Category: Family

roasting beef, baking macadamia biscotti

I’m at the shop (Katie out again WARNING RELATIONSHIP IN PROGRESS) and so far, in the 2 hours I’ve been here I’ve:

  • Run through the morning set up
  • Started baking macadamia nut biscotti (first attempt.  Nut flavour is so mild I added no spices, just vanilla, also thinking of Nora I leave cinnamon out cause she’s allergic to cinnamon).
  • Made myself a chai latte
  • sold muffins and coffee to a couple of people
  • Put beef on to roast
  • Put away a good chunk of the ingredients we got last night at Costco
  • got the bread out of Bertha, which I always forget to do so I’m glad I remembered
  • Taken all the fridge temps (report: we are nominal son)
  • Put my hair back and donned an apron
  • Figured out how to form my lips into a trumpet trill so I can blast through the William Tell Orchestra
  • Blown level 70 in Candy Crush Saga AGAIN.  It is a demonaically hard level.
  • sat up front and watched it droozle out there
  • Thought about awnings for the street fair July 21st.  I want to buy one, mostly because I know that the awning Jeff and I bought four years ago is not going to make it through another year and so when I’m done with it here I’ll just take it home.
  • Thought about the data entry job Tom gave me.  I was supposed to work on it some more last night but the Costco run intervened and then Katie tried to get me to go for a walk, but my sciatica into my right heel is making me limp like hell.
  • Thought about the big pile of cardboard at the back of the shop I need to flatten and recycle.
  • Thought about the very interesting news I got from the landlord’s agent yesterday about what’s going on next door as far as ownership goes.
  • Thought with irritation verging on acting out about the THREE UNLICENSED VEHICLES sitting in the parking lot of OUR CAFE.  The landlord’s agent says I can approach the miscreants responsible and ask them to move the cube van, the stake truck and the not-licensed-since-October-2012 shitbox compact sitting out there.  The Hino is parked crossways, FFS, taking two spots.  What the hell is wrong with these people?  It’s not the antechamber to a scrapyard.  Dayyum.
  • Thought with love and deep sympathy about my dear one Tammy who is burying her father today and will have to deal with that hard on the heels of breaking up with a man she has been trying to partner up with for 3 years.  It was his idea and he won’t stop calling her.  I know he’s not a complete asshole but sheeshkabobbers, folks, take a hint. And her complete and total born bad asshole of an adoptive brother is going to be at the funeral, and I tried to bet with her that he would show up at mom’s drunk, raring to steal money and valuables, but she wouldn’t take the bet.  He’s already been banished but you know how sociopaths press once they perceive an advantage.  Tammy and her mother took the high road and at least let the brother know his dad was gone.

Dribs and drabs

Went to a party last night.  I don’t mind meeting new people.  Every man I spoke with wanted to have about 90% of the air time.  Or wore so much scent that I thought, “A nice guy but you could float an anvil on the lake of his cologne”.  I guess I am just too effin picky, but at least I made the effort, and it was Garlen’s 50th.

Katie is dating again.  When she went for a walk with her new beau, great blue herons were following her around and glaring at her.  She found it amusing that my totem animal was following her around.  She’s gone off to New West now to be with her bestie for a while.

2020 says CONSULTING ANIMAL YOU FOOL

I am waiting for it to dry enough that I can cut the grass.  Other than that I have a pretty lazy weekend planned, except for taking down the wasp nest at the shop (it’s over the back door, a truly lousy place for it, and continuing to much out my room.  Maybe I’ll even write some songs down.

 

 

 

 

