybe I will roll home and clean up some more from the Fourth.
Quick Postings
1 - There was a MASSIVE spider in the gym bathroom yesterday. I notified the front desk and they said they would be on it right away, but this morning I couldn't shake the feeling that the spider was still there. Watching. Waiting. For me to be naked and then it would POUNCE ON MY FACE.
2 - Work is weird today. There's plenty to do and I'm getting stuff done, but it feels so awfully slow.
3 - I have finished Feast for Crows way ahead of schedule, and now I have to WAIT for Dance with Dragons instead of reading it right after FFC. *grump*
4 - I locked myself out of the house on Monday, and went to the Library while waiting for CMC to get home and let my dumb ass back in. I picked up a book called Four Queens which is tiding me over, and is really well written. 13th century women kicking ass? Yes, please!
5 - I'm so out of here, I didn't even finish this po-
Hey there!
It's been a while. I was off in the wilds caring for my poor, poor momma who now has two titanium knees and must relearn how to walk. I am told that five things make a post. Here are five things.
1 - How many craps do I give about the Wiener "scandal"? Exactly none. Seriously, newscasters, sexting behind your wife's back is creepy and lame but it isn't illegal. Can we move on? To something that has actual relevance? Anything?
2 - Justus Drug is frikkin' AMAZING. If you're ever in that neighborhood, don't miss it! SidDad took me out to dinner there as my Thank You gift for taking care of Mom. I didn't need a thank you gift, but BOY HOWDY was I happy for tasty foods!
I had the asparagus (OMG), a "nested" egg salad (best vinaigrette I have EVER had), their waygu steak (the sauce... dear god, the SAUCE), and "mint chocolate decadence" which was the lightest, loveliest decadence you can imagine. SO GOOD.
3 - The other day, CMC and I were in chairs in the living room, each with a cat across our lap, each reading a copy of Clash of Kings. So domestic!
4 - WORK is getting DONE and it will STAY THE HELL DONE. I mean, I'm having stress because all of my projects are running behind, and I feel like a failure. But! GETTING. THINGS. DONE.
5 - The weather today is hellaciously hot. Naturally, I have dressed in appropriate clothing for this season. And also thrown on my trusty, warm knitted shawl. Because the AC is INSANE. I believe it is now 55F in this office. :( :( :(
Scenes from a Marriage
*walking along a commercial street in Chicago*
CMC: Bleh.
Me: What?
CMC: I want to try that restaurant some time, but they're advertising a deal for pasta primavera with chardonnay.
Me: ...I am completely missing what the crime is, other than you hate chardonnay.
CMC: Primavera is never good, and I hate chardonnay.
Me: I am mystified about what you think primavera is, because it can be great if it's not drowned in cream sauce.
CMC: It's just... I can't explain. The restaurant fails in my eyes, and primavera sucks.
Me: Noted.
*cut to three days later*
CMC: This pasta you made is REALLY good.
Me: Thanks! It's primavera.
CMC: ... I hate you.
Me: I know.
CMC: You're not going to serve me chardonnay with it, are you?
Me: No. We don't have any because you hate it.
CMC: Good. *NOMNOMNOM*
Ingredients
Pasta (I used tri-color bow-ties, but anything in the smallish bore pasta area will do)
Olive Oil
Minced Shallots
Minced Garlic
FRESH GREEN VEGGIES (Use whatever you have on hand, below is what was in mine)
- Roasted Asparagus (cut in thirds, coat in oil, salt, pepper, bake at 425F for 15 min)
- Peas (steamed)
- Arugula (do nothing to it except toss it in)
- Basil (I had none fresh, but it would REALLY kick this up)
Roasted Red Peppers (from a jar, cut in bits)
Grated Peccorino (1/4 as much as the weight of your pasta, so 16oz of pasta, 4oz of cheese)
Salt
Pepper
Cayenne pepper
While the asparagus is roasting and the pasta is boiling, sautee the shallots and garlic with a bit of cayenne until the garlic is lightly golden. When the pasta is done, drain it, and put half of it back in the pot with some of the veggies, all of the shallots and garlic, and half of the cheese. STIR LIKE CRAZY. Then add in the rest of the pasta and the cheese and the veggies, and stir. Salt and pepper to taste. PUT IN FACE.
Not gonna lie, it was pretty good. I think I might try a hit of lemon next time, though. And the fresh basil. The whole point of primavera is the vegetables, so although the ideal ratio is 1:1, if you end up with a 3:1 ratio of vegetable to pasta don't sweat it. It's all good.
