Category: Food

Food and family

Keith and Paul were here. We ate leftovers, but there were loads in the fridge, and then I made lovely rice pudding for dessert. I bet it’s all gone by the time we get home tonight.

Then we watched The Big Lebowski which is one Powerfully Strange movie, but very funny, and I thank Joe the fanboy for loaning it to us.
I wrote a tune on the mando yesterday. No lyrics, it’s all picking. It’s called Willie’s Lament. I did laundry and admired the activities of the 59000 Sun Runners on the psychic plane. Between 420 and the Sun Run there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I was going downtown yesterday.
Tonight, off to Ikea for a kitchen table.

The thrice-blessèd Jeff silenced the toilet (the noise alternated between hissing and a tick tick tick noise that made one think of a limpet mine), installed smoke alarms (the one that came with the house was wired into the AC and kept going off hoarsely at odd intervals) and put up cup holders so now we have Places to Hang Things in the kitchen.  He also got the internet running on the big screen in the living room which means we can now play Youtube Bingo where everybody can see it.  Honestly, watching Youtube videos with friends is a truly fine experience and with the wireless keyboard, you just hand it to the next person and see what insanity comes up.  Of course THIS is what he played first (lyrics not safe for work, and yes I previously posted it).  I heard the first few bars, started giggling and ran out into the living room.

I had a great three days off.  But I’m happy to be going back to work.  Sick, hunh?

butterflies

I’m going to go perform in public so of course I have butterflies…  Peggy has decided to come as well (separate conveyances) and so I asked my folks if she could crash there rather than at Pondside and my folks said yes.  (Lots of room at Pondside, but I volunteered to crawl out of bed early to get her to the bus.)  Pondside, in case you need to know, is where Dr Filk and his madly filking&recording landpeers live.

Last night I went to Superstore and did a small shop.  Forgot bread and cheese.  Duh.  Jeff picked me up and then I cooked salmon steaks, corn and bok choi, with strawberries, bananas and cream for dessert.  Yeah, I got my cooking mojo back after a slack couple of days.  Jeff has acquired a barbeque (Paul has kindly agreed to help him fetch it as the MR2 is a tad parsimonious of cartage room) and we are now looking forward to seared meat on the back deck in the hottest days of the year when you don’t want to be cooking indoors anyway – and believe me Vancouver gets smoking hot in the summertime.

I have just finished the first bake and slice of the biscotti I have been requested to bring to Victoria.  The ones on the top rack are almost but not burnt – the bottom rack biscuits are pretty close to perfect. I guess I am still not one hundred percent with this stove.

Neglected to mention that Jeff and Mike were much amused, last Friday, that they both liked the MR2 and were making tentative plans for a car swap and drive up to Pemberton or some such place…. hope I can come for the ride!  It’s such beautiful country up there.

I was supposed to go with Katie and Suzanne to a comedy show last night in New West, but I was bagged from an emotionally draining day at work (good emotions are draining, too) and knew I had to do a shop and some cooking.  Alas that I canna be in three places at once – I wouldn’t have minded seeing Glenn, either.

Watched a good chunk of Movies 101 last night which is essentially a very long and extremely sympathetic interview with Martin Scorcese.  Jeff and I kept looking at each other and saying, “Scorcese directed that??” or mentioning the Scorcese movies we’d seen that the other hadn’t.  I LOVED the Last Temptation of Christ and Raging Bull.  Jeff hasn’t seen either of them, but he has seen New York New York and Gangs of New York.  I haven’t seen Taxi Driver.  Okay, I guess I have a lot of those movies in my future.  Boxcar Bertha is inbound from zip…..   Barbara Hershey and David Carradine???  mmmm’kay.

Then some Deadwood.  We got up to the part where Woolcott does his nasty deed and Cy bails him out.

Time to get biscotti out of the oven…

the house smells heavenly.

Time to pack…. and feed some butterflies.

Chores

Practicing for the gig on Friday went very well; one of the cats, presumably Eddie, had an accident requiring additional laundry but you can ALWAYS wash your bathroom rugs anyway so what the heck; I learned how to play back prerecorded video from Shaw thanks to Jeff’s fabulous instructions (he wrote a BROCHURE); the weather was six kinds of gorgeous; church was great thanks to a really great service and I really didn’t mind doing chairs; my back doesn’t hurt for the first time in about three weeks; all my laundry is done and hung up (remarkable) except one load which I intend to go deal with right now; saw Keith briefly yesterday and he brought a Useful Object into the house, namely something to catch his immense nest of hair in the shower; cleaned various kitchen and household objects; I renewed the server account for this site and paid some other bills; more yelling downstairs but much more subdued than Friday night; ran into Heather at the Nanaimo skytrain and things don’t sound too good in her world right now.  Dunno. I guess I’m happy to be me.
The Luddite took a day off work to play with trains which involved him and a bunch of other guys moving track onto a new setup…. we’re talking about something the size of a basement.  He also mentioned something about strawberries in pots for me; I look forward to this with interest and yumminess.  Container gardening is about all we’ll be able to do here.

food

Damn!  Those were some good tortillas.  I appear to have made the exact right number (they don’t keep) and we even blew through all of the little chopped veggies (because they don’t make great leftovers either).  Jeff has agreed to tortillas going in the dinner time rotation plan.
Anyway, it was an entirely successful evening, and now I am contemplating work and the usual daybreak stuff. Have a grrrrreat day ev’ybody!

