Last night at yoga I twisted my knee something fierce (nothing weird other than I didn’t get my balance well before I started a pose. My stupidness.) I can’t put any weight on my leg at all (thank heavens Mary, my roommate from high school, and Kim, another friend who happens to be the wife of a good friend from high school, brought me crutches)..on the way home last night I had visions of using my desk chair with wheels to try to scoot around the house. I will be mostly in bed, with leg elevated, save for a Dr.’s appt. at 1:45. If you need me, call.
Trials, Tribulations & Escapades (mostly funny)
Protected: It’s not just me
The fuzzlets that have nested at my house
These are the baby birdies (finchlets) that have nested in the glass Chinese latern (thanks, Pottery Barn — you are useful after all) that’s hanging on my porch.
weird, even for me
I just finished an organic peanut butter and vanilla marshmallow sandwich on rye.
Consolidated Theaters
For many years now, the closest major movie theaters to my house have been of the Consolidated variety. They’re pretty much interchangeable with any other mega-multi-plex and have their own little pre-show cartoon movie that reminds you to hush now, look for the exits (and remember that there’s one in the front of the theater too), and buy lots of candy and popcorn and soda.
Well, for the last several years the little pre-movie at Consolidated Theaters has, quite frankly, driven me batty, for several reasons:
- The graphics were so, 1996! You could’ve gotten your average 14-year old to do something much *much* more professional
- It featured a “space-age” (or vaguely futuristic-looking, I suppose) car zooming around a city full of snacks and trash cans and exit signs (think The Fifth Element, but much less well thought-out and with a strange Hershey’s obsession)
So none of that is particularly terrible, except for the fact that the zooming car made me dizzy! Now I love roller coasters, and tend to be unfazed by boats and other “seasickness”-inducing phenomena, so it’s not like it made me ill or anything …it was just a wee bit disorienting. And the decision to make things all swoopy (and potentially nauseating) always struck me as unwise, assuming you really did want people to go buy more popcorn or Twizzlers.
But now they’ve replaced the disorienting space chase by some sort of Battle of the Junk Foods, which, though uninspired (and not likely to cause hunger), at least looks like it was animated in the 21st century.
Sad state of smoke detection
The smoke detector upstairs in my house is very “touchy.” It’ll go off at the slightest provocation, like when I, for example, turn the oven on. (And who can blame it really? I mean, it’s the *oven*. Anyway…) I haven’t tried looking cross-eyed at it yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that set it off too.
This afternoon I was fixing myself a *very* belated lunch (or breakfast, depending on how you count it) of a BACT sandwich (Bacon, Avocado, Cheese & Tomato). I have some of that Hormel-pre-cooked-in-a-bag-bacon, and it seemed a good opportunity to try it out. Per instructions, I heated the bacon (though I think they said oven proper, and I used the toaster oven. Oh well). Well, bacon is a slippery beast, and one piece escaped through the toaster grate and landed on the …erm…hot thing (in an oven it’d be a coil, but this is straight, so that seems wrong, somehow).
Stinky pig-gone-way-too-far smoke poured out of the oven (causing me to panic and open the oven door *before* finding the tongs to remove the bacon. Not, perhaps, my wisest choice ever, but the bacon deities were watching over me and the pig did not erupt into flames (which it would have had every right to do at that point). While the voice of Bill Cosby (Bill Cosby Himself; watch it if you haven’t. Tres funny) ran through my head, I grabbed the tongs and rescued (can you say rescue if it’s way too late for the rescuee?) or maybe just retrieved the bacon, and doused it in the sink.
Through all this, not a *peep* from the smoke alarm.
I should probably have that checked out, eh?
My Baby is Being Born!!!
I just called 1-866-ASK-MINI (best customer service EVER) and my baby has started production!!! I have a VIN number!!!!
Iron Chef!
The big thing this past weekend (gads, I’m slow. big project launching this week, though, so I have a semi-excuse) was that Sunday Jeff & I had a few friends over to his house* for sushi-rolling goodness and Iron Chef!
Saturday morning, I crafted (more on this later) and that afternoon we went to the little Asian market in Chapel Hill for supplies …Silver Wok Gourmet, I believe it’s called — it’s right near where Mariakakis restaurant was (gads, I miss that place.. the huge cheesy white pizza with the “ziki-ziki” sauce. Yes, I know it’s tzatziki sauce, but I called it “ziki-ziki” sauce). Anyway, the SWG is run by a little Japanese woman who reminded us of Jeff’s mom and who was very sweet in making recommendations to us about which sort of miso to buy, etc. (Though she reminded me of Jeff’s mom immediately, I didn’t say anything to Jeff while we were in the store because I was afraid that it would come off as some sort of “all older Japanese ladies look alike” thing, and it wasn’t. But then in the car on the way to Wellspring (sorry, Whole Foods) Jeff said she’s reminded him of his mom, so I fessed up too.).
MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
Anyway, post-shopping we had dinner at Rockfish (I do <3 Rockfish), followed by more craftiness for me… I made a pocketbook and chopsticks for the party (more on those later).
I took those cheap snap-apart chopsticks (I had to snap about 20 pairs of them to get 10 even-enough pairs to pass muster — good thing I’m a packrat!), sanded them with 00 and 000 grade sandpaper, wrapped masking tape about an inch down from the top and painted each one with two different colors of paint. Finally, I sealed them with clear nail polish (which is almost like lacquer, right?) and set them to dry.
Sunday afternoon we did all the prep work for the sushi…made rice, made it sushi rice, slivered cukes and carrots, boiled shrimp, tried to slice the cream cheese but gave that up as hopeless, and considered slicing the tuna, but decided to wait until the last possible moment for that. We also made the miso soup (ok, Jeff did), and cut up all the bits for the tempura (sweet potatoes, broccoli, onions, shrimp, and green beans) and cleaned up.
Then I got a little obsessive-compulsive (me? no way!) and decided that I needed to add beads to one chopstick from each pair (the Japanese aesthetic values asymmetry, right?). Here’s the result
I also made voting sheets for everyone so that they could rate each chef. On the real program, each chef is judged on:
- originality,
- expression of the theme ingredient,
- presentation, and
- taste;
however, given that we couldn’t taste (sadly), we judged on:
- originality,
- chef’s “style”,
- appearance, and
- would I eat it?
We favored Morimoto over Flay (heck, we would’ve favored Bob Saget over Flay, I think!), and were quite disappointed when he was *robbed*! It was a blast, and not nearly as stressful as I feared (I know I’ve mentioned my hostess-stress before — doesn’t that look like it should be hostessstress? — mostly because it was a very small group of people *and* people were kind enough to bring goodies (like sake! mmmmm).
* a double-whammy of a shocker! As may have been mentioned before, Jeff’s (a) Introverted (notice capital “I”) and (b) doesn’t much care for parties (that was an understatement, actually, as he pretty much doesn’t like them except under some very specific circumstances), so it amazed me that he agreed to it and agreed to have it at his house. I think the biggest thing that helped make this OK was the fact that he got to (for the first part of the party) be involved in cooking (which meant not a whole lot of having to interact with people) and then (for the second half of the party) be involved in the watching (ditto). In addition, this was “comfortable” territory… he is at home with making tempura, etc. Plus he had all the cool little bits like pretty soy sauce dishes and sake warmers!
Oh, while I’m thinking of it, don’t buy the little Japanese “jelly” candies that look like jello in those little creamer cups (only clear). They are, I have determined, NOT food.
Painting a frog…
I very nearly nearly did just now.
This one:
Was testing the color of the paint I picked up from hardware store at lunch. Thought he was a blotch to be painted over. He is not. Is cute though.
Weekend in review
Friday morning I went with a crown (ok, a smallish crowd) of folks from work to raise walls on the Habitat for Humanity house that Nortel is sponsoring. This was, much to my great surprise, fun (tho it was a bit on the warm side and I “glowed” more than I’m accustomed to). I have pictures, which will get posted soon, I hope (don’t you love the way I phrased that “which will get posted soon,” as if *I* am not the one who needs to get off her rear and post them. I was more competent at the nailing thing than I’d thought I’d be, and was thwoping the big (that’d be $.16 to use the technical term) nails in seven thwacks or fewer. Yah me! That being said, Steve could do it in three, so I’m not sure I’ve got a lot to brag on.
Friday night, I met up with Heather and Liz for some shopping action (at Total Wine — who thought up that name?!), then dinner at the Angus Barn. Mmmmmmmmm….beef! I’d not eaten there since my birthday (September, for anyone keeping track) and had not had dinner with Liz and Heather in eons either (though Heather was co-host of the girl’s fondue thing, and Liz was there), so that was thoroughly enjoyable.
Saturday, oh Saturday, Jeff and I took the bike to Winston and ordered my MINI!! More on that later (do I always say that?), but for now I need help with the critical decision of chrome mirrors (another view) or white mirrors.
I did end up opting for the chrome bumper inserts, much to my surprise.
| What color mirror covers should Gina get on her MINI? | |
| Chrome (adv.: shiny, bugs not as obvious, matches bumper inserts) | |
| White (adv: cheaper, matches roof) | |
| Free polls from Pollhost.com | |
Realm of the Lint Queen 