Thanksgiving turned out great this year, as all four of us kids chipped in to help. Thank the powers that be that I had the foresight to plan ahead and make bread and dessert the day before. We wrangled a 24lb bird for the dinner, which we slathered in herb butter. The gravy was thus very rich, oh yes. As part of my "make things simple" initiative, I also found recipes for slow cooker potatoes and a cranberry chutney. There was also a simplified recipe for a green vegetable with mushroom sauce casserole, roasted sweet potatoes and pears, However, halfway through the day I experienced a bad episode of vertigo, so I was shoved into the conductor role from the couch as my two brothers and sister finished things. Here is a lovely pinterest menu.
School is wrapping up, it looks like I'll pass with good grades and thus be eligible for graduation from the Dietetic Technician program! What this will mean is that once the school processes my transcripts and classes, they will mark me as "graduated" and I will be able to take the credentialing exam to become a Dietetic Technician. With this national credential I can apply for a position anywhere in the U.S. of A!
Playing games: spent less than two days getting a 100% completion game for Psychonauts, including all the Steam achievements! So proud ^_^.
Other games I've played: Incredipede, Eets Munchies, and Fez. I'm also planning to replay Dust for more achievements, possibly Limbo, and then I think some quality time with Dungeon Defenders. I may bust out my consoles to play some Okamiden, or maybe Wind Waker...oh, I definitely want to reacquaint myself with Tomba, which my brothers got on PS3. It's still a touchy state of mind with trying to relax after so long letting my brain buzz with NEEDTOWORKWHATNEEDSTOBEDONE. I'll get twitchy in the morning, buzz around the house cleaning this and that before remembering to chill out, rest a bit, so as not to suffer another vertigo attack.
This season I seem to be in a better position to go to musical theater shows in town. I had the privilege to see my community colleges's fall musical, Rent with one of my good friends. This performance brought me to tears, as it usually does. The story of these friends throughout a year of struggling with relationships, art, and society in the 90s still resonates quite powerfully, I feel. In addition, as part of my birthday this year, my parents did an awesome thing and took me to The Addams Family Musical at one of the local theaters. This show is something to behold. While one may not think the Addams family is conducive to musical accompaniment, the show was amazingly well done. The plot for sure is much better than any of the film adaptations. There are snippets and amalgams of the Broadway performance on Youtube, if anyone is interested, and musical sites like Spotify have the soundtrack available for listening. Finally, I took my young niece to see the community college production of A Year With Frog and Toad. It was ADORABLE! Not only did the performing arts program make a great musical adaptation of the book series, but it did so in a way that was accessible for young children. The play was a series of short story performances, connected by the friendship of a frog and a toad (played by girls!).
Otherwise, I'm just trying to get back into creative output. I'd love to be making art again.
Showing posts with label take care when making plans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label take care when making plans. Show all posts
Monday, December 16, 2013
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Road Trip 2012 Part One
The road trip is a brilliant idea provided you have the funds (or a decent credit card) to make it happen. It also helps to have good travel companions. This fact makes me realize why I hated car trips with the family for so many years. Being crowded into a back seat with my brothers and sister for several hours is not nearly the same as swapping driving duty with my bff Jennifer from high school for several hours. For one thing, we manage to talk a lot more about things we have in common. Plus, with good travel companions, even the shitty parts of the trip become something to laugh about and share for many years. Also, I reeeaaallly like my car, Rosalinda.
At first, the plan was to drive up to Oregon early in the morning with plenty of time to stop and stare at interesting things along the way. However, my friend's flight was delayed as she arrived at LAX airport far too late to make the departure, and therefore had to summon financial support from outside sources to make another flight. This outside source didn't take into account we wanted to go NORTH to OREGON, and instead of looking for any city that would suffice to keep us within our time frame, such as Sacramento, decided to just rebook a later flight to Reno. Killing time with taking my brother to work and double checking all supplies packed in the car, my friend didn't arrive until around 2:30 pm, so it wasn't until 3:00 pm that we were able to leave Reno.
The drive north through Susanville was very interesting, and I wish we both had been able to get better pictures, because all of the smoke was so thick the landscape looked like a post-apocalyptic setting. It also helped that it was very empty with only scattered buildings and farm houses. I had been a very good Girl Scout by the way, and had plenty of food and self-defense items should we have run into zombies or punk bikers looking for fuel.