Well That Was Exciting
I think this may be the first time I have truly burnt the everloving SHIT out of food.
It was supposed to be bread pudding. It ended up being bread pudding topped with charcoal. *fist-shaking at Alton Brown*
He TOLD me to turn on the broiler! He TOLD me to put it on the top rack for five minutes for delightfully browned crust!
How was I to know it would all end in tears and smoke and actual FLAMES FROM THE OVEN?
At least I had also bought cherries so dessert was not a complete loss.
God, Jesus, Superman, FSM, Zombie Marie Curie, WHOEVER
Give me strength.
With the exception of a single can for my morning commute, I'm giving up Diet Coke. We're done.
There are better vices, and I'm trying to consume fewer non-food items. For lunch, there is water. For caffeine, there is tea. And with our Fancy New Water Dispenser, I never have to refill a water jug.
Hopefully making it a livejournal post will make it real. Here's hoping!
Awesome Dinner
Thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7) magdalene1, I have fully embraced eggs for dinner. And what a difference a runny yolk made to my kale sauteed with lemon and garlic. SO GOOD. Add a side of tomato & goat cheese bruschetta topped with sardines, and this was some seriously good, filling, fast, cheap eating.
Oh yeah, sardines? Extremely tasty. But I prefer the littler ones; bigger ones I've had to dig out the spine and that's just weird and gross.
Today, I'm working from home because my right front brake has been grinding, and that's not good for driving. Well, it's fine for driving, it's just really nerve wracking to stop, because I imagine the entire wheel falling off every time I brake. SO the car is in the shop. Contemplating going out for lunch because it is a GORGEOUS day and I don't really want to make anything, but going out would a) involve spending money and b) I kind of need a shower before I'm seen in polite society.
WHAT TO DO?
HR3 *headdesk headdesk*
It truly never ends, does it?
Just wrote to my Senators asking them to do their best to stop the passage of HR3. Basically, it restricts tax credits from going to insurers who provide abortion coverage. PRIVATE insurers. Like mine, which is paid for by me and my company, but also receives some tax credits because our system is all weird that way. Let's think about that for a second. The insurance company is basically given a choice of "Provide our lady people with coverage for abortions and lose millions of dollars in tax credits" or "Tell our lady people they are SOL and keep millions of dollars in tax credits."
Money or ladies. Money or ladies. HMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
As if that's not bad enough, there's a rider on there that allows hospitals to choose not to provide abortions regardless of need. So, like, if I've got a dead fetus in me that's not delivering non-viable pregnancy, and the hospital I'm at "doesn't do abortions" for any reason (it could be religious, but it could also be legal) then I'm gonna be one dead pregnant lady when I go into sepsis. I get to have an experience like this lady, who I hope has all the support in the world. THANKS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
If you are anti-abortion and still with me, great! Glad to have you here! But this isn't about HOORAY FOR ABORTIONS!, this is about access to care that I, a lady, may need to save my life, and the lives of any future children I might have. As I signed off on my email to my one Republican senator "It isn't Pro-Life to put my life at risk."
So, yeah. If you think HR3 is bad news, quick hit to your Senators, subject line something along the lines of Vote No on HR3. If you think HR3 is Teh Awesome can you please explain why? Because I'm not seeing any good here.
What's been happening
Thing the First - Cooking
You have officially moved in when the cats and internet are installed. You have functionally moved in when you can cook dinner instead of ordering take-out. There has been cooking! First thing cooked in the new home was black bean and andouille soup. I have little experience with non-canned beans, so had no idea it would take this side of forever to "simmer until beans are tender." Soup was good, but needs work.
Next were eggs and bacon. Easy enough.
Then I made beef stew with mashed potatoes and roasted brussel sprouts. De. Li. Cious. Beef stew with mash is Best Lunch, and CMC was very sweet letting me take what he thought was the last lunch of the leftovers. He will be rewarded tomorrow with SuperSecretExtraBeefandMashLunch that was hiding behind the juice.
Tonight, we'll probably have greenstuff and prep the last of our CSA box produce - which is beets - for turning into dinner on Thursday. I do not trust beets. I like them very much. But in my experience to date they are WICKED DIFFICULT to work with.
