Monday, December 21, 2009

Just when I thought I'd heard it all...

Why does capitulate mean to give in, but recapitulate means just to restate a point?

Give in vs Sum up. It just doesn't seem right.

es no bueno.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

After a day of melting

I should have been rolling my bags out of the first class cabin into sunny Santiago. Instead I am contemplating the snowdrift that houses my car.

Not Cool!

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

how cute are we?

You say crazy act lady, i say so what

Monday, November 30, 2009

Notions of which I have been disabused this week

1) that we did a good job packing/preparing for the move, and so we should just go on up to NY for Thanksgiving with HN's dad, and stay there all weekend and just hang out and relax.
  • although we thought this was true until the moment we left, -actually, until the moment we returned- it was not. we have so much shit, our shit has shit. Despite the fact that we had already dropped off a 17ft truck's worth of stuff, and made numerous car trips AND gotten rid of 3 car loads of shit between goodwill and the dump, we were unable to get all of our stuff in a 10ft truck Sunday (note: I disavow all involvement with the 10ft truck. I always vote for 17, but I delegated rental duties this time to a boyfriend I know to be cheap and he rented the 10. It was not big enough, I don't want to talk about it) Mental note: HN is a delusional optimist when it comes to his packing skills, never believe him. His packing skills are pretty sweet and he's also pretty hot, but he's just a shade this side of realistic. Or that side I guess. Whichever side is not how it really is. I know the move was made much easier by the fact that we'd done all that pre-work but fuck me running, there were still piles all over the damn place. ALL OVER THE PLACE. and it didn't all fit in the stupid truck, so we had to leave some to go back for today.

2) That I handle stress well; as in the stress of moving.
  • I definitely felt the pressure, but I thought I had it under control. Then I realized HN was talking to me in soothing tones and rubbing my back alot while we were moving things on Sunday. Then I realized other people were talking to me in soothing tones too, perfect strangers like the lady at the pizza joint who can always be counted on for a little attitude. She took one look at me when I walked in to pick up lunch and the next thing you know I'm sitting down having a free sode while I wait. So I don't know what I looked like, but I must be delusional too. I've also been informed that I grind my teeth while sleeping. It's a very recent thing and all the soft tones and sympathetic looks yesterday make me wonder if I was more stressed over the move than I thought I was. At least I know why my jaw and teeth have been hurting. I thought I had a cavity or something, which would be the bullshit because I floss like I get paid for it and I've all but cut out Skittles which was a big deal at the time.

3) That Kitty likes riding in the car.
  • Still baffled over this one! Dude was such a pro on the ride to and from New Mexico. He was the Mad Dash Surfer, counting the little white dashes in the road from the safety and delight of my lap all the while purring up a storm and just overall behaving. He was the best road kitty I could ever have wanted on those trips. Tonight it was like an angry, hateful, travelsick little alien replace my beloved kitty. The cat crate somehow got moved to the new apt and I failed to notice. Which means I failed to bring it back when we went to pick up the final load of our shit, including cat which meant that I had to make the drive myself with him in hand/lap. Normally I'd just let him go free in the car and not care where he wedged himself in for the ride, but the tailgate was necessarily a bit ajar and he demonstrated once that he could and would fit out of it and so in the disinterest of Kitty as a roadburger, I decided he had to be up front with me for the ride. (don't even get me started on the car. I believe HN again about what would fit in it, and again his optimism was not a bonus. Lesson learned, I won't dwell) So we spent the ride with Kitty freaking out, me throttling him a little, squeezing him just enough to let him know he was making me unhappy, then I would sing/talk/whatever to him to try to chill him out. He'd go limp, I'd think he settled back in to being Mr RoadTrip Americat and we'd start the whole thing over again. Honestly, you think I'd stop falling for it, but I never do. Due to adjustments, the 20 minute ride was a 50 minute ride. K-boy was psyched to see the basement when he got here and I'm pretty sure he's going to try to trip me down the stairs soon.

4) That you can only put a few things on a car roof.
  • I really thought this one had limits until tonight. I think we had as much on top of the car as in it. We had: (1) giant kitty condo of doom (4) MDF boards for shelving (1) Folded up old school metal X-Pen (2) 50 ft lengths of hose which I wanted to leave behind and HN insisted we take, I think out of spite for FFFO (2) kitchen chairs and something else that I forget. It was straight out of the beverly hillbillies. I think the freestyling cat in tow really put us over the top. I wish I'd taken pictures but I was busy freaking out, which it turns out is very tiring work. Fretting is not just for hausfraus anymore!

5) That just because I've lived in small kitchens before, the downsize should be easy enough to adjust to.
  • I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually but my new kitchen is about 1/4 the size of the old one and only has 3 things of cabinets up high. This is going to be difficult to adjust to. Dishes have to go in 2 of them, spices and cooking needs in one. Stay tuned as Kerry attempts to adjust to having to put her food in cabinets* down low. Quelle Horror!! Why this horrifies me so much I couldn't tell you, but I'm really having a hard time with it. (* Actually make that cabinet, singular. There's only 3 sets of down low cabinets, and 2 are looking likely to fill up with pans. I got a lot o pans, man. All I can say is thank god for the campaign of eating everything in our cabinets. Otherwise, it would be worse. Much worse.)

6) That I am strong and/or know what hard work feels like.
  • Does this mean I'm old now? Until very recently (like this morning) I would have told you that I feel like a fairly strong person. I had damn near convinced myself that I was in league with farmers or ditchdiggers in terms of strength and stamina for manual labor. Turns out this is a bunch of bullshit, and I am actually a very soft person. After today's full day of moving I am barely able to make it up and down the stairs without resting and my hands are all puffy and sad and they hurt from being used. Bending over to pick up something off the floor is like a 60 second committment right now: I'm busy and don't have that kind of time to spare so I'm just leaving it there until it gets easier. Hello room service? I'll have 1 beer and 4 advil please. Hello? Helloooooo??? And yet my cries go unanswered. Le Sigh.

At some point this week I'll share things that I thought to be true that I was right about. Sometimes the truth really does hurt!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Know the basics of TORNADO SAFETY and have a PLAN TO SURVIVE!

My hat don't match- anything I own or even really itself- , but I'm using up scrap yarn of a mix that's no longer available, so I'll never have enough of one color to make anything else. It's super warm, plus it's in support of my whole "using up what I have around" campaign. I'm also donating absurd amounts of shit to goodwill as I clean, but I digress.

It's my kind of ugly, kind of shaggy, a little too big hat and I love it just the way it is!


Moving goes on, packing up the little stuff and coming up with a new idea of "what can I live without?" It's hard but I'm doing it. We are seriously downsizing, so it's really and truly necessary but also I just look around and feel like I have too much shit so it's like "not really but really to me" necessary as well.

When I'm not packing and hauling and need to keep warm, I can be found curled up in my chair like a lizard with a heating pad on my back; wearing hat, poncho, fingerless gloves, and windows old ass antique space heater type laptop to keep me warm. I am at war with Mother Nature. Or the oil company, but Mother Nature sounds better. Anyhow, now that we're moving out for some reason I am reluctant to waste oil heating the joint. It's pretty intense, but I think I'm winning!

The dog and cat have given it up completely and now huddle for warmth. I've got a car full of plants going down to the new place because they're starting to struggle with the cold here.