Towards evening, we stopped in Burney, CA at a Chinese restaurant my friend insisted looked too sketchy, but that I insisted was the perfect way to get the experience out of the way early on in the vacation. It was pretty decent Chinese food, and they even had pretty good vegetarian options. The drive further on skirted past a solid chunk of national forest, and we managed to hit Mt. Shasta National Park around sunset, which still looked pretty cool with all the smoke in the distance turning the sun a brilliant shade of red. Stopping in Weed, CA, we didn't find the tacky gift shop that tried to extol the virtues of the town's name in the form of gratuitous amounts of merchandise. It was still worth a chuckle, and we made good time the rest of the way up to Bend, OR. Understand that it was past midnight by then, so we both promptly passed out.
The next morning, Jennifer found out that the bookings did not include breakfast, as she has previously thought. This was an unfortunate development for our budgets, and neither of us felt particularly excited about the buffet or breakfast menu, so off into town we went. Luckily we were both modern young women with smart phones, and could map our way a few blocks to someplace claiming to be a cafe. I say "claiming" because the place wouldn't open until 11 am. Ludicrous! So to kill about 40 minutes of time we wandered around the strip mall area, and found the awesomest spice store! We seriously spent about 20 minutes browsing and smelling and tasting. I am asking for spice blends for the holidays. So to anyone wanting to impress me, savoryspiceshop.com is the magical place where dreams are made. Or at least really awesome curry blends. The lady there was really nice to us two tourists not intending to buy anything, and even recommended an awesome breakfast place. McKay's Cottage is one of the prettiest little cafe/restaurants, and it helped the weather was so nice to sit under the trees. Look at all the happy customers!
Jenn ordered an Eggs Benedict served on foccacia with red bell pepper, spinach, and perfect crispy, chewy bacon, while I splurged and got Stuffed French Toast. They frickin made it out of croissants, with mascarpone! *Drool,* Sorry, it still brings good memories. Of course, that breakfast had the unfortunate result of making my friend fall in love with Oregon, when the whole goal of the trip was to visit Washington and keep it in mind as a future place to live. It became a good-natured argument the rest of the way to Seattle.
We actually had to stop in another little place in Oregon, because my shoulders started hurting, and we found the most awesome gel massager thing at Ross! We also got a skull pillow for my car, a neck aromatherapy cushion-thing, and also the brilliant invention of shoe straps to turn dress shoes into strappy dress shoes (Fact: I never thought I could wear strappy dress shoes because usually they have needle-thin heels and I feared breaking something, so I usually avoided them). And that is how I had possibly the best nap while riding in a car, ever.
It also meant my first view of Seattle was unimpeded by trying not get anyone killed with my car. Seattle at sunset was very pretty, and there was just enough light to see how the buildings and highways stacked on top of each other, and how there were so many growing things, as though all the manmade things were a new breed of organism sprouting out of the hillside and flowing down the hills into the water. There was also Safeco stadium, which I at first thought might have been a shopping center and couldn't imagine walking through it when my local Whole Foods makes me twitchy, but then my friend started trying to remember who the Seattle sports teams were and I felt silly. Also, for anyone traveling to Bothell, Washington, the area we stayed at did not have good bars. Just saying.
The next morning, we planned a semblance of an idea of how we would explore the city. Neither of us expected parking to be such an issue, but we probably spent about 30 minutes hunting for a decent parking garage to keep Rosalinda for a solid chunk of the day, and very few places were able to cover more than two hours at a time without reaching ludricrous costs. Then we wandered Pike Place for about five hours. I was on the hunt for a pelican souvenir my father requested, as well as a new hemp necklace. This excursion was actually the most fun I'd had shopping in a long while, because Nevada hardly has anything close to the kind of odd little finds that Pike Place has unless you manage to score at a craft fair in good weather, and few of those come with numerous food stalls to explore as well. So besides browsing the shops, we walked past the first Starbucks, a few promising bakeries, and managed to find our way to some awesome indoor vendors on the lower levels. I took a picture of the wall labeling the ladie's bathroom by the staircase, for obvious reasons:
Our first place we browsed after going through the obviously touristy tacky nick-knacks was Market Magic Shop where they have lots of vintage stage posters, prank products, and of course, magic tricks. I scored some hilarious postcards there:
Next place of interest was this odd little smoke shop. Inside was no hemp jewelry, sadly, but they had really nice figurines in the windows. I was very tickled by the statue of the cat-girl fairy. Plus the monsters and things were so cute!
The next place we were intrigued by was apparently the oldest comics shop in America, Golden Age Collectables. Besides the awesome life-size carboard displays outside the shop, the inside had lots of cool things too, including one of the best Dr. Who posters I've seen. There was lots of memoribilia from various franchises, including color as well as black and white photo prints of music and movie people. I only wished I was wealthier to have such items on display at my own place, a Tardis would be very cool to show off. Still, I scored some awesome pictures and buttons.
