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