You might have noticed all the bread lately (or have you? Have I been mentioning it here?) That's a devious plan of mine to actually heat the kitchen without being totally welfare about it. See, because if the oven is on for something legit and just happens to heat the kitchen, its serendipitous. If you're huddling over the open/on oven to defrost your hands, you have a problem.

I've also seasoned all my cast iron pans between loaves. Yahoo!

Did you hear about the sword crime in Baltimore? I can't believe I didn't mention this yet. It was right near HN's sister's house, and their neighborhood was buzzing about it. All I can think of is Napoleon Dynamites across the country, the dudes who wear wolf t shirts and go to those weird hotel knife shows and say things like "I have a SAMURAI SWORD for protection" now have ammo when you them the with the inevitable "Why?"

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

A day in the life through my blackberry

Oh the potential of unbaked bread. This is a twisty challah off the King Arthur Flour website. 4 stranded braids beeatch!

I am working their shit over this month. I WILL learn about bread.

The fantasy is usually better

but sometimes not!


This is mini Barbie commando unit 1. Me and HN's motorcycle/abominable snowman suit have a long and happy dogwalking future ahead of us. SO WARM!

Is the belt for style, or to hike up me drawers? You may never know!

here are some of my favorite chickens. Look for me to take real photos (i.e. with a real camera) of them in the weeks coming. I'm getting maudlin about the farm, but still psyched about the move.


This ho's name is Susan B Anthony chicken. She is independent, and not taking any crap. Rooster be screaming about "bitches get over here" and she's all "No, I want to see what this bitch is about" She will not be oppressed!


This one's name is Bruce Dickinson, baby! So named because though there be other roosters about, he is The Cock of The Walk!!
He said it needs more cowbell!

This ho's name is Betty. Cos she's U G L Y but sweet.


Noticeably missing from these photos (I feel the absence more than y'all would) are Ethel and Mabel. Gorgeous speckled hens. Like this but prettier, and way nosier. Like old ladies, they were always the first to greet the passerby, and were smart enough to know Star couldnt actually attack through the fence, so they never flinched from her. Apparently, they were also the first to the fence to check out the fox, who could in fact get through the fence. Bye girls, I'll miss you!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Game the motherf*ck on motherf*ckers!

CONFIRMED: moving into the badass little rowhouse of my (current) dreams. We worked out the finals last night with our friend and we begin moving stat! We have a pretty hectic couple of weekends coming up so it needs to start happening sooner than later. I'm also hopeful that HN will toss some of his stuff while we go through it all. He keeps claiming I am the packrat and he is an angel, but this is clearly evidence of his inability to honestly examine himself. It's also a side effect of him storing his extra crap in one of "my" rooms here, so my room does indeed look like it's full of random crap I don't use, but it's mostly his stuff. I'm hoping I can convince him to get rid of things like the big white computer he's been carrying around since the 90s and that hasn't turned on in this decade.

We're going have a packathon on Friday and then try to haul 1-2 truck loads of the least essential big stuff this weekend. I'm out of town most of the next weekend, then there's Thanksgiving, when we were planning to be out of town again from Weds-Sunday. That might get cut short, what with it being the last weekend to move and all.

Gah. I'm glad to know where we're going definitively and I'm excited to be back in Hampden, but I seriously hate the work part of moving.

Sneak Peek: Meet my new (probable) office space. HN is still making fake overtures that he wants to be the one habiting this space, but I'm pretty sure he's just being taunting because I've clearly already unpacked into the space.


So this is the view from the second bedroom. See stairwell on the left, skylight above it causes that big brightness you see. In the other houses of the same build we looked at, the weird random space above the stairwell was a stupid little room. Hard to explain, makes no sense but it was stupid, trust me.


Not here! One of the architects made 2 key changes to the joint in the name of common sense and good design.
1) little area instead of being a silly overgrown closet is a cool little office nook!


With slamming amounts of storage! You can't tell but the blue wall doesn't go all the way to the white wall, and if you peek around the blue corner there is more hidden storage! Surely I can keep my mess contained...
2) The second key change is that they pushed back the actual wall upstairs some, which allows the skylight to actually go through down to the living room downstairs, which adds a bit of sunlight to the living room, which is always tough with rowhouses. So the green wall that is the back of the desk in other houses would be 1 ft back and hogging the light from the dowstairs.

Like I said, it's the little things in this joint that make a big difference.

More pics later...

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Epic Like Gilgamesh

So I had an insertion mission trip to beantown snuck in this past weekend. Ticket was bought last minute (sad because that shit is expensive! but it was a special ocassion), flew up Friday and into the arms of the Anna's taqueria. From there, it was straight to purple people eater with the Garons and me.

Saturday was delightful! Super blue sky, crisp New England morning fall air, and my newly resdiscovered knee length down jacket that was 10 bucks at the thrift store and that I have fallen in love with all over again. I marched all around town, took the subway and got to visit Fanueil Hall with someone super special that I haven't seen in ages.

THEN, I wandered around Boston, eventually making my way to Porter square for purposes of meandering around town while generally making my way to Jenn's and I get a call from who BUT Jenn, telling me her and Matt have walked to Porter and are wandering around generally heading back to the house. Fortuitousness!!

So I cross the street to join them and we mosey, stopping at all my favorite spots on the way, including Joe Sent Me...for a well earned cocktail, and Pemberton Farms Market for some tasty chocolate and supplies for dinner.

Walking home we invite ourselves into a couple of wine shops for some tasting and some purchasing, then back to Jenn's where I promptly sear the roast (I am officially in love with the red pan), drink a glass of wine and fall asleep. Luckily Jenn thought to photodocument the event for me.

Home Sunday, gather up dog for some basking in the sun and sky...





to Ohio Monday, departing at 6:30am. SICK. 2 flights to Dayton, 2 hour drive through farm country to get to customer's house (a whole other weird issue), arrive to A BROKEN CAMERA. Ugh. Back in car, 2 hours drive back to the airport, during which I made a really bad decision!

I decided to skip the chance to tour the KitchenAid stand mixer factory in favor of trying to catch an earlier flight. I am still kicking myself.

Especially since I didn't make an earlier flight, and didn't have enough time to go all the way back. I ended up having to stay in the Dayton airport for like 4 hours, which sucked a bowl of knob- and not in the good way. I consoled myself with a giant beer and a cheeseburger then knitted my way back home,
For some reason, I felt like I needed to be surreptitious.

except for the part where I was speedwalking through the Atlanta airport to get to the other terminal for my connecting flight that was boarding- that was exciting! and the plane home was an airbus or a 757. HUGE!

This next part is graphic but I have to tell it all so you get the full effect. I rolled up to the homestead around 1:30am and washed the world off of me: I poured a stiff drink, "went to the bathroom", showered, shaved, exfoliated, clipped my nails, flossed and brushed, used my neti pot, and then did about 30 min of yoga like stretching. I was like a new woman once done and for that reason alone I love long days like that. But I'm still so bummed about the factory tour. Le Sigh.

So 6 planes in 4 days, endless driving, 3 nights of couch sleeping plus 22 hours of travel and my neck is totally out of comission. I look like that big faker dude from that Brady Bunch episode with the neck thing, only with no neck thing. But I turn my head funny and stuff. I just bought myself an early xmas present- an appointment with Glenda. Glenda is a massage person at the place I go for yoga and the women waiting for her appointments always say her name with such reverance that she seemed like a good choice. It doesn't hurt my feelings at all that she's 6 feet tall and has forearms like a sailor. I just hope she's as good as their faces say.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Is it wrong....