Something I really enjoyed about Seattle was how thriving the arts community was there. Among all the stalls for handmade crafts were street musicians and even street artists! The pier was very nice, and I'm a little sad we couldn't make time to go to the fairgrounds on the boardwalk. Practically every cafe also had local artwork for decoration and sale, I was severely tempted many times to make purchases, and Jenn was not helpful with resisting. While I took many more pictures of the actual city, I'll wrap up this part of the road trip recount with the remaining pictures of the pier and Pike Place:
At first, the plan was to drive up to Oregon early in the morning with plenty of time to stop and stare at interesting things along the way. However, my friend's flight was delayed as she arrived at LAX airport far too late to make the departure, and therefore had to summon financial support from outside sources to make another flight. This outside source didn't take into account we wanted to go NORTH to OREGON, and instead of looking for any city that would suffice to keep us within our time frame, such as Sacramento, decided to just rebook a later flight to Reno. Killing time with taking my brother to work and double checking all supplies packed in the car, my friend didn't arrive until around 2:30 pm, so it wasn't until 3:00 pm that we were able to leave Reno.
The drive north through Susanville was very interesting, and I wish we both had been able to get better pictures, because all of the smoke was so thick the landscape looked like a post-apocalyptic setting. It also helped that it was very empty with only scattered buildings and farm houses. I had been a very good Girl Scout by the way, and had plenty of food and self-defense items should we have run into zombies or punk bikers looking for fuel.
Towards evening, we stopped in Burney, CA at a Chinese restaurant my friend insisted looked too sketchy, but that I insisted was the perfect way to get the experience out of the way early on in the vacation. It was pretty decent Chinese food, and they even had pretty good vegetarian options. The drive further on skirted past a solid chunk of national forest, and we managed to hit Mt. Shasta National Park around sunset, which still looked pretty cool with all the smoke in the distance turning the sun a brilliant shade of red. Stopping in Weed, CA, we didn't find the tacky gift shop that tried to extol the virtues of the town's name in the form of gratuitous amounts of merchandise. It was still worth a chuckle, and we made good time the rest of the way up to Bend, OR. Understand that it was past midnight by then, so we both promptly passed out.
The next morning, Jennifer found out that the bookings did not include breakfast, as she has previously thought. This was an unfortunate development for our budgets, and neither of us felt particularly excited about the buffet or breakfast menu, so off into town we went. Luckily we were both modern young women with smart phones, and could map our way a few blocks to someplace claiming to be a cafe. I say "claiming" because the place wouldn't open until 11 am. Ludicrous! So to kill about 40 minutes of time we wandered around the strip mall area, and found the awesomest spice store! We seriously spent about 20 minutes browsing and smelling and tasting. I am asking for spice blends for the holidays. So to anyone wanting to impress me, savoryspiceshop.com is the magical place where dreams are made. Or at least really awesome curry blends. The lady there was really nice to us two tourists not intending to buy anything, and even recommended an awesome breakfast place. McKay's Cottage is one of the prettiest little cafe/restaurants, and it helped the weather was so nice to sit under the trees. Look at all the happy customers!
It also meant my first view of Seattle was unimpeded by trying not get anyone killed with my car. Seattle at sunset was very pretty, and there was just enough light to see how the buildings and highways stacked on top of each other, and how there were so many growing things, as though all the manmade things were a new breed of organism sprouting out of the hillside and flowing down the hills into the water. There was also Safeco stadium, which I at first thought might have been a shopping center and couldn't imagine walking through it when my local Whole Foods makes me twitchy, but then my friend started trying to remember who the Seattle sports teams were and I felt silly. Also, for anyone traveling to Bothell, Washington, the area we stayed at did not have good bars. Just saying.
The next morning, we planned a semblance of an idea of how we would explore the city. Neither of us expected parking to be such an issue, but we probably spent about 30 minutes hunting for a decent parking garage to keep Rosalinda for a solid chunk of the day, and very few places were able to cover more than two hours at a time without reaching ludricrous costs. Then we wandered Pike Place for about five hours. I was on the hunt for a pelican souvenir my father requested, as well as a new hemp necklace. This excursion was actually the most fun I'd had shopping in a long while, because Nevada hardly has anything close to the kind of odd little finds that Pike Place has unless you manage to score at a craft fair in good weather, and few of those come with numerous food stalls to explore as well. So besides browsing the shops, we walked past the first Starbucks, a few promising bakeries, and managed to find our way to some awesome indoor vendors on the lower levels. I took a picture of the wall labeling the ladie's bathroom by the staircase, for obvious reasons:
Our first place we browsed after going through the obviously touristy tacky nick-knacks was Market Magic Shop where they have lots of vintage stage posters, prank products, and of course, magic tricks. I scored some hilarious postcards there:
The next place we were intrigued by was apparently the oldest comics shop in America, Golden Age Collectables. Besides the awesome life-size carboard displays outside the shop, the inside had lots of cool things too, including one of the best Dr. Who posters I've seen. There was lots of memoribilia from various franchises, including color as well as black and white photo prints of music and movie people. I only wished I was wealthier to have such items on display at my own place, a Tardis would be very cool to show off. Still, I scored some awesome pictures and buttons.