One thing and another

Keith and Paul were in the shop today, which was delightful and brief.  I owe Keith money for the beer he picked up last night.  I suppose it being a long weekend and me going to a party tonight (first one in AGESSSS) I should purchase more.  Ziva died – vacuum leaks, more of them, rad problems, sensor and indication problems.  No can get fixed until Tuesday and candidly I am doubting even then.  Sue is going to give me the name of her auto broker.  Ziva has broken my heart and my wallet long enough, I could have bought two decent cars for what I’ve spent on repairs.  Wayne picked up the 50 biscotti I baked for the Hyack Swim Meet volunteers.  I included promo!  This is an improvement.  Also, we are in the flyer for the event, in two places, so instead of spending a hundred bucks on promo I made cookies.  I like dat.  Katie is going on a date tonight and if I say so much as ONE MORE WORD on the subject she’s gonna jam that broomstick up my nose.  Still haven’t mailed pOp’s biscotti, but Katie is leaving early today so I am going to ask her if I can escape to the Post Office to get it mailed off before she goes.  All the fridges are behaving well.  Katie spilled salt two days running and was yelling v. bad swearz, you know, pin a nun to a wall shit. Split pea with ham soup today.  I need to print more business cards. Started watching The Hour with Ben Whishaw (rowr!), Dominic West (McNulty from the Wire) and the exquisite Romola Garai as Bel Rowley.  It’s a Beeb miniseries set in 1956 Britain and everything about it is wonderful.  Abi Morgan wrote the script, which is uniformly excellent and doesn’t make the assumption that viewers are fecking idiots.  We’re up to episode 8 in Band of Brothers.  Also started watching Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks, which is SO TRANSGRESSIVE.  Jeff and I were killing ourselves laughing.  It is a trip to watch black people commenting about white people (and each other) without having to make concessions to hurting anybody’s feelings.  The grandfather is hilarious.  McGruder is a righteous rude boy and anybody who can call Condoleeza Rice a mass murderer to her face is my kinda guy (John is giving me the spectral thumbs up, I can feel it). My news feed informs me that Rob Ford (Mayor of TO) smokes crack.  Now many times in my life I have wanted to accuse any number of political figures of smoking crack, but jeezly hell my darlings, I wasn’t expecting there to be VIDEO.  The roast beef sandwiches have two new fans.  One of them is a climate change denialist and the other is a very entertaining semi-retired gent who put me onto the idea of starting up a cooperative retirement/nursing home.  I think it’s a fan-fucking-tastic idea.

not a lot of money, but a really good day anyway

Katie is increasingly stoked about her camping trip.  Wish I could say where but we don’t want uninvited guests now do we…

The shop SMELLS OF BACON.

We experimented with a new soup recipe and it’s so simple and so tasty Katie and I are both doing the Snoopy happy dance.  We can haz cheezy broccoli soup!

It’s raining, and we don’t mind.  Only one more hour to go, and then I pick up Ziva (again) and we go to Costco (our home away from home) and then… ep 4 Band of Brothers with Jeff, since we are rewatching it.  SUCH A GOOD SHOW.

Gotye’s Heart’s a  Mess is playing on the shop sound system.

Yeah, so not so much revenue, but a good day anyway.  Regulars came by, newbies came by, I got my CRA letter off to the post box, all the fridges are behaving, I organized a bunch of receipts, wrote down the new recipe… and Katie’s crush forked over his phone number.  I can now let my breath out after a month.

I light a candle for a close family friend who just lost a baby.  I sucked in my breath when I heard she was expecting… she’s multi-risk.  And now she knows why women don’t announce pregnancies until they quicken.  It’s horrible, it’s sad, it’s completely messed up, and it is life in it’s glorypain.  She and her husband are going to lie low for a couple of days.  Hell of a thing to happen on Mother’s Day, god help us all.

 

 

news roundup

The ISS space walk was successful!  Go team Space!

Just for the headline (SFW)

This is a candle for Katie’s bestie, who is having serious problems with her first pregnancy.  Katie will hang with her later today at a birthday barbecue.

Katie is going to go camping for May two-four weekend, first time since she was a kid.  She is squee-level five looking forward to it.

I am going to go back to cleaning my room and doing laundry now.

 

 

Sundry and various

Brinicles. I had no idea such things existed.
Katie will be heading off for bloodwork this morning. She is fasting, and thus tired and cranky.
Izzy and I (the grandsnake) bonded nicely last night. He is one of the most hand tame snakes I ever interacted with, although I will never feel about him the way I feel about Speck, a little snake who hung out in my hat for an hour at a party, thus triggering the single funniest triple take I’ve ever seen in my life.
Margot is prowling around my room and quacking. Yesterday she got up in Creamy’s grill (he’s the Samoyed next door) by walking up to him when he was tethered outside, getting him to bark furiously, and then pelting away. What a jerk she can be.
Paul and Keith took me and Katie to supper last night at the Grand Buffet. In a stupefying and gratifying demonstration of customer service, the expensive sunglasses Keith left there a month ago were produced as soon as he appeared. You can bet Keith tipped the living shit out of those servers. The crab was particularly good.
I have found an internet radio station that plays bluegrass gospel, and it has no annoying commercials. That’s what we have on at the store now. It’s bright and bouncy and banjerrific.
Biz still slow and interestingly variable. Paul bought cherry biscotti, my latest creation, and took it to work, and there was much rejoicing. His work is going well. Per parental instructions I will be baking and shipping biscotti out to them by the end of the month.
All my friends from Ontario seem to be living through hellish times. I am not. I am having difficulties with certain aspects of my life, but these things tend to self correct. As mOm remarked, this too shall pass. In the meantime I have a loving family, a good place to live, choice friends, good health (even my back is whining less…) and the best stupid cat in the world. Hey, at least she’s keeping herself clean, although I still have to brush and de-eye-gunk her frequently.
I am now washing my hands forty times a day. It’s like acquiring OCD or something. Thank god for Uremol, and many thanks to LadyMissB for putting me on to it.
Off to work now.