That I want to go bird stalking in the woods behind the house so I can have my own owl in a box? Now that I have

Maybe I'll have penguin in a box! HN and I (ok, HN's sister Dr J and I) have decided at least some part of our plans in Chile (5 weeks!) We're going to spend a week in the Chiloe area and at least part of this visit will be to the penguin colonies around Punta Arenas. Psyche! Now I just have to remember to bring a box. I refuse to believe out of thousands there is not one penguin who will play along.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Groundhog hole just became groundhog cave.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Biss'ha

That's arabic for "chow down motherf*cker!!" Ok, not really, it means enjoy your meal. The point of the exercise was to awkwardly segue into the fact that last night I got out my fez (which was all dusty and gross because it's been in a box in the basement all this time) and made the plunge into trying to cook Moroccan food. I've been toying with 90 million and 1 ideas for a while now and last night I completely abandoned them all and wung it (wung: the past tense of wing)

I need to find an actual moroccan person to know because I must be missing something, but it was pretty tasty and definitely different than anything I've had before so I think I'm on the right track. I also like to think I need a tagine but have held off for a variety of reasons, like that I really probably don't.

Anyhow, last night's exercise centered around a bag of spices I bought off a pirate at the farmer's market a couple of weeks ago. While perusing and chatting, we got to talking and the next thing I know I'm walking away with a cup of Ras el hanout and some loose instructions about what to do with it.

Last night, because it's better than work, I decided I would get a whole bunch of stuff going on for dinner and in perusing the kitchen area I decided I needed to use the chicken in the fridge, my clay pot cooker that I SCORED! on this summer at the yard sale and some more of the endless couscous stash in my cabinets. All signs pointed to Moroccan and I remembered said bag of spices, dug it out of our "special bowl where we keep miscellaneous ethnic spice things in little baggies" and got going. I totally failed to get a pic, but when I replate it all up for dinner tonight I will do it.

In grubbing around for side ideas, I tripped over this ho and copied her style right down to molding the couscous. I also noticed carrots and chickpeas kept popping up, and knowing nothing about Moroccan cooking but thinking it plausible that these would pass muster, I decided on that for the vegetable involved.

So I rubbed down the chicken with the spice mix, salted and peppered it and let it sit for a while. While it was sitting I filled the sink to soak the clay cooker (mental note: there has to be a better way) and got to chopping. Chop a bunch of carrots, onions, prunes, and garlic into a bowl. Add can of drained chickpeas and some parsley, drizzle with olive oil, add a pinch of kosher salt and toss. Dump into (20 minute soaked) clay pot, pour half a glass of wine and a little chicken stock over top. Brown chicken skin side down in a frying pan, throw on top of veggies, cover and put in cold oven. turn oven to 400 and walk away.

Wait, first throw some saffron threads into 1C of chicken broth and let it sit on top of the stove so it warms up but don't cook it. Then walk away.

I think I let it cook 40 minutes or so, I didn't worry too much about it because it won't dry out in the clay (that's the point of the clay). Once it's done (meat thermometer, clear juices, whatever your pleasure) take it all out of the oven, strain out the juices into a special cup thing for gravy making, and let the chicken and vegetables rest. Chicken gets tired easily, just leave it in the clay pot with the lid cracked a little.

While the chicken is resting, boil the broth/saffron and once it goes throw in the right amount of couscous, remove from heat and cover. Use this time to look up and yell arabic phrases to nervous looking boyfriend in the other room. (do NOT attempt to explain presence of the Fez or why you own one. It's noone's business)

At this point I made gravy from the juice by melting a pat of butter and pouring in the juices and a little bit of the fat.

I plated the meal to make it look just so, using the couscous mold idea above, a pile of beautiful veggies and some chicken slices on the side. Drizzle wif da jus and sprinkle with parsley.

Things I might do different:
-might do the chicken outside the clay. I think I would prefer crispy skin in this case.
-a pile of some sort of spinach thing would have looked nice with all the other colors. Will investigate whether this is feasibly African enough to get on board.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Hark! What is that mellifluous sound?

It could be: the remnants of whatever cold/flu I had last week clearing out. I am a symphony of coughs and sneezes this weekend, punctuated with random bursts of tuba as I blow my nose to clear out the mucus that built up seemingly overnight in some giant bottomless cavern I never knew existed. But seriously, where does it all come from? One of the great mysteries. and you know people always look like a million bucks in this state. I am how you say? Le Sexy? HN is muttering and shaking his head off in the corner, I'm pretty sure he's counting his blessings and I just know I'm one of them. On the other hand, when I'm not coughing my voice is all Sexy Phoebe so that's a plus. As long as one's burst of contact with me is less than 2 minutes, they are doubtless left wondering who I was and why do I seem so mysterious. Anything longer than that and they're wondering if they're going to catch what I have and if I'm going to live.

It could also be the sound of the Great Purge That Accompanies Any Move. I LOVE THIS PART! It's only been a year, so there isn't as much as I would like to get rid of as when I was leaving Hampden but it still feels good. I did sneak into the kitchen cupboards when HN was down and out with his flu and tossed a crapload of spices, vitamins and canned goods that had expired ages ago. We had tuna I remember Adam buying. Expired in 2008 and HN was all "it's canned, it does not go bad!" I popped open a couple of cans of other things to test this theory, found them to be "not as good", and also gross and rusty inside the cans and so I justified tossing the lot of it, even though it hurts me to be wasteful. I told him to think of the gas we're saving in not moving it around the state with us again. And there were a bunch of non food/clothing things that I did bring last time that I was on the fence about and one year later if they've not been touched or dealt with or fallen in love with all over again, out they go. So far I only have 2 boxes for Goodwill, but I am truly inspired and I think I can do better. Now that round 1 is done and I douched the house in the wake of that I can look again with fresh eyes and see what's left and what else can go. And not a moment too soon. We told FFFO the news yesterday (well actually we copped out and told her wife, the nice one because FFFO was not around) but it went over about as well as we thought it would, which is to say not so well at all. It's a shitty situation all around, and I don't enjoy the fact that they feel like we're leaving them in a lurch but it is what it is. I told her 2 mos ago we wanted to stay, she told us just over a week ago she was raising rent and when I said "Ok" as in "Ok, I hear you and I understand you" she heard "Ok, I will pay an increase in rent" which I surely did not mean. 30 days is standard notice, but in her mind she deserves more than that. It sucks but short of a personality transplant I see no way it won't be awkward and angry filled. It's just how she rolls, she's too new at this to be a detached landlord so in her mind she is slighted. And so, now packing begins in earnest.