Walking along the pier, we came across Ye Olde Curiosities Shoppe with a pipe organ
outside it, so we paid the quarter and listened to the aggravatingly
loud music. Browsing the shop was another fun experience, it reminded me
a lot of the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in San Francisco. There were lots of interesting things in that shop:
I even paid out a quarter for one of those vintage fortune teller puppet machines xD
We ate lunch at Ivar's Acres of Clams. I had an awesome White Peach
Sangria, the Alaskan Chowder, and a summer salad. My friend ordered a
beer, the traditional Clam Chowder, and these scallop slider things.
Both chowders were good, the traditional being creamier than the
Alaskan. The salad was the perfect balance of sweet, sour, with really
creamy goat cheese. The scallops were smoked and served cold, and it was
an interesting combination with the crunchy sweet flat crackers they
were on. I also ordered some fried calamari because that's my favorite,
but I got too full, so we boxed it up and carried it with us the rest of
the time we explored the pier.
Something I really enjoyed about Seattle was how thriving the arts community was there. Among all the stalls for handmade crafts were street musicians and even street artists! The pier was very nice, and I'm a little sad we couldn't make time to go to the fairgrounds on the boardwalk. Practically every cafe also had local artwork for decoration and sale, I was severely tempted many times to make purchases, and Jenn was not helpful with resisting. While I took many more pictures of the actual city, I'll wrap up this part of the road trip recount with the remaining pictures of the pier and Pike Place:
Friday, August 17, 2012
Today Was Worth Writing About
An indication of how interesting my life might be today started at about 6:00 am. This hour is not my typical wake up time on a Friday, but my dad had scheduled for an exterminator to spray poison to ward off spiders, ants, and possibly other things we didn't want to think about crawling around in our walls, so we had to pack ourselves and our animals up to be gone by 7:30 am. The menagerie consists of one dog, three cats, and a tarantula. As a bit of a treat to keep us out of the house, we would go eat breakfast and take care of some errands in town.
In attempting to put our male cat in his cage, he repaid our foresight by mauling me rather well. I managed to acquire battle wounds all over my chest, stomach, and arms. Those who know me personally can guess how irritable I might be when injured, exhausted, and on an empty stomach before the magic of caffeine has calmed me somewhat. It didn't help that as my mother and I struggled to get the adult cats into their cage, my dad didn't really act for some time and merely questioned what the heck we were doing allowing ourselves to be attacked by the ferocious household felines. One of my favorite shirts must now be retired with full honors for attempting to stand up to shredding claws.
After thewild animals pets were dealt with, I had to change my shirt and bandage up. My little brother helped carry my sister's tarantula tank out to the car in the meantime. Unwilling to take pain meds on an empty stomach, I had to endure the 15 minute drive to the restaurant with falling blood sugar and increasing dizziness from the pain. However, the next interesting thing to occur, was the loud crash from the backseat where the tarantula cage was being stored as my mother made a tight turn. Understandably alarmed, she pulled over, and we had to talk my little brother through determining the simple observation of WHETHER OR NOT THE TANK TIPPED OVER. Little brother is not the most articulate of people on a good day. The next ten minutes are spent in tense silence as my mom fishes around in the tank with first my father's cane, then a hammer handle to make sure the tarantula is 1) in the tank, and 2) not squished. I was secretly hoping 2) would be proven false. Unfortunately, Fuzz Lightyear will live a little longer to rejoice at the rain of crickets his owner provides him.
Arriving at the restaurant it is now 7:52 am. I am moments away from a blood sugar crisis, and the stupid restaurant doesn't open until 8:00 am! Therefore an excursion must be made into the neighboring grocery store where I buy a mango/banana puree pouch for myself (and thusly, Sirenidi as well). Calmed, we have to wait outside while little brother goes to the bathroom before entering the restaurant. It is typical diner food and I settle for an egg, cheese, and bacon sandwich with iced tea. Somehow I managed to dust myself with sweetener while attempting to pour it into my drink. The joys of eating out, eh?