fuck my fucking fuck of a fucking life with a fucking bushel of fucksticks

Geez, my daughter may have some horrific disease, I’m overdue for handing over documents to the church auditor, the shop has been quite slow (although Katie’s friend Jessica is there doing art work on the sidewalk signs,) I can’t get a fucking printer driver installed on this fucking Windows 8, some asshole came into the shop yesterday and lectured me for half an hour about everything I’m doing wrong, another merchant told me that apparently everybody on the street thinks we charge too much money, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I know that at some point (maybe rather later than sooner) sweet Death will come take me none of this would be tolerable.

Oh look, Margot’s chasing a fly, how adorable.

Nope, still feel like shit.

Katie’s next specialist appointment is tomorrow. Any bets she’ll be waiting 6 months for a neurology consult?

The list is getting shorter!

Today – getting menus printed and laminated at Staples now that Jeff has proofread them (thank goodness for his picky eyeballs!), sending credit applications to the meat and garbage companies, Paul coming to store to put in some hooks for the prep table, training on POS and cash register, getting the float for Monday morning.  Katie is still feeling a little under the weather and we can’t tell if it’s nerves or maybe a weird migraine.  I am migraining at the moment but the visual crap has lifted so I’m back at it.  Tom L kindly offered to put up the additional exit sign,

There’s also church stuff in there, but I’ll deal with later today as soon as I have finalized the accounting stuff.

 

 

Three days go by like nothin’

Yesterday we were at the shop all day and baked in the pizza ovens.  They make really good muffins and that’s good because we can fill an oven with morning muffins and it will reduce prep and cook time immensely.  Then if there’s going to be a biscotti bake we just leave em on.  Katie’s got other stuff to do and I am at the shop again, REVELLING, REVELLING I tell you, in the abundance of hot water.  Sanitizing powers ON.

Katie and I ripped through all of the crap we will never use in the storage loft and an amazing amount of junk went to Value Village.  That also made it easier for the tradespeople to do their thing (it took a day and a half longer to get the job done, but all I do is phone him and ask him for a revised estimate of his arrival, and he never, ever ducks my calls, so I am very sparse in my “Where the hell you at man” calls.)

The wee man arrived with the new hot water heater and a rather ascetic helper and he took the old one, whose continued functioning was a rather amazing thing on the basis of the pitting and rust and the mess the fittings were in, away (part of me is thinking that the wee man saying NO NO NO lose this one and get a bigger one, you’re not saving money and you’re making trouble – was good damned advice).  They had to use axle grease and shoe horns to get the sumbitch in, but it’s in and making lovely hot water, oo, yes indeed.  Soon he will come back and fix the rest of the walk in cooler compressor (it works but needs cleaning and sound isolation) and then once we have the special order light fittings for the lights, that’s it, we have no more problems to fix for the health inspector and we’re just waiting on fire and building.

Paul and Katie got up on the roof and there’s no obvious leaking but Katie says the tar is too soft.

I took pictures of the potholes to send the landlord.  Wish I had a buck for every time I’ve turned my ankle back there in the ‘parking lot’ which is actually more like a ‘hole farm’.

I have put the previously existing comfy chairs out front, free to a good home, and Katie washed and I put the covers back on our new used chairs,  They are Ikea second hands from a restaurant supply place that we heard about at church on Sunday, if you can credit it, and they turn out to be super nice and having the solution to a major throughput problem we were having.  But soon we will be able to run 350 pieces of toast an hour through a toaster.  With the Bunnomatic being able to make five carafes of coffee in just over half an hour I don’t think we’ll have a problem keeping up with plain coffee, and we have the espresso machine for the fancy schmancy stuff.

 

Lentil soup is on.  I got banking and church stuff to do today, which I am NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO, but haven’t I complained enough already?  Everything is coming together nicely for a 15 APRIL  start.

Iain M. Banks is reported to be dying of gall bladder cancer.  Fuck cancer.  He’s one of the best writers in any genre and he had another twenty years of awesome Culture novels in him and now he’ll be lucky to finish his most recent effort.

pOp has had a rough couple of weeks compressed into one brief hospital stay.  He’s back home, and none of the rest of it is anybody’s business.