As does househunting. HN and I spent the weekend looking at a few more places. I believe we have narrowed it down to where we want to move, and there is only a minor hiccup. It's a house that is for sale by a friend of ours. It's been on the market 4 mos, as have 7-8 other houses on the same road. We're in discussions with said friend about renting for the short term (i.e. to get us out of here) then making moves to buy. It's a solid piece of property in a neighborhood I think will only get better and the price is about right. When we were looking around last year, the market here was just cresting so little rowhouses were going for 250-275 which is just gross so we passed on it all and crossed buying off our list. Now that things have evened out some, rowhouses are in the 200K area, which is still a little tough to swallow for a non-standalone house but in the end is I think about where it's going to be for now and likely for the future. I certainly don't see values ever going much below that mark at this point, and as I said the property is solid. Our friend is the latest in a string of architects that we know (4 to be exact) to have owned this very house (apparently it just gets passed around the firm, but hey I can respect that!) , and each of them made a little mark on it's design. And it's obvious when you're in that the ideas all came from people who understand design. We went to poke around in there yesterday, and there were a couple of open houses on the street so we went into another one just for comparison sake and while there was one that was what some would call "nicer" you could tell that that was all commissioned by some homeowner dude who was all "I want this bigger and more expensive" because it was gorgeous in parts but a little disjointed overall. The one we're looking at is just cool, and everytime you notice a detail, everything clicks into place about what the point of the detail is and how well it plays with the other details. Overall it's a cool little place and there is only 1 drawback, which is that to get to the backyard you have to go down to the basement. I'm more a fan of "yard access from living space so I can just leave door open and let dog do her thing all day" but I can suck it up in the end. The basement is clean, light, finished and dry so there's nothing prohibitive about going down there other than being lazy. And I already have plans and visions of the crazy cool garden beds I'm going to build for the yard. I learned from my experience in the last rowhouse with a slot yard and I have ideas that are NEW! and IMPROVED! and I also have HN who is the master of square foot gardening to help me "maximize my efficiency" His words, not mine. So, we're still in the discuss-y phase of it all but it's seemingly moving along. We are still technically looking at other places, but I think we're both sort of sold on this joint. So we'll see. We had written off buying anything last year, so it's a change of mindset that we're both struggling with a bit but in the end I don't think it's anything we would regret doing.

So real estate, snot, moving. That's pretty much the tune I'm humming this week. I don't even have time to be working myself up about my impending travels to Chile. (6 weeks!)

More later, you can count on it!

besitos
k

Friday, October 30, 2009

Pretty

Progress

Note the placement of her ear. This means Kitty was there first, she lied down next to him!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

One fish, two fish....

Brick apt, standalone house. No, it doesn't rhyme but I am so fresh I don't need metrics.

The apt hunt goes on, and it's a much more interesting this time around. I have an excellent attitude if I do say so myself.

Found a couple of nice places, one in a house near here that was cozy and had a wood stove and was overall very tempting, despite not being "it" in a variety of little ways that I would have tried to see past. In the end, the decision was made for us when the owner's brother had "drama" of some undisclosed nature and the owner told me he had to let his brother live there. At firt it felt like a bummer, but I was actually thankful because I didn't have to really agonize over it, and also I know that this shit only happens when something more ideal is around the corner, so I'm over it.

So the hunt now concentrates in the city, specifically back in Hampden where we used to live. I really enjoyed living there and although I wouldn't totally poo poo living in another part of the city, I seem to keep coming back to Hampden. I like the stores, the bars, the centrality, the farmer's market and the night walking choices. HN is a little sad, he feels like if we go back where we moved from it's a step backwards but I'm not even allowing that sentiment to crowd my wave so the hunt goes on. I know once we get in somewhere and are happy and *I* am happy, HN will come around and get over it. I have enough postivity for the both of us. Plus his sister lives nearby and that's a selling point.

Today we're going to look at a few places, including one owned by a friend of ours who has been trying to sell it. Said friend is not 100% sure he's ready to give up the dream of selling, but it's been on the market for 4 months, empty for 3, and there are 8 houses on that block for sale. He will crumble soon if he knows what's good for him! Plus, it's a cute place and I could rock the shit out of the craft alcove (and look good doing it- pics later which will explain what I mean) Were I not so averse to the idea, it's a place we might even consider buying ourselves.

Aside(to be folded into ongoing conversation shortly): I am a *horrible* bargain-er. I just don't have it in me. When I went to Mexico, I was so bad at it that even though everyone said "take 25% off the price anyone quotes you" I never would. I spent some time one day talking with one merchant, who wanted to haggle and finally got so annoyed that I wouldn't/didn't haggle that he did it for me and ended up selling me things for less than I had been willing to pay for them. When we went to Guatemala, HN would allow me to walk by tables then go report to him on what I liked. I was in no way to indicate my interest because I blew some pretty good deals by squealing "I LOVE IT!!!"

Haggling is a thing HN excels at. He got this from both of his parents, but his mother is like the ultimo pro of it. She once tried to bargain with the cashier at JoAnn's and was unsuccessful by only the narrowest of margins. It was awesome to watch. So I've been discussing bargaining with various people lately (I don't know why, it just keeps coming up. Apparently the universe is trying to tell me it's time to get my skillset expanding) and I confessed I always feel bad when bargaining. I just think you either accept someone's conditions or you don't right? Shopping, personal relationships, whatever; my philosophy is the same. Everyone puts out there where they're at and what they're capable of and everyone else either oks or passes has always been my take. So I confessed the feeling bad part to a friend and he gave me a rather stellar, succinct bargaining tip that I think I can totally live with. He told me, "push until the person you are dealing with has to fake being ok with what you're getting" His reasoning was that if they are too happy and all fat cat, you're getting less (or paying more) than you should. If they're genuinely unhappy, you've gone too far and are disrespecting. But if they are still willing and able to fake a smile, but you can tell it's work for them you are about at a decent balance of what they think something is worth and what you're about to pay for it.

I can totally live with that.

So, fast forward to me yesterday looking at an apt that I didn't really like, with an annoying woman who I also didn't like who asked me point blank how I felt about the money she was asking for the place. My immediate reaction is almost always "oh, it's fine" (and internally I think "but I wouldn't pay it") but I decided to get with the prophet's program and thought for a minute. I didn't want the place anyway, I totally had the power to say goodbye, and I thought I should listen to the universe and get myself together so I told her I thought for the condition of the place it was a little steep. This is not shocking, most adults do this shit all day long but it's not my bag so it felt like a big deal to me. Anyhow, what ensued was a silly empowering bargaining talk where I could have gotten the rent to a pretty sweet price point just by virtue of being clean, respectable looking me who was pretty much out the door from the minute I got in.

The point to this whole ramble: Bargaining has now been added to the Misc Skills section of my resume. I have 4 houses to see today and I plan to hone my new skills, quick while the iron is hot.

Hopefully I will report on a place to live later, as it's tick tick ticking until the 30 days notice we need to give FFFO and I'd really like to be locked into something before then.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

(mostly) not grocery shopping

So, we all know I exaggerate. Like when I say "I'm never grocery shopping again!" I mean "I'm shopping less for a while"

Well, the while goes on! And I'm making some decent progress round here! Because I know you've all been up nights wondering about the state of my freezer, let's dish.

First let me say I amended policy of "no shopping" to "Can buy things like cheese and milk that can't be made from other things around the house, and also can buy 1 magical ingredient for any dish for which I have everything else here" and also "can always buy onions and garlic"

So...as I began to make my way through the contents of the freezer (umm, "a friend" told me that you can unfreeze previously frozen wine given to you by your angry landlord and frozen because what else would you do with 2 giant bottles when you're home alone for the summer and drink it and it still tastes ok. Turns out to be true, and freezer cleaning ramped up because of it. Although I was a little embarrassed and glad to be home alone the first time I did it, by the second glass of heated wine with mulling spices, I was over it. I am from the gettaw!)