Thing the Second - Osama Was Killed
I don't judge anyone for celebrating or being happy or whatever. I'm glad there is closure. We know where this particular Bad Guy is now: dead. I'm glad that the ostensible goal of the Afghan War is achieved and draw down looks slightly closer today. But death never negated another death, so the whole "hunt-him-kill-him-die-die-DIIIIIIE" thing never made much sense to me.
I'm not sad. I'm not jubilant. I just.. I never truly considered this man worthy of enough of my attention to hate him, so I didn't care if he lived or died or was captured or played kazoo on the moon. He did terrible things, and I believe he deserved justice, but his being alive didn't scare me. At least, he wasn't any scarier than the prospect of getting hit by a car while crossing the street.
Anyway. Carry on, whether you are celebrator, judger, or ambivalent!
Thing the Third - On a Lighter Note
Did you know you can make a very chewy cookie from the cookie dough chunks in cookie dough flavored ice cream? You can! Perhaps there will be pictures later.
Thing the Fourth - Groove Disruption
I like a groove. I like knowing that on Mondays we'll have fish, Wednesday my ladies come over to visit, Sunday we go to brunch. Moving has TOTALLY wrecked this groove and it's going to remain wrecked for a while to come. There are condo board meetings, out-of-town trips, various and assorted other things that are bound to crop up.
It's making me grumpy.
Moving. GRARG!
We are moved! o/
Well, all our stuff is in our new place, but it is all in boxes.
Stages of moving can be assessed by the answer to the question "Where is [Thing]?"
Stage one: Where it always is!
Stage two: Did we pack that already?
Stage three: In a box... somewhere.
Stage four: Probably in a box? Somewhere? Maybe? I mean, *I* didn't unpack it.
Stage five: Here!... though is this the best place for it?
Stage six: Where it always is!
We are currently at Stage 3.5 and tensions are running high. Fortunately, tensions in our house tend to dissolve into giggles, so that's handy. We had the traditional celebratory moving day dinner: pizza on paper plates and champagne in plastic cups.
The cats are making the transition pretty well, Curie more than Fermi. Fermi is still slinking around, as though trying to figure out if it's okay for him to be there, also he is even MORE headbutt-y than usual. Curie has claimed all the pillows and has decided that carpet is the best thing in the UNIVERSE.
And I have returned to the most overflowing inbox I've ever had. Everything needs to have happened Monday, it appears. Great.
That's MRS. Homeowner to you!
This morning, CMC and I woke up, got some coffee and bought a condo.
Then we got some Hot Doug's to celebrate.
WOOOOOOOO!
Critters
The weekend was full of stuff.
Friday night, I got a call for an audition in a play festival. Based off of a headshot from 2002. WILD. I've got some free time, so I said "why the hell not?" and started reading the sides.
Saturday, CMC drove us and some climbing friends up to Devil's Lake, WI. I do not climb. I am willing to belay, but that was covered by additional climbing friends, so I got to lay about in a hammock reading about the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, occasionally memorizing my sides. It was lovely, though the hike up to the cliff was more than a little daunting. There was a "trail" of stair-step stones that took a lot of dexterity and concentration to a) step on or between without b) turning an ankle. I was very pleased that CMC decided to come down the trail before sunset, as the trail would have been near impossible in the dark.
We'd left a little earlier than the other folks, promising to meet them at the car. On the trail down, we saw a chipmunk. SO CUTE. It had run to the front of its den and was doing its best to intimidate us, standing stolidly and with defiance. Finally, it uttered a challenging SQUEAK! and dove back into its den.
Back at the parking lot, the trees were full of herons and falcons battling it out for nests for the night. Herons are HUGE, and sound like what I imagine pterodactyls would sound like. Though how would I know? Maybe pterodactyls chirped like the chipmunk. Or sounded like moogs. Or purred. Maybe pterodactyls used sign language, though I imagine the wings would make that problematic. OH! SEMAPHORE! The great semaphore pterodactyls, winging over the landscape, signing "Curt! Curt! There's fish over here!"
ANYWAY.
Sunday, watched the last three episodes of Twin Peaks (woot!), and went to my audition. It went fine, though not great, and I don't expect to be called back.
Today, as I was walking into work, I had to pass by a tire-smooshed frog the size of my fist, a similarly smooshed wren-type bird, and RIGHT BY two Canadian geese who have decided that the planter two feet from the front door of my office is THE place to hang out. As people streamed in the doors, the geese seemed to be reconsidering their choice, but not too hard. Where else is better placed for putting goose doots under the feet of humans? I ask you, where?
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