Month: January 2010

Today is a list

Buy new work drag.  Village de Valeurs, c’est le meilleur! Later.  Success.  Also bought new shoes, but new new shoes, not used new-to-me shoes.

Be supportive of Katie and the gals re the court case.  This involves uncorking the exchequer for a sushi blowout.  I am ready.  I took Katie and Kat and Kashka to Hi Dozo and coincidentally ran into Don Hauka on the way out.

Prep some kind of eats for Ryan’s memorial service, which is tomorrow in the early afternoon.  Remember to take hankies, it’s gonna be brutal.  Even so I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of people I’ve not seen in some time.

Start working on … you guessed it….. the VALENTINES.

Hold myself in readiness for more bad news about Gizmo.  When the diagnosis is sorted out (it’s a laundry list of older cat diseases, and only one has a positive prognosis) I’ll share a little more of how devastating this has been; Jeff is fair to middling bleak and I’m sad about it.

Tell the financial advisor to quit paying out my stipend.  In March.  I wouldn’t mind double dipping for a month.

December settlement – Jeff and I figure out who owes what to whom on a monthly basis.

Bill payments of other kinds, now that that my bank has actually decided to notice the deposit.  I am still so f(((((g peeved about that, and I should really calm down.

Write another CL ad for the church.  That was fun, wanna do it again.

Now I am making the yummiest waffles ever â„¢for Jeff, as he is feeling subpar.

later…. also today I got a 4 gig SD ram card, inkjet printer ink, bread and treats for Kat and Kashka to take home, a book for Katie, a journal for me, dropped into Edmonds Community Centre to see what kinds of fitness classes they have, got a new library card from New Westminster Library, walked rather more than I currently feel comfortable with and visited the bank machine.  SO BAGGED.

We are now referring to them as the Olympox.

That’s a royal we, not a literal we.

I don’t share my opinions with others, in the sense that my opinions are commonly held.  In the other sense, why, look, I’m coming up on 6 years of blogging on a daily basis.  It’s been peace of mind inducing, because I can actually see progress, even at this late date.  Yes, it has quite a bit, now I think on it.  It’s been useful, with recipes and background deets for KittyKate’s ongoing relationship woes, and dammit, the source of MUCH amusement in retrospect and in PROSPECT, because so far I’ve lived to blog the tale, and yes, the worst of the bad bits aren’t here, but that’s cause my mother doesn’t want to read them.

You know, I don’t go back into the non wordpress archives unless I’m looking for a quote or a specific event.  I was looking for a dream description last week (took me a blazing age to find the damned thing, too, the archives are a bear to search) but I can’t remember the time I looked before last.  Might have been… oh yeah, I remember, I wanted to know the date we first watched Heroes of the East (Shaolin vs. Ninja).

I do look at the more recent archives more.  Easier to search.  It’s always about usability.

Just got an email asking me to apply for a job.

Damnedest thing – I applied for one job and this software company warmly encouraged me to apply for another.  I also could have had an ongoing permanent part time job, but I levelled with the temp agency gal and said, er, um.  No, because I’ll just quit.

Today I:

Made quinoa tabbouleh.  I was expecting to like it.  I didn’t expect to eat all of it.  I did.  I sat down and ate the whole salad in three installments.

Ingredients

  • One cup quinoa (prepare with salted water or chicken bouillon)
  • One bunch parsley chopped fine
  • Two shallots chopped fine
  • Lemon juice or white vinegar (two tablespoons)
  • Garlic to taste

Add the parsley to the cooked quinoa, toss with rest of ingredients and devour warm or cold.

Cheap and nourishing – quinoa is a complete protein and 12-16 % protein by volume.  Even better, it is covered with saponin so birds don’t eat it.  Better still, I just ordered some – I am going to grow it as part of my “The shit is going to hit the fan re food production within the next couple of years” plan.  So the recipe will still work after the collapse of civilization, if I learn how to make vinegar too.

Did some ironing and clothing repair which restored one of my best dresses to usefulness, always a good thing during a job hunt.  Ironing takes too bloody long, it really does.