Anyway, as I was saying before I got wine-sicled off point, I found a hunk of short ribs kicking back in the freezer. Short ribs = expensive shitty meat to me. HN orders them at restaurants and my dad gave me this sweet book and put an asterisk next to the short ribs recipes so I thought one time way back I would make it for HN and company. Company canceled so I was left with the extra pack. The dish came out gross, because short ribs are pretty gross, so I just never made it again and blocked out the fact that I had bought a second package.

Cut to me watching Top Chef the other night and they were talking about umami taste and I was all "Must learn umami. Now" and here don't I grub around the freezer to see if I have anything in there that tastes like earth. No can do, but I did come up with the bag of short ribs and visions of pho start dancing in my head. So I take said nasty short ribs, throw them in a big pot with herbs and spices and plan tomorrow to go to the supermarket for secret ingredient MUSHROOMS! The soup was ridiculously delicious, and umami is now my bitch. Thank you google!! However, I didn't end up using the short rib meat in the soup, because even after 3 hours of boiling that shit was still nasty.

So I get all "FUCK THIS, now it's personal" on the short ribs and decide that hell to the no do they get tossed because now it's just the principle of the thing. Tough meat, I think on it and I decide acid is the answer, so going back to the freezer, I grab a quart sized bag of "blended spicy garden tomatoes" and throw them in my 3Qt dutch oven, with a jar of my prized new mexico green chiles (down to 14 jars left and getting nervous), some black beans, a pepper, some onion and a whole lotta garlic. And some cumin. For whatever reason, when HN and I moved in together we both brought oregano and cumin stashes to get us through the Apocalypse. Therefore, cumin and oregano now go with lots of what I make, by hook or by crook. I do some braising/meat calculations and decide that 300 degrees for 4 hours would tenderize even the dog so I let that all happen. Result? RESULT! Tasty shizz, kind of like a ghetto beef chili Verde only not quite, but the stewiness and texture were on point and taste was not so bad either. I toss some in a bowl, cover with cheese and broil. IT IS GOOD, but it could be better and there's still a bunch of crap in my fridge that I don't need so I allow for one more ingredient (it's a different day, it doesn't count!) and go get some tortillas. I fry those up lightly, pack em full of meat mix, cover with sauce made from things in the fridge I wish HN would stop bringing home (tostitos salsa? umm, perhaps you forget we have roughly 1000 jars of homemade and AWESOME salsa around here!) and some cheese, et voila! Were I so inclined to spend 3 fucking days preparing wretched cuts of meat, I would make short rib enchiladas or burritos any day. As it is, I'll just bask in the fact that I won over the meat and never buy that shit again.

So that's the battle of the short ribs, and though like I said I wouldn't use the cut of meat again, they did make a damn tasty soup base. i believe this is more a bone in thing than a good meat thing though, so next time I have a day to kill and a self granted freedom to buy more than one ingredient, I might do a full on pho day. Seems like it ought to be a "for company" thing too, but it doesn't need to be decided now.

The rest of the project goes well too. Not so much variety in recipes this week, because I'm eating leftovers blah blah blah, but I do at least look at the cabinets and freezer and know I am making progress.
Barley stocks are down to "around normal" as opposed to "are we having the whole city over for some barley?" level. Frozen wine has been "handled", frozen tomatoes USED UP, ONE JAR OF CUMIN EXHAUSTED! (2 jars of oregano from HN that expired in 2005 thrown out while he wasn't looking) and stores continue to fall.

I did have to break my grocery shopping rule yesterday, because HN has the swine flu so I was able to justify buying chicken to make some matzo ball soup. (and it was SO GOOD! I reduced the stock by like 1/3 because I was locked out of the kitchen because the floor was wet and so the stock boiled away more than I meant it to, but it was just this lovely, thick COMFORT soup) I also bought egg noodles, thinking if the matzo was too heavy he might like those better, and also because I bought extra chicken pieces I have options left. And I bought a pound of ground beef, as a single ingredient for the future.

So, having bought
  • 1 pack chicken breasts, bone in
  • 1 pack chicken thighs (you need dark meat for soup)
  • 1 package egg noodles
  • 1 pound ground beef
And having left in the fridge that I want to use:
  • some mushrooms
  • a half jar of tomato sauce we made over the summer (but only opened last week when I made pizza)
  • some Parmesan cheese
  • arborio rice
  • some half and half
  • squash (frozen)
I plan to make (or have made)
  • Matzo ball soup
  • single serving of beef stroganoff (HN dislikes mushrooms, good riddance)
  • meat sauce from the rest of the beef, served over egg noodles
  • squash risotto with sage from the yard before it all dies
  • egg noodles with chicken and garlic butter/wine sauce (there is always chicken meat leftover when I make soup)
  • mexican chicken soup (which is just plain chicken soup with black beans and a jar of our way over vinegar salsa from the summer dumped in, and is also AWESOME)

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with my progress. Aside from getting around to using what I bought and paid for ages ago, and no longer being taunted by seeing it there when I open the fridge, I'm "getting outside my box" (hey now!) and adding some interesting things to the list of things I make. Things like pho which I've wondered about forever now are less mysterious having made at least a start on the broth, the toasted barley discovery which is sure to prove to be lifechanging, and the knowledge that I can probably get through that whole jar of couscous if I make it 3 more times to go with something all contribute to me just feeling this cooking challenge. It's also interesting to actually plan a menu which is something I'd heard of people doing but had never done. It's a good exercise in how to make things - as in what's the best order in which to cook things to maximize the leftovers possibilities to be something else. After eating something 3 times I really have a hard time keeping on, so planning on how to morph stuff is very exciting.

Off to hit the showers now. Today we look at one place down in the city (fingers crossed!) and then the house near here with the woodstove. I am truly torn, because the house with the woodstove is just cool, and I know we would love it but I am thinking I want to go back to the city to live. There's just a ton of things I miss, like being able to walk to any store, walk to the farmers market, walk to the book thing, etc etc etc. I also really miss my pre-bedtime walks with Star. There's no sidewalks here and no roads it's safe to walk on at night so that has all but stopped and I think my sleeping has suffered as a result.

We will have to trade in on the peace, quiet and darkness of country life, and for sure we're going to lose the element of fire which I've quite enjoyed but I think in the end the city is the answer. And now that it's been decided that we're moving, I'm excited about it. I spent gross, cold, rainy yesterday inside making soup and DOUCHING the douche of all douches the kitchen, back bathroom and the back 2 carpeted rooms. The corners and crevices have been cleared of ALL dust bunnies and resident spiders, carpet has been spot cleaned with my new toy, and the pile of things for goodwill grows. Today, we look at apts then I come home and tackle cabinets, fridge, and the sunroom, where all manner of bad things have been building up since we stopped using it due to the cold. I love collapsing exhausted at the end of the day and seeing that I have made progress.

Onward and upward....

Friday, October 23, 2009

Listen here, little man

Warning: Today the part of kerry will be played by her angry inner child. I tried to get to the source of the child's anger but she kicked me in the shin and ran away crying with a chocolate bar, some cheese and a chick flick. I think we all know what's going on here...

It's one of those days/weeks. My mouth is connected directly to my attitude, and the brain has left the building. And I have 0 patience units left, and people are legitimately being DOUCHE.

Example 1: FFFO. I erroneously reported on things on the farm evening out some and not being so bad. I may even have mentioned that we were planning on staying for another year. New plan: fuck her, we move. There's several factors in this, the main one being that HN can't get comfy. He still has hurt feelings over the fact that he thought they were friends but she turned out to be a fucking lunatic. It's easier for me to get over, because I spend the majority of my days here alone enjoying the rambling bucolic-icity of the joint, sunning myself on the asphalt driveway with dog and wandering the woods, also with dog. It is not a bad life from 9-5.