Lazy weekend

You know it’s a lazy weekend when the most impressive thing you did was stack and unstack chairs at church. (Good service.) That and go rescue Season 2 disk one Deadwood out of the DVD player in the storage locker (Jeff had other, arcane power supply business in there as well). Both of the kids were here yesterday; Katie insisted that she had to drop off Suzanne’s laptop for TLC from Jeff (note to everyone in Vancouver… Jeff is not some free Geek Squad wannabe) and then leave and then stayed for porkchomps Paulegra and The Scent of Green Papaya.

You must understand… getting Katie to watch a movie with virtually no dialogue and subtitles is like telling ball lightning to pose for paparazzi. She entirely volunteered, but I was gobsmacked.

Keith just hung around (he left just before dinner) and either watched Nascar with his uncle or played non stop computer games. In desperation, Jeff is building him a ‘good enough’ computer out of various scraps to perhaps stem the Sunday tide. Every other day of the week Keith is very busy; Sundays he wants to blow his brains out on computer games. This would be okay but Jeff can barely use his room; I’ll let them sort it out but the parking at the computer combined with Keith leaving about half his coiffure in Jeff’s soap made for interesting times. No, I do NOT want to live in a sitcom; it just keeps happening with grisly regularity.

Back to work, where a group of senior managers has decided to manage by cancelling the one useful meeting we all attend once a week. I could expound at career limiting length on this subject, but we polled the attendees and we’re going to book the damned meeting anyway, and if the managers don’t want to attend for their own reasons, that’s no reason not to meet and exchange information and work our projects, which is what we were doing before. My manager supports the meeting, at any rate, and gave me a thumbs up on rebooking with the relevant attendees, so my precious heinie is safe for the time being. Heavy sigh.

party

was success….. music, v. little alcohol, and the pleasure of the company of Tom Peggy Barry Keith Dr Filk Rob Mike Heather Patricia & Nicholas.  So all in all a nice blend of friends family and coworkers.
I must say, the biscotti were a success, and I’m glad I deked over to the cheese aisle for some brie….  This morning picked my way round the sleepers to load the dishwasher, then made coffee, then retired to the second volume of Quentin Bell’s bio of his aunty Virginia Woolf, then passed out again until about 10:30 am. Keith’s off home to do a laundry (today is not one of our days) and I just trimmed Dr. Filk’s scalp, something I haven’t done for a year.  He was describing, in amusing terms, his current job situation, which is reasonably secure but quite unhindered by management.
The Willie P Memorial concert is two Fridays hence.  I will try to get over there to sing and play but that means dreadful things like picking tunes and practicing.  Which reminds me, I have to get Dr. Filk’s arrangement of Step Away …. that’s one I’ll do for sure.  Oh god, it sounds like I’m committing myself.

more later….

Sundry & Various

I came home from work last night and Jeff had moved all of the boxes we moved on Sunday into the spare bedroom. I was a little off colour yesterday, I’m not precisely sure why, and I was very grateful not to have to physically move anything.  I’m still feeling ‘strange’ today but I think it’s yet another one of my ‘atypical’ migraines. Nothing like being told by a neurologist that you’re ‘atypical’…. as if I could be anything else.

In an explosion of efficiency and organization (his response when I said this, Ha!) Jeff has prepared a list of everything that needs to be done around here. We find the taps in the bathroom, both sets, to be a trial; the bathtub taps have a really unpleasant mushy feel as if you can never get them entirely open or shut; the vanity taps squeak in an astonishing way. He’s already fixed the kitchen tap, and he moved the freezer downstairs on the weekend and it’s now running (the landpeers said we could have a freezer in the laundry room and the downstairs neighbours can use it too if they like). Earlier in the week I finally passed along the box of coloured pencils to the little girl downstairs (whom I have heard but never seen…I gave them to her parents.) It felt weird to have hung on to some stuff of Katie’s for years after she’d stopped using it, and really good to give it to somebody who would use it. Now if I can just get rid of the rest of my crap, life would be a glorious thing.

Scratch made meatloaf and tater tots for dinner. Jeff bought commercial biscotti earlier this week and I laughed at him.

Spoke to Tom and Peggy last night. They will be coming early and leaving early for the party on Friday as they have another event to attend, but even seeing Peggy for two minutes would be lovely (mind you I am going to church for the next two Sundays to help with set up and take down so I’ll see her again soon). I also spoke to the Luddite and assured him that my friends and family would consider his sitting in a corner and reading a book for the entire duration of the party to be unworthy of comment or criticism, but I don’t think I managed to sell him on the idea of coming on Friday, and given that I haven’t laid eyes on him in the best part of a month… oh well. Saturday’s out as he has another engagement and I have to be out the door at hours ongodly for church on Sunday morning. Grr.