Followed up on the job hunt with a number of phone calls and emails.

Put away all of my clothes

Cleaned the bathroom

Fed Gizmo a special treat of tuna, with broth. (He’s lost 1/3rd of his body weight since the kitten arrived, so we’re probably going to have to rearrange his eating area so he’s not harassed as he eats.)  We’ll be doing everything we can to fatten him up.

Updated the master shopping list because I don’t buy Marmite any more, among other reasons.

Ordered seeds for the spring, including Marquis, a kind of wheat that has been grown in Canada for 100 years, and is probably among the cultivars my ancestors grew.

Cleaned the washer and the dryer.

Played with Margot for half an hour. At one point Eddie joined her, which was very amusing; they were chasing a bell on a string which I dragged under a rug and which Eddie found irresistable.

Waiting is….

I’m waiting for a call back regarding a job, and that’s always good for an adrenaline spike.   Now I am going to put down the laptop, finish my coffee, and grind through an AWFUL lot of boring housework.

I made a double batch of bagels yesterday.  Between the four of us (Paul and Keith were here yesterday, Paul just for supper and Keith for an evening of gaming, Brutal Legend mostly) we demolished them and I had the second last one this morning.  This time I put the sesame seeds in and under the bagels, and properly proofed the dough, and left them in to bake for a long time.  They looked so amazing I asked Jeff to take a picture.  (My camera is screwy right now and I can’t afford another one).  And the house smelled heavenly.

Watched Beautiful Girls yesterday. Natalie Portman as a precocious young teen is brilliant.  One of my fave scenes in the movie turns out to have been unrehearsed, which is cool.  I remember being 13 and having crushes on older men, and her performance rang crystal-true.  I have much more to say on the subject, but backspaced over all of it.  I like watching the ill tempered and stupid and crazy and boundaryless words get sucked up into the neverwas.

Miss Margot jumped for a table with a table cloth yesterday and if I hadn’t been in the room she would have pulled the whole damned thing down on herself, possibly being injured, although with all that fur it’s hard to tell.

Jeff is planning on having a friend come and stay during the Olympics, now that he knows that he’s ‘on vacation’ for the Olympics.  It’s a good thing; if I’m still off work we may get to some projects, who knows.

Katie got more sleep last night, and so did Granny.  I am so relieved she’s able to step up like this (not just because I originally volunteered and then it turned out to make more sense for Katie to do it).

Stephen Harper’s government has dropped 15 points in the polls in 15 days.  Sort of reminds me of an uncontrolled descent from the Andes, eckshully.

I have to rehearse for Conflikt III.  I already talked to Peggy; we’re going down a day earlier than usual to avoid the worst of the border insanity, which adds to the cost but we also get more filking in.

No, the Americans are NOT blocking aid coming into Haiti. If it wasn’t for their logistical abilities, there’d be zip all coming into Haiti except through the DR.

The power of the checklist, and other news items

Finance, airplanes and checklists.

Katie is still in Victoria looking after Granny.  Having somebody there is making life a lot easier for my folks, who are mad with worry about her, and for Garry and Dianne and Greg and Tracy, all of whom have come to visit her.

I talked on the phone with Katie for about half an hour yesterday.  Apart from her reading Twilight, (Keith’s anguished cry, “I tried to set her on the right path!”), and not getting enough sleep, she’s doing well.  I am so proud of her helping out like this.  Kat and Kashka miss her.

Watched Touching the Void yesterday.  UNBELIEVABLE.  A must see.  I cannot recommend it highly enough; suitable for all ages except at one point there’s some quite lurid cursing, and since there’s a lot of atheism in it it’s not recommended for deists.  The lurid cursing seems entirely appropriate to me.  You’ve broken your leg, hung in midair for 90 minutes, had your climbing partner cut the rope and you’ve just fallen an additional 100 feet into a crevasse.  I’d be painting the air a pretty bright blue meself at that point.  Except right about then I’d give up, and Joe didn’t.