Anyhoooo, about a month ago I talked to FFFO about us not actually moving out. I told her I thought we'd like to stay, asked what her plans were for the place as far as finishing any of the work promised to go on when we first moved in, and asked her about rent. I got NO CAN DO on anymore work, MIGHT CAN DO on the issue of the broken thermostat and ANSWER UNCLEAR about whether they were changing rent (vague threat from way back) Conversation ended with "I'll let you know about rent" Fast forward one month. Not having heard back from her (and following her strict example of if YOU say YOU'LL get back to ME, I am absolved of ALL reponsibility for talking to YOU first) , I begin perusing housing listings on Craigslist. Once around the block with this ho was enough and I won't be caught out again by presuming she is a good person. Pickings are looking preeeety OK, so HN and I begin in earnest to discuss what to do. He basically takes a big deep breath and unloads about how much he hates it here, never comfortable, etc etc etc but hasn't been saying anything because I work from home and he knows how much I enjoy the aforementioned activities and he will stay and deal with it if I want to. Nice offer bitterbutt, but I think I'll take the trade of moving somewhere else with having my normal sane boyfriend back. I'm also not that fond of FFFO, but like I said, she's around like 20% of my life and I'm good at out of sight out of mind. So, for kicks the other night (and in order to have all pertinent info before pulling the trigger on a move) I decide to break down and ask her about rent and she announces they're raising it $100 and starts to list all the things they're going to do with the extra money. Bitch, please. Firstly, 100 bucks in the scope of what you pay for this place will make NO difference. Secondly, I believe NOT FOR ONE RED SECOND that you will do shit to this place. After all, they collected insurance money to do work on one part of the house last year and it NEVER HAPPENED. You have gotten complacent, because we're in and are reasonably tolerant and you are one of those "take what you can get from anyone/everyone types of people" Third, unbeknownst to you, I have looked around and one can get an INSULATED house for less than what we pay now. That's savings on rent, and the ability to heat the place for under 500 bucks a month (we are expected here to leave doors from the heated half of the house open to the non heated half so pipes don't freeze. Probably NOT this year). No, there are not 35 acres immediate connecting to 1000 more in the yard, but those 1000 acres are still within a bike ride of some new places.
After the rent discussion, she also says she wants to "sit me down and talk to me about the lawn" situation. More than done with the conversation after the last bullshit point,
I say "oh, (snickering laugh and pointing at you because you are a cunt) I don't get sat down and talked to. What did you want to say?"
Her:"Well, we'd like you guys to be better about the lawn next year. You were sporadic with mowing this year"
Me:"well is that all you wanted to say?"
Her:"well yes. "
Me: "well wasn't that easy. No need to "sit me down" now, right?"
Her:"umm ok. (seeing her dreams of calling me into the principal's office crumbling, perhaps beginning to noticeI don't care ?) Well, also (NOTE: shifty eyes and licking lips indicate BIG FAT LIE coming my way), uhh, I had to mow your lawn a few times over the summer. It was getting bad and there was poison ivy ALL OVER THE PLACE"
Me: (internally LYING CUNT DIE DIE DIE) "Weird. I hardly noticed, and it's so weird, because Star and I lie around the lawn ALL THE TIME. I know the lawn got long between mows, but you know we had problems with the mower we bought and we were pretty much at the mercy of the dude who was coming to mow for us. In the end yes, we could have been better" Bitchy smile, end conversation retreat to house. Announce to HN "Get the boxes, we move TONIGHT!" (we did not move tonight,but my point was clear)

ANGERING FACTS about the lawn issue:
1) she just bought a cadillac of fucking lawn mowers, which brings her stable of riding mowers to 3. She mows roughly an acre or 2 an hour on this thing, and for her to spin over our lawn would have taken her no more than 10 minutes. It is my opinion this should just be one of the things she does, or she should have let us use a mower. Instead, she insisted we should hire her kid to mow it, because the kid needs money. We opted to buy a mower instead, as I found it more palatable than being shaken down for more money by a greedy cunt who just dropped 900large on a farm she didn't need.
2)There is nothing in the lease about us mowing the lawn. In fact, we weren't even sure we were really on the hook for it until the day she stapled a nasty typewritten note to the door stating that the lawn had gotten too long. (she could not be bothered to mention it casually in any of the conversations we were having DAILY) It is my point of view that if you are going to have someone sign an 18 page lease contract which spells out things like having to close windows when it rains, etc then what you DON'T put in there becomes everything. There is nothing mentioned about the lawn.
3) SHE FUCKING LIED. Big stupid, coward, fake "all up in your face girl power" chickenshit bully. LIAR!! I HATE LIARS! HATE. Will not tolerate, do not respect. SUCK IT. She's a shitty, LOUD, righteous person who is always walking around proclaiming how she is the only one who can do anything right, but I believe a large portion of this issue comes from the fact that she thinks her ideas of what is right is so obvious people should always know what she wants, because she is too fucking cool to bother discussing. Peace bitch! You, I do not need. And I know she lied, because it's my lawn and I know how long it got, and I also was here everytime the dude came and mowed my silly long lawn. There is not one mowing unaccounted for. I WORK FROM HOME LIAR!

So this weekend, HN and I have plans to douche the house Saturday and break the news to her Sunday. I am most assured that once we tell her we are moving out, she will exercise her lease given right to enter the premises to inspect at anytime. (I personally believe she has already exercised this right, because while we were talking about the lawn, she started to say something else and stopped and looked away again and for whatever reason "she's been in the house" flashed in my head. I trust my gut more than I trust her and I fully believe) So, that's the FFFO portion of the giant asshole story.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE:

Example 2: Big boy, the snivelling CFO. The CFO of my company is this fat, balding, limp ass handshake having dude who always has a look on his face like he smells crap and it's coming from you. He also waddles when he walks, has man boobs and wears sandals in the summer that make him look like an overgrown 4 yr old when walking away. Think Baby Huey. It doesn't particularly bother me, because I work 350 miles away from him, and when I am in the office I work on the other side and never see him unless he's coming over for a soda or something. However, one thing that DOES get to me is that he is a perv and a bully. I caught him ONCE looking over my chesticles and waved my hand in front of the area while giving him a "I will eat your liver" smile and haven't had a problem since. It's disturbing to watch him with our comptroller however. She's a hottie southern girl, not modest, and not unaware that her boss harbors a sexual interest. He loves her feet (it's embarrassing to be in the same room and watch him watch her toes, watch her watch him watching her toes, and wiggle them now and then to keep him captivated. He loses track of what he was saying. Oh, have I mentioned he's married?)