 

 

Katie is here

Baking up a storm of maple bacon muffins, some of which will accompany to her foodsafe 2 class today.

Keith is going to the grands this weekend, and he will have biscotti in tow if the gods are kind.

Today I am ENDURING THE HORRAH of completing my first tax documents for the church. I will be glad when this term is over, despite all I have learned.

It is astonishingly windy – the recycling bin keeps leaping up and trying to make a run for it down the porch stairs.  The cats really don’t like it the noise.

Jeff says Margot had some kind of fit the other day.  Her eyes were open but she was impossible to rouse.  Then she perked up and was completely normal or as normalz as that crazy little fur machine ever gets.  Obviously I am mildly concerned but when cats are eating and drinking as per normal it’s hard to stay that way.

mOm, you will be amused to hear that Katie just came up behind me and said “can you read that in the dark?” and turned the lamp on.

Long and amusing phone call with Chipper yesterday.  She’s in much better spirits – her wordplay and sense of proportion have been somewhat restored – and she has been the biggest booster of the plan for the cafe.

I suppose I should pick up the phone and apologize to Carrie for our unfortunate text exchange, but I am still a little mad about it and if I am still resentful an apology will just make things worse.

Saw Mambo Kings the other day. I enjoyed the musical numbers and costume design a lot, and Antonio Banderas is a wriggling sack of puppies cute.

Lots of people asked me for the lyrics to my Beacon bday tune, so I am happy about that.

Receipting for tax time for donors at the church is done…. I will also be stuffing envelopes today.

And laundry.  I thought I was all caught up but the laundry basket is telling me different.

 

My heart feels like it’s being squeezed by two subway car doors

But that is usual when you get freaked out by your to do list.  Paul and the kids and Jeff and I feasted at Chong Lum Hin yesterday. Dim Sum!  Gung Hay Fat Choi!

Katie saw Warm Bodies and loved it.

Margot is still shedding so massively that I can take a teacup of compressed fur off her every day with NO VISIBLE EFFECT.

Rob watched TSSIT and LOVED IT.  What’s not to love? Son also watched it and found it ‘adorable’.

Purim is coming.  In the words of the immortal Sean Haugh (a facebook friend of the libertarian/sf fan persuasion whom I have never met IRL).  (And you have to understand, I only friend non IRL people who are friends with at least six of my other friends).  “Purim is my favorite religious holiday bar none. A feast to celebrate the death of a tyrant, a religious service that comes with its own drinking game, and! the best cookies ever! Why Purim isn’t the biggest holiday on the calendar is beyond me.”

Here’s the Beacon Birthday Song lyrics!  Nobody from church reads my blog (thank GOOOOODDDDD) so I’m not giving anything away.

To think that it all started with committee work
These long years past
Some now here assembled came and did not shirk
And they had a blast
We are trying to help the world
All the little boys and girls
And the ones who aren’t sure which they are
Growing their theology
Becoming all that they can be
Knowing in their lives they’ll wander far
And Beacon will be part of who they are

All the controversies now seem very small
When we look back
It’s a miracle that we are here at all
With all that flack
Boards and staff in panoply
Ministers and homilies
Days when the presenter failed to show
Visits to the partner church
Pledges paid or in the lurch
Always wondering if we would grow
As if our wishing somehow made it so.

But it is no joke
To fight oppression’s yoke
Whether in the soul or in the street
What you think is true
Is shown in what you do
And sharing truth is really why we meet

Here’s to Beacon’s 30th, now raise a glass
And toast us proudly
Maybe all our dreams have not yet come to pass
Still we sing loudly
We can set up anywhere
Little but somehow we share
Knowing that our giving shows our love
The future holds its mystery
As we toast our history
And the peace that we’re all dreaming of
And the peace that we’re all dreaming of.

 

 

 

 

Big News, small news, glad news, sad news

I put a deposit down on the cafe yesterday.  So begins an enterprise.

Expert, schmexpert.

The only thing I don’t understand about the rogue LAPD cop Christopher Dorner is not why he hasn’t been caught – he will be, and I cheerfully predict that he’ll go quietly and not die in a hail of gunfire – it’s why nobody’s bought the domain name yet.

My fellow board member Audrey has lost her mother.  She was well into her nineties.  Blind Lemming Chiffon, when we had dinner at Conflikt, said that until you’ve lost a parent you can’t understand what it’s like.  That was also the same supper where he gave me the Ebay overview on what allows him to sell like a master, and where he recommended Searching for Sugar Man, one of the best and most astonishing music documentaries I have ever seen.