Next stop is getting a spare key made. My car is from a company decent enough to only manufacture ignition keys that require a computer chip to start the vehicle. They were also kind enough to only allow certain stores other than the dealership to make such keys. My town apparently only has such a store 20 miles from my house. My dad said he researched the place to find out what was needed, however he failed to ask if the car would be needed to program the key (spoiler: THEY DO). Therefore, we had to schlep the whole crew back to the house to actually fetch my car. Luckily, enough time had passed we could return and let the animals out without accidentally poisoning anyone. Of course, SOMEONE thought it was a good idea to let the dog loose before opening the cat cages, so my mom gets to have a repeat of a desperate freak out of the sort that anyone else would have assumed meant a murder was in progress had they heard it.
After so much excitement, I decide the best thing to do is take a nap. It was lovely. Then the day continued. My dad had forgotten he had scheduled to leave my car at the mechanic's to be serviced before my road trip. D'oh! I still had to return to the hardware store to get the spare ignition key made, so instead I went to a Jiffy Lube for a once over on the car. It takes nearly an hour for my key to get made when I return to the store, because the machine was being touchy. I was careful to control my anger tics.
Needing to buy a suitcase, as no one could remember where the ones we owned had ended up, I did some thrift store shopping. Ah, the soothing balm of a bargain. Then I arrive home to find that my mom had found the travel suitcases. FACEPALM!
Then more chaos happened as my parents realized that dinner, preparations for the day trip to the lake the next day, and me attempting to pack needed to happen, and fast! Becerra family excursions can quickly become needlessly complicated if no one tries to organize. We shall see what may come of trying to bond over sand, expensive snack bars, and the Nevada weather in August upon the morrow.*
*This statement indicates there may or may not be an update about Saturday's day trip.
In attempting to put our male cat in his cage, he repaid our foresight by mauling me rather well. I managed to acquire battle wounds all over my chest, stomach, and arms. Those who know me personally can guess how irritable I might be when injured, exhausted, and on an empty stomach before the magic of caffeine has calmed me somewhat. It didn't help that as my mother and I struggled to get the adult cats into their cage, my dad didn't really act for some time and merely questioned what the heck we were doing allowing ourselves to be attacked by the ferocious household felines. One of my favorite shirts must now be retired with full honors for attempting to stand up to shredding claws.
After the
Arriving at the restaurant it is now 7:52 am. I am moments away from a blood sugar crisis, and the stupid restaurant doesn't open until 8:00 am! Therefore an excursion must be made into the neighboring grocery store where I buy a mango/banana puree pouch for myself (and thusly, Sirenidi as well). Calmed, we have to wait outside while little brother goes to the bathroom before entering the restaurant. It is typical diner food and I settle for an egg, cheese, and bacon sandwich with iced tea. Somehow I managed to dust myself with sweetener while attempting to pour it into my drink. The joys of eating out, eh?
Next stop is getting a spare key made. My car is from a company decent enough to only manufacture ignition keys that require a computer chip to start the vehicle. They were also kind enough to only allow certain stores other than the dealership to make such keys. My town apparently only has such a store 20 miles from my house. My dad said he researched the place to find out what was needed, however he failed to ask if the car would be needed to program the key (spoiler: THEY DO). Therefore, we had to schlep the whole crew back to the house to actually fetch my car. Luckily, enough time had passed we could return and let the animals out without accidentally poisoning anyone. Of course, SOMEONE thought it was a good idea to let the dog loose before opening the cat cages, so my mom gets to have a repeat of a desperate freak out of the sort that anyone else would have assumed meant a murder was in progress had they heard it.
After so much excitement, I decide the best thing to do is take a nap. It was lovely. Then the day continued. My dad had forgotten he had scheduled to leave my car at the mechanic's to be serviced before my road trip. D'oh! I still had to return to the hardware store to get the spare ignition key made, so instead I went to a Jiffy Lube for a once over on the car. It takes nearly an hour for my key to get made when I return to the store, because the machine was being touchy. I was careful to control my anger tics.
Needing to buy a suitcase, as no one could remember where the ones we owned had ended up, I did some thrift store shopping. Ah, the soothing balm of a bargain. Then I arrive home to find that my mom had found the travel suitcases. FACEPALM!