Her tits, her toes, her problem I just try to avoid having to watch it. The worse part about him is that he is a fucking BULLY. He has made it his life's work to make the life of our office manager HELL, because she has self esteem issues and he smells weakness. She made a decision at some point to work 3 days for us and 2 for another job that she LOVES but can't afford to do only and full time, and this deal was approved by the president. (Her offer included volunteering to take calls from our company while she is at her other job, and this happens daily because she RUNS our company office). She also made a deal with her other job that they could call her on her days with us. Seems fair to me right? Roughly one month after we got a new part time admin to fill in the other 2 days a week she isn't here, DCFO (Douchebag CFO) sends an edict from on high that Innocent Office Manager (IOM) is no longer allowed to sit at the big desk in reception. He doesn't want her sharing a desk with the other girl (who mainly answers phones and stuff envelopes) Somehow, IOM comes out on the losing end of this deal, even though she ought to be out front because she handles everything, and really how big a desk does one need to stuff envelopes? Anyhow, IOM sucked it up because that's what she does, and took to a shared office with the comptroller. Within days, the points of the exercise became clear to anyone who is fucking AWAKE. 1)DCFO has started rolling MAJOR PERCENTAGES of his work downhill to comptroller, who in turn has to roll major percentages of her work to IOM. He rolls enough down that it is now a company joke to figure out what he DOES do. As in, even the president can't answer the question of what exactly DCFO is doing all day. So we now have IOM doing billing, taking checks, handling money- you know, comptroller stuff but not for comptroller pay. We also have DCFO strolling in all day to look at comptrollers boobs and feet, and hiding in the hallway looking in over IOM's shoulder so he can gaage what he thinks she's doing by what apps she is having open at the time, which was the second point of his relocating her. He couldn't previously see over her shoulder because of the way the big desk out front sits, and she types really fast which makes him suspicious and afraid that she is planning his death or something I guess.

From time to time we get edicts from on high penned by DCFO which I guess answers some of what he's doing with his time (though not enough to explain why it took 4 months for my stock option grant paperwork to come through). Everytime one of these edicts roll down, I know it is a stab at IOM and I always call her to ask what she did. She always has an answer So about 2 weeks after giving up the big desk to do more of comptrollers work, there is a edict issued about IM at work (laughed over when I called my boss to ask if we weren't supposed to use IM at work, would it be better if I called the UK office from my cell for $1/minute.) I call IOM to get the dirt, she replies "I was on IM with other job when he was watching" IOM did finally work up to say to him that if he doesn't want her answering queries from her other job while here WHICH WAS AGREED TO BE OK BY YOUR BOSS, then would he circulate something about how noone was to contact her on her days away from our company? Nothing came out, so the current system stays in place.

This goes on and on. Little person, snide emails from DCFO, always prompted by some way he is trying to make life harder on IOM. I have even brought this to the attention of the president, who in SHOCK OF SHOCKS (and I mean that, I was shocked) is a super conflict avoider! I've made the point and the case that DCFO is a bully terrorist and asked Pres to go across the hall and tell him to quit it with the mails, and maybe even pay attention to what DCFO is doing and to stop the insanity. No luck so far. I will not give up.

The lasted edict came out last friday. It reads:

To all MY COMPANY staff,

Just a reminder that the office hours are 8.30 am to 5pm EST Monday to Friday. Our customers and prospects are familiar with these hours making them the most likely times that they will call and it is important that we be available in the office when they do.

I appreciate that with such a small team there is a need for flexibility and thank you for being flexible. It is common for each of us to take calls outside of those times as well as being available for travel sometimes well into the early hours or over weekends. However, I ask that you also respect the office hours and be available at your desk for when the phone rings.

To make sure that we are all aware of who is in and when they are in, I will ask IOM to post a shared file that we can update for ourselves so that the rest of us know when we are on vacation, travelling etc.

Thanks for your cooperation and understanding.

DCFO

Just to review:
1) office hours are 8:30-5, but you are also expected to suck up answering calls before and after that time, and also to suck up travel time without being comped for it (oh right, he never travels so it's not a big deal) btw, the only one who ever leaves the office at 5 is him. And also, noone ever calls him so he doesn't do shit before of after business hours except for the rare early UK management calls.
2) IOM gets to manage us like a daycare in addition to all she does otherwise.

I read this, utter SEVERAL curse words LOUDLY and call IOM to ask how late she was this morning. She got in a 8:41 and by that time the president already had mail from DCFO about how he was ON A CALL and the phone rang TWICE and NOONE ANSWERED and he was VERY DISTRACTED while he was on his IMPORTANT CALL and would the president PLEASE ask IMO to be in the office ON TIME. UGH.

I call my boss to rant about this BECAUSE IT'S BULLSHIT, she agrees. I call the president, he laughs about how DCFO is walking funny and it might be because he tore a hamstring answering the phone or worrying about answering the phone etc etc. I ask him if he is aware that this is another one of DCFOs plots to terrorize IOM and he laughs more. I get fucking irritated and swear at him. He laughs more (NOT THE INTENDED EFFECT). This goes on, I get worked up more than I know is good for me and hang up before I say something stupid. (this topic will be revisited in person the next time I am in WF. Fuck this shit, we're not a big company and I won't be cunted around by policies based on the smallness of someone with a title)

Cut to Monday and Tuesday. IOM and everyone else show up at 8:30, in keeping with NEW IMPORTANT POLICY and....DCFO rolls in around 9. Both days. Without explanation.

I stew on that (now taking this way too personally but I hate me some bully and I need a cause and I also have my period and you know how that goes...)

So yesterday goes like this:
DCFO late again.

I fire off mail to my boss, Pres, Vice Pres, and IOM. Contents below (let this be a lesson about the perks of working in a small company. I know this could not happen in the real world):

IOM,

How do we access the attendance spreadsheet? I know policy is important to DCFO so I wanted to make sure we marked his early week tardiness down so he knows how much we all care about his whack ass directives. It’s important that the big boy feel heard.

Big bitchy kisses to everyone,

k

I get a bunch of "oh you so funny" responses (I AM NOT KIDDING MOTHERFUCKERS!), including this gem from El Presidente..

Sending this is a direct violation of employee hand book directive 1.A.II/c.3 subset 97. You can look it up.

He's joking. Ahaha, isn't that DCFO a card? I don't think so, I respond:

We could just have IOM violate it then we would all get a public reminder.

No response. Color me shocked. (well I was a little, but I'm accepting of it until I get him in person) So I just followed up with a nice note about how I respect the office of DCFO, I understand by the lack of response from the president about this silly email that he must be on board and close by telling him how much! I look forward to my new office hours.

But it is not over by a long shot. I keep hoping DCFO will take a direct potshot, preferably at me because then I would have a leg to stand on with my arguments and it would no longer be ignorable or deniable even to The Pres but you can't just go getting in someone's face until that point. I know it won't happen though, because I don't smell scared like IOM does and he is exactly the kind of person who will never say anything to someone who would speak back. A girl can dream though.


/rant. For now.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Photo essay

First, Orion as Ferdinand the Bull. I don't know which inspired who but here's the proof.

Exhibit A:

Can you even tell who is who ?

There's more but since this could go on all day, we'll move to profound looking kitty shots.


Doesn't he look smart and important? perhaps he is thinking interesting thoughts in FRONSH!

Webworms! Up close and personal because the tree it was in fell down go boom. If a tree falls in the forest and I'm not there to hear it, does it still fall??
Fat ass amphibians ALL UP IN HERE! We had some rain recently and it seems to have rehydrated some of the dessicated toads I've been finding all over the lawn. I saved one that didn't come back to life, pics to follow. I'm waiting for the stink to die down.


Orion learns from Kitty! and uses his mad knowledge to sneak into small spoon position with Star. Their dynamic now is pretty awesome. For one he's FINALLY figured out he's bigger so he's not so scared of things like shark face and bitchy off putting growls. He's all "you don't mean that. i love you...move over" and she's all "ugh. I'm not getting up. Le Sigh..."