Jeff is having pie for breakfast.  He’s a rebel.

I was thinking (as I had another crying bout thinking about John last night) about loss.  I thought, “Ah, so selfish.  It is not my love for him that hurts me.  I will have that forever; I can’t stop loving him just because he’s dead.  I’m sad because he loved me, and he’ll never stop me from falling off a mountain, or give me a lift on his motorcycle, or make me laugh, or sing with me, or feed me or lift my spirits or be a familiar face in a crowd of strangers ever again.  And that is why I am sad.  Not because someone I love died.  It’s because someone who loved me died.”

I saw both of the kids yesterday, yay, and fed Rob and Keith as well as Jeff.  I made pork schnitzel, taters, broccoli and carrots, and there was a tablecloth and pie and two kinds of ice cream, so it was rather festive, even without beer.  I’ve gone off beer again.  There is a medical condition which I’m too polite to whine about in public which improves by about 30% when I don’t drink beer, and it definitely hurts the insomnia when I drink beer.  I just love beer and wish it wasn’t so mean to me.

It’s a fine axemurderer’s fog out there this morning.

Obviously I have a lot of work to do before Katie calls me for our trek up to City Hall, so I’ll get to it.

Gay schlafen

The newest character in Midnite Moving can be sent to sleep for a couple of hours by saying gay schlafen, which is go to sleep in Yiddish.  Which is the kind of thing that happens when two people who are alien mad scientists who shouldn’t be having or raising children decide “I’ma risk it”.  And don’t you wish you had THAT app.

Awoke far too early this morning.  (boring SG1 reference) Amanda Tapping tweeted about her Bouvier, George, who’s 120 lbs of lapdog, and whose gas rivals that of Christopher Judge.  These are the kinds of things I find teddibly amusing, which is as much as you need to know about the compos of my mentis these days.

I am arguing with myself this morning as to whether I really want to go to an all day church event about growth.  I think it’s a waste of money, but I am curious about how this expensive Unitarian boffin – who just so happens to be the establishing minister for the church – is going to fire us up.  I don’t want to go, as I am afraid I will ‘air my views’ in a ‘less than respectful or helpful way’.  Maybe I should.  Teach the controversy and all.

The waste of money part comes from the notion that growth comes from being an attractive church.  Our Religious Education program, which is the magnet which draws young adults with children to the church, is fanTAStic in terms of curriculum and staff . no srsly . but badly housed.  I mean, really badly housed.  The space we’re renting doesn’t suit and most parents come in and see it and recoil in horror.  We have tried to get this ameliorated but we DON’T OWN THE BUILDING, and of course unless every elder in the congregation drops dead and leaves his or her entire estate to the church, we never will own a building either.  On the basis of my conversations with other churches this not having a building ain’t a bad thing.  Church buildings get older than human beings eventually and there’s nothing like remediating asbestos tiles and leaky roofs and recalcitrant dragon-furnaces to put a damper on Sunday worship and cast a pall of gloom over the Board.

As it is, we can do church anywhere, with despatch and aplomb.  We’d hate to move again, but we will if we have to, and church will continue no matter what.

Looks like Katie’s buying a restaurant.  She’s seen it done right and done wrong, and I’m sure she’ll be fine.  We do NOT have big plans.  We have small ones.  I am going to be the silent partner and biscotti baker, which I am very happy about, since I will finally have a space close to my house which is exactly what I want for baking biscotti, and the way the law works anything that’s baked there must be sold there in at least some quantity so it’s not a factory.  I’ll be making a deposit on Monday (she’s at work even though it’s a stat) and Katie and I already have an immense list of things to work through.  I want her energy and intelligence to be rewarded.  Keith expressed reservations, interestingly, but I think he may be experiencing jealousy.  Which reminds me, now I really DO have to change my will, so Keith and Katie get a more equitable share, and so Paul is no longer the executor.

We’re not planning on making any money for most of the first year, start up date April Fools (and you should have seen Katie’s face as we set the date).  The easiest thing for me to do is to think about the money as being lost.  Out of the gate.  Something about this feels right though, there’s a weird ‘this will be okay’ vibe.

The Treasurer problem I had has been resolved.  I crashed the chart of accounts somehow in Simply Accounting and reasoned my way out of the problem with a few adjustments. Now it’s time to MAKE RECEIPTS FOR ALL THE DONORS.  It is a finite problem with a deadline, and it’s all good.