Then more chaos happened as my parents realized that dinner, preparations for the day trip to the lake the next day, and me attempting to pack needed to happen, and fast! Becerra family excursions can quickly become needlessly complicated if no one tries to organize. We shall see what may come of trying to bond over sand, expensive snack bars, and the Nevada weather in August upon the morrow.*
*This statement indicates there may or may not be an update about Saturday's day trip.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Things That Happened Today
Today I woke to my mom screaming bloody murder at the dog like it was killing something. Actually he was just chasing one of our cats around the yard (again), which never leads to actual death, and is not likely to. The dog is afraid of the young cat in our house that is 1/8 his size, see, and he only ever chews on synthetic products or his rawhide bones. The entire house was nicely awake after this episode.
I arrived at my new internship site on time, but had to wait, as no one else could access the computer database I needed in order to do my job that day. After an hour I was permitted to leave, as my supervisor who did know how to work the database had not arrived, nor left any message as to where she was. About 45 minutes after leaving, I not only discovered that Walmart apparently didn't sell lunch box freezer packs, but my supervisor had made it into the office.
Swinging back to said office, I was finally permitted to search through 29 pages of data, looking for any errors. Five hours later I managed to finish the project, after some boosts from my good friend caffeine. Somewhere between walking out the building and to my car 30 ft away, I lost my last pair of sunglasses, D'oh!
By this time it was well after 5:30pm, and I had promised to visit a friend. Also needing to wash my car, I got a sandwich at Port of Subs, headed to the nearby auto car wash, and jammed to indie rock and the swoosh of running water while I ate.
Visiting my friend went well, I got to show off my new ipad, and we chatted about random stuff. We're going to the midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises, it's gonna be awesome! I headed to the nearby shopping center and managed to score a 2/$15 deal on sunglasses. They fit nice enough, but I noticed on the 30 minute drive home that they put a lot of aching pressure on my nose. So the search is still on.
Kind of a crazy Monday, not sure if these events will be an indicator of the rest of the week...
I arrived at my new internship site on time, but had to wait, as no one else could access the computer database I needed in order to do my job that day. After an hour I was permitted to leave, as my supervisor who did know how to work the database had not arrived, nor left any message as to where she was. About 45 minutes after leaving, I not only discovered that Walmart apparently didn't sell lunch box freezer packs, but my supervisor had made it into the office.
Swinging back to said office, I was finally permitted to search through 29 pages of data, looking for any errors. Five hours later I managed to finish the project, after some boosts from my good friend caffeine. Somewhere between walking out the building and to my car 30 ft away, I lost my last pair of sunglasses, D'oh!
By this time it was well after 5:30pm, and I had promised to visit a friend. Also needing to wash my car, I got a sandwich at Port of Subs, headed to the nearby auto car wash, and jammed to indie rock and the swoosh of running water while I ate.
Visiting my friend went well, I got to show off my new ipad, and we chatted about random stuff. We're going to the midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises, it's gonna be awesome! I headed to the nearby shopping center and managed to score a 2/$15 deal on sunglasses. They fit nice enough, but I noticed on the 30 minute drive home that they put a lot of aching pressure on my nose. So the search is still on.
Kind of a crazy Monday, not sure if these events will be an indicator of the rest of the week...
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Oy Vey
If you don't wish to read about a crazy-ass weekend, I leave you with some entertaining tidbits from Neil Gaiman and Stephen Colbert that I came across in my net surfing.
Stephen Colbert's interview with Maurice Sendak
Anyhow, the craziness started on Friday, when I made the suggestion to take my sister and niece out thrift store shopping. We had made plans for a two hour outing, with a stop at a Chinese food restaurant for lunch after my niece returned from preschool. That ought to leave enough time to take the cats to the vet for their shots at 5:00. Unfortunately, we both should have known better than to make plans with fate being the trollop it is.
My dad had arranged for a repair service to come fix our stove that morning, for which the scheduled time was any point between 8am and 12pm. To further confuse things, my older brother had randomly decided to get his truck serviced, so he would need to be picked up from the university campus after his classes ended in the afternoon. Plus, my younger brother required transportation to and from his job as a sign waver for Quiznos during the lunch hour.
At first, the arrangement would be for my dad to take my brother to work if we would pick him and my other brother up. Fair enough, as we would have to wait for my niece's school bus anyway. Repair person arrived in the designated window, but took three hours to fix the faulty burner on the stove. During that time I had to make an effort to clean the revealed stove siding, since it was incredibly disgusting. Also we all snacked on one of my homemade ice creams while we waited. By then it was late, and we had to have my dad pick up younger brother.
Since it was nearly time to pick up older brother, my sister suggested getting a snack at Sonic. BEST IDEA YET. She paid for onion rings, mozzarella sticks, and slushes, aw yeah. When older brother called with his location, I thought it would be best to get a map to the building, since I am horrible with finding things, especially at the university. My sister fires up the dang GPS, which takes us to the clear opposite side of the campus where my brother is at. *facepalm* After some finagling on the phone with older brother, we figure out where to actually go. He is much more calmed after chugging a Sonic Cherry Slush. I drop him off at the auto shop, since his truck is done.
Good grief. It is now after 3:00, and we finally make it to the restaurant. We get some quick combo plates, and I indulge in lemon chicken even after the deep-fried snack I had, because I needed to be pacified from the enormous time wasted already. My niece predictably takes a shower with her chow mein. It was estimated at least 80% ended up in her belly, anyway.
Finally we arrive at the thrift store. My sister asks to wander off for pants and bags, so I take it upon myself to find some dressy play shoes for the niece. They have nice shoes at the thrift store, but not many in her size. It was also difficult to get niece to understand the concept of wiggling her toes to check growth room in the shoes. Still, she ended up with a nice pair of strappy tap heels, that she promptly decided were for her to wear to "ballerina class," and thus kept asking the rest of the time we were in the store when we would go to said "ballerina class." I cannot wait until this child can understand concepts of time.
By then it was past 4pm, and while I was all for heading straight home, my sister brilliantly changes her mind and wants me to drive to pick up her girlfriend. Ugh. Girlfriend happened to live over in east Sparks, while we were in south Reno! The easiest way to get there would be to do some freeway hopping, but with the recent remodeling, people were stupider than usual and clogging up the exits to change freeways. So I had to pull a little back street maneuvering to get to girlfriend's house.
After picking up girlfriend, she apparently needs a sandwich, having not eaten for awhile. Sister also wants to pick up booze, and younger brother called to have us pick up DVDs at the store, please. I am thoroughly surprised at myself at this point for not banging my head repeatedly on a hard, firm surface. Mother arrives home from work early on Fridays, so at least she was on hand to deal with the cats' visit to the vet. Girlfriend and sister argue about where to get booze while we make a stop at Quiznos for a sandwich and Office Depot for DVDs. Niece is incredibly cranky from sitting in the car so long, as am I.
I solve the booze dilemma by driving to Raley's, which happens to be near the vet. I check in with my parents, pulling a double hit by showing off niece's new shoes. Now, since school started, I have made a habit of checking on what dinner will be, so I can either a) join the family or b) buy/make something healthier. My father claims we will shop briefly at the store to pick up some things for a dinner of steak for the boys and meatloaf for them, this way we can grab something me and my sister would be willing to eat. I agree with this plan, and head from the vet's to Raley's with my niece to get a head start. Apparently my sister and her girlfriend picked out their liquor really quick, because they were already in the parking lot looking for me. I tried to explain the plan to them, but apparently my dad pulled a typical 180º and decided that, no, we would not be shopping, as all we needed at the house was sour cream.
Trying not to punch something, I quickly decided that I would shop for my dang dinner as I'd planned. Returning my niece to her mother, I returned to the store to get sour cream, arugula, and turkey thighs. I also found some nice red bell peppers. Arriving at home with my purchases, I found that creating a pulled turkey sandwich with an old poultry spice blend I'd made was a really satisfying meal. The wine slushee probably helped too. Then of course, nothing could stay perfect and I had to help my dad bake the meatloaf. Which didn't come up to temperature even after over an hour of baking at 350º. This situation is why I tell my father to stop shopping at cheap grocery chains like Scolari's.
As for today's happenings, all I will say is that opera, Krull, and spiced pumpkin ice cream make things happy in my brain.
Also, before I forget, this was a recent Pastry Arts project:
White cake with chocolate fudge buttercream, coffee syrup, butterfinger chip sprinkles, and topped with brown sugar caramel (penuche). The layering turned out well, and I'm rather proud of the piping! (Yes it's only five rosettes, but it's sadly the best I've done). We are also going to be making intermezzo sherbets for the up and coming culinary school student's restaurant experience, and I was granted permission to make this sorbet. I'll be making the soda from scratch, but I'm considering running to the store for the ginger beer just in case ;)
Stephen Colbert's interview with Maurice Sendak
Anyhow, the craziness started on Friday, when I made the suggestion to take my sister and niece out thrift store shopping. We had made plans for a two hour outing, with a stop at a Chinese food restaurant for lunch after my niece returned from preschool. That ought to leave enough time to take the cats to the vet for their shots at 5:00. Unfortunately, we both should have known better than to make plans with fate being the trollop it is.
My dad had arranged for a repair service to come fix our stove that morning, for which the scheduled time was any point between 8am and 12pm. To further confuse things, my older brother had randomly decided to get his truck serviced, so he would need to be picked up from the university campus after his classes ended in the afternoon. Plus, my younger brother required transportation to and from his job as a sign waver for Quiznos during the lunch hour.
At first, the arrangement would be for my dad to take my brother to work if we would pick him and my other brother up. Fair enough, as we would have to wait for my niece's school bus anyway. Repair person arrived in the designated window, but took three hours to fix the faulty burner on the stove. During that time I had to make an effort to clean the revealed stove siding, since it was incredibly disgusting. Also we all snacked on one of my homemade ice creams while we waited. By then it was late, and we had to have my dad pick up younger brother.
Since it was nearly time to pick up older brother, my sister suggested getting a snack at Sonic. BEST IDEA YET. She paid for onion rings, mozzarella sticks, and slushes, aw yeah. When older brother called with his location, I thought it would be best to get a map to the building, since I am horrible with finding things, especially at the university. My sister fires up the dang GPS, which takes us to the clear opposite side of the campus where my brother is at. *facepalm* After some finagling on the phone with older brother, we figure out where to actually go. He is much more calmed after chugging a Sonic Cherry Slush. I drop him off at the auto shop, since his truck is done.
Good grief. It is now after 3:00, and we finally make it to the restaurant. We get some quick combo plates, and I indulge in lemon chicken even after the deep-fried snack I had, because I needed to be pacified from the enormous time wasted already. My niece predictably takes a shower with her chow mein. It was estimated at least 80% ended up in her belly, anyway.
Finally we arrive at the thrift store. My sister asks to wander off for pants and bags, so I take it upon myself to find some dressy play shoes for the niece. They have nice shoes at the thrift store, but not many in her size. It was also difficult to get niece to understand the concept of wiggling her toes to check growth room in the shoes. Still, she ended up with a nice pair of strappy tap heels, that she promptly decided were for her to wear to "ballerina class," and thus kept asking the rest of the time we were in the store when we would go to said "ballerina class." I cannot wait until this child can understand concepts of time.
By then it was past 4pm, and while I was all for heading straight home, my sister brilliantly changes her mind and wants me to drive to pick up her girlfriend. Ugh. Girlfriend happened to live over in east Sparks, while we were in south Reno! The easiest way to get there would be to do some freeway hopping, but with the recent remodeling, people were stupider than usual and clogging up the exits to change freeways. So I had to pull a little back street maneuvering to get to girlfriend's house.
After picking up girlfriend, she apparently needs a sandwich, having not eaten for awhile. Sister also wants to pick up booze, and younger brother called to have us pick up DVDs at the store, please. I am thoroughly surprised at myself at this point for not banging my head repeatedly on a hard, firm surface. Mother arrives home from work early on Fridays, so at least she was on hand to deal with the cats' visit to the vet. Girlfriend and sister argue about where to get booze while we make a stop at Quiznos for a sandwich and Office Depot for DVDs. Niece is incredibly cranky from sitting in the car so long, as am I.
I solve the booze dilemma by driving to Raley's, which happens to be near the vet. I check in with my parents, pulling a double hit by showing off niece's new shoes. Now, since school started, I have made a habit of checking on what dinner will be, so I can either a) join the family or b) buy/make something healthier. My father claims we will shop briefly at the store to pick up some things for a dinner of steak for the boys and meatloaf for them, this way we can grab something me and my sister would be willing to eat. I agree with this plan, and head from the vet's to Raley's with my niece to get a head start. Apparently my sister and her girlfriend picked out their liquor really quick, because they were already in the parking lot looking for me. I tried to explain the plan to them, but apparently my dad pulled a typical 180º and decided that, no, we would not be shopping, as all we needed at the house was sour cream.
Trying not to punch something, I quickly decided that I would shop for my dang dinner as I'd planned. Returning my niece to her mother, I returned to the store to get sour cream, arugula, and turkey thighs. I also found some nice red bell peppers. Arriving at home with my purchases, I found that creating a pulled turkey sandwich with an old poultry spice blend I'd made was a really satisfying meal. The wine slushee probably helped too. Then of course, nothing could stay perfect and I had to help my dad bake the meatloaf. Which didn't come up to temperature even after over an hour of baking at 350º. This situation is why I tell my father to stop shopping at cheap grocery chains like Scolari's.
As for today's happenings, all I will say is that opera, Krull, and spiced pumpkin ice cream make things happy in my brain.
Also, before I forget, this was a recent Pastry Arts project:
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