It doesn't matter AT ALL that there are 1001 squirrels around here all day. They never stop being exciting or worth chasing.

BATTLE ROYALE! This shit was like something out of the discovery channel man! Honeybee flying around kitchen, annoying me and being loud. Suddenly the sound level turns up and I HAVE to investigate. Bee had flown into a spider web in the corner and was in process of being done did by the spider. I watched for a solid 20 minutes while bee struggled to get away, and spider struggled to wrap up his dinner while not getting stung. There were a couple of times I thought bee might make it, but eventually the buzz died down and spider began wrapping it up, stopping to punctuate bee's midsection with stings or whatever spiders do. I let it sit for a day or two, watched for progress and then asked HN to vacuum the mess up. I don't do dead if it's not interesting.

new stuff!

Testing out new toy! (backpack) I cashed in my member discount at REI this month and pulled the trigger on a new pack.

So far, so good.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Cooking with heat

So for whatever reason, I've been thinking about our grocery budget lately. In the sense that I'm sure we spend more than we need to. I am also struggling with my fridge/freezer because I feel like it's either totally empty or ridiculously, overflowingly full. I also feel like when it's full I end up buying things I had in there anyway and for some reason once I freeze something I like to keep it forever. Freezing for me is more of an archive thing rather than a put it in here for now so it doesn't rot but make sure to actually use it, probably soon deal. I feel like a freezer in my mind is preparation for the apocalypse. I don't know why, but case in point: tomatoes. We had a ridiculous amount of cherry tomatoes this year, so I would blend and freeze them in bags. Haven't used one yet, though I have a BUNCH, and I have made things in which they would have been perfect. And known it at the time but not been able to use them. I know not from where my issue comes. My freezer is a little library, only instead of books it's ziploc bags of tomatoes, squashes, wine and stock. (fill a bag, freeze it flat, stand it up and file! and keep! forever!) The first step is admitting I have a problem, and I'm working through it.

Anyway, I decided last weekend to begin tracking spending (last Sunday to be specific, because last Sat we went to a slow foods dinner, which we had to bring a dish to that I naively thought had to be made of local food so I shot my wad at the farmer's market. I was wrong, the dinner wasn't quite what we were looking for, but now we know what that's all about.) Back to the grocery thing: we both make decent scratch and not having kids gives one all sorts of luxury choices, like $10/lb coffee (which I justify as budget-y because it equals 2 starbucks cups), so I think we just don't bother being as smart as we could be because we don't totally need to. I do a lot of "ugh, I can't believe this cost x much" and then buying it anyway because I can. Lots of people can't and there's a big thing going on for the next month or to see what it's like to live on food stamps, which average less than $30 per person per week. Check it out. It comes at a good time for me, and sort of fits in with my plan.

So, anyway, you may recall my having a fit 6 months or so ago about not throwing away food. We've actually been doing ok with this one, as I've figured out that the problem is largely that I get bored eating most things more than twice so I've started recycling stuff into other food. Leftover pork roast that I didn't love got chopped up, sauteed with some onion, coriander and cumin seeds, added to black beans and voila! white girl wannabe Cuban pork deliciousness. Chicken soup gets boiled down, thickened up, padded with more veggies and becomes chicken pot pie. Those are the only two I have so far, but I'm feeling pretty good about the concept. My dad used to do it all the time and so I know I have the raw materials to make it work.

This ties in with the above freezer ramble because to the end of saving money, stopping wasting food, not using anything just once, and not shopping for what I already need, this week I am not going to the grocery store. Ok, that's a lie I'm going to the store, but not in the "ooh I saw this recipe online today so I'm going to stock up on what I need to make it" way. The only things I'm going to buy are under $20 total worth of milk, and some more vegetables (a one time deal) because I don't think I have enough of those to make it through. But otherwise, I think that's about all I'm allowing myself to buy. Things one needs to survive that can't be replaced or made. I have a ridiculous amount of shit in the pantries, I refuse to believe that I can't cabinet commando a miracle a day for a whole week. My goto starch is rice, but I have couscous and all manner of other random grains kicking it cupboard style, and I think it's time we got to know one another.

I actually had this fit/epiphany last night and was able to scare up a decent african groundnut stew just out of things I had in the freezer. Normally I would have gone ot the store for carrots, yams and spinach but in keeping with my boycott I just made it without and subbed in some kale
I did however use some couscous. This is what real progress looks like bitches!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Holy Crap

So lots of days when the dog(s) and I go down to the pond for the workday seventh inning stretch, we flush out this beautiful heron that's hanging out. I think he was using us as a layover for a while, because he just appeared a couple of weeks ago, he was def not there the whole time. Unless he followed HN home from work, because he has one there too. But I digress...

Anyhow, so when dogs and I go down there, we have on numerous occasions disturbed his nap and peace of life so he takes off, which is an awesome sight. He's HUGE and the pond is small so in the scale he sort of looks like a raptor and he does these crazy slow, looooong wing beats and just makes some serious TIME! His feet drag in the water and he just goes up the littlest bit at a time as he heads over the bushes into the golf course. AMAZING sight, and everytime I am totally shocked and rendered speechless (as opposed to the running conversation I am no doubt carrying on with my imaginary friend come to life the dog)

I bring my camera with me all the time, and I have NEVER managed to get a picture of him. Ever. By the time I recover from how awesome he is, he's gone.

Today was no exception.

BUT, he did take a crap while he was heading off and I managed to get a picture of that so you have some idea of his size.

My foot for scale (it's UGG time hos!!):

Love always wins

and Kitty always gets his man!

Orion is our special guest star dog of the week, and Kitty instantly took to him. Who doesn't love a giant hunk of pitbull wrapped around the heart of a teddy bear?

It took a solid week, lots of bared teeth and growling and a few "run for your life" moments but Kitty finally won.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The week in Blackberry

Sunday; I discovered a few things in the garden.

1) a rabbit. an asshole rabbit. dude ate all my basil. boo!

2) Zinnias. I love zinnias and they love fall. So bright and cheery in the foggy morning.


3) Tomatoes are still coming in. Some finally got caught up with the plague o'tomatoes of '09, but we have a few soldiers, like this yellow grape tomato dude here. Cayennes (not pictured) and Thai peppers still coming in as well, and plenty of green ones. Even got some jalapenos! Like 3, but I had given up so it's a win.

4)My good for nothing dog is robbing me! check out the background. What she's doing is while I'm in the garden picking tomatoes, she's cruising the fence line eating stragglers.

5) It's been ~10 years that I've had this dog and I will never not find humor in her ability to look totally BUSTED when she is.

Monday; Holly, CJ and Will.He.Is showed up to make small talk, chow down on some happy fish HN killed once and drop off Orion.

Tuesday; So far our guest seems to be enjoying himself, and he's nothing if not motivating to Star. Never have I seen this dog jump further off the dock or run harder then when Orion looks interested in something.

Otherwise, their interactions consist mostly of doing the exact same things in opposite directions or orders of execution, and pretending to ignore each other while actually being keenly interested in what the other is doing, but faking not so as to catch them in the act of something.


Here we have Star ecstatically writhing and Orion scouting the water.


Trading places. No interaction had whatsoever.


There's also a lot of shoulder to shoulder being uninterested in each other. This is some of my favorite stuff.

The best part is neither of them will sleep during the day. They don't want to miss anything. They're completely exhausted by the end of the day and night is peace time.