My mOm has FINALLY received the results of her followup tests, and everything looks fine. Having braced herself for bad news she’s feeling a little blah. Granny is now well enough to do her own shopping although she fatigues easily. When you’re pushing a century with a broom you’re allowed to get tired; I’m just amazed after her last horrid illness that she’s made the recovery she has, and I am thankful beyond words that my parents are doing such a great job of looking after her while she preserves what independence she can.

At some point I’m going to imitate Jeff and start making a list of the stuff I want to do around here, but I’m still in confusion and error mode, so it may be a while before I’m back on track.

I have a HUGE bolus of work to digest today after many weeks of prep, so I should get off this thing and go deal with it. Have a great day, everybody.

One last thing. I just read a restaurant review which contained the line “If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I’d ordered thin slices of mole poached in Ovaltine.” Bleaugh!

Food drink and bed assembly

After a danged slow start, I finally rearranged the furniture in my bedroom into its final configuration and assembled the bed which has supported so much reading, so much sleep, so much songwriting and so much transitory fun into shape.  I really tightened it down pretty hard in the reassembly – with any luck it’s going to stop its assortment of interesting noises.  Then I went to the dress rehearsal for the ticket taking.  I get to be lead hand for Saturday night as Peggy (the writer, not the doctor, and a former writing group colleague – wonderful wonderful prose stylist) won’t be there; I was a value add as I kept asking questions like what do we need for a float and what’s the dress code (I had, providentially given the general deshabille after the move, put aside an entirely black outfit).  Then home.  Too tired – jammed on the Luddite.  Okay, I just moved; I’m allowed to be bagged.  It’s pouring rain.

Bear Stearns comment and the rest is all domestic

Yeah, I can just believe that the buyout will be the last we see of the troublesome financial problems in the US. Good riddance eh?  The movie business is doing great, or so I’ve heard.

I just cooked my second family meal and first family dinner at Geek House.  Lemon pepper halibut lightly anointed with butter, steamed broccoli and homemade medium cheddar sauce (with arrowroot, a new one on me), romaine salad with celery, carrot, mushrooms and tomatoes.  Home made chocolate muffins for dessert if anyone wants them.

Yeah, I think I’ll be eating better from now on.  Next up – lentil soup.  I’m going to mess with something daal like, and then to cross culture it up I’ll serve it with cilantro and full milk yogurt rolled in corn tortillas.  Or perhaps some serving method that doesn’t make so much mess.  I will think on it, but first, I suppose before I do anything like that I should consult with the Master of Geek House.  I am the not quite Dowager Duchess of Geek House. Hm.  That would make Keith the Cadet of Geek House?  I’ll just cut that line of enquiry short.
I am not packing everything from the old place.  I want to, but I’m glad of the opportunity to shift some hardened energy out of my life.  That’s what most of that stuff is, solidified energy.  I had such thoughts and then I watched Natalie Portman’s first professional movie and then the Luddite dropped by for a brief and bracing visit, so of course I’m more cheerful.

It was so good seeing Keith.  I feel quietly happy right now, listening to the rain.

Pork uteri

Normally I would not juxtapose those two words, but now that I’m living in East Van, I have to tell you that they are for sale, very reasonably priced, walking distance from my house.  They look about as appetizing as they sound.  I’m going to try to find a recipe for them…. okay, now I feel really sorry for myself.  They go into pork sausage.  As a certain buddy of mine is forever saying, eyes wide and bright, “Good to know”.  I suppose if I told you Pork Bung is for sale too, you’d believe me?  I bet I know where that goes.  It’s probably stuffed and steamed and turned into a delicacy of some description or other.
As you may be able to determine from the foregoing, I have now completed the shop.  Everything Jeff put on the list has been purchased, and a couple of other things too.  Now for a bit of kip until the Luddite shows up.

Clichés so totally rock my world

I was horrified to read a list of clichés on gawker… and I’ve used almost every one.

I will try to “use my words” in future.  If I do any LOLcats stuff I’ll put in my Livejournal, how’s that?  And perhaps I will be more judicious in my use of italics.

I draw the line at my ‘Inertnests’ neologizm going away, though.  I thought it was a nice play on words, all those people in their little inert nests, smashing the stumble button, playing around with reddit, watching Noam Chomsky interviews on youtube….

Today I will do a bundle buggy shop.  I want to see how hard it is to shop locally…..

Oh my god.  I went to the Chinese greasy spoon at the corner of 22nd and Rupert yesterday am.  I ordered scrambled eggs and sausage and got scrambled eggs and fried wieners.  While I was contemplating this horkworthy attempt at breakfast, a trembling, staggering cockroach meandered down the far wall next to the kitchen.

I dropped by Planet Bachelor where the boys had a full house – Jessica W and Katie were there for brekky.  Christ, I should have gone there first.  I hung around long enough to suck back some coffee and pick up some more tax return stuff and then went home, where I stared at the walls and did zero packing for about six hours.  To intersperse with staring at the walls I re-read Curse of Chalion and read Oryx and Crake, which is like holy crap, how many dystopian novels does the world actually require?
Then I came back here on the bus… which only runs every half hour after supper on weekends.  Gizmo and Eddie are starting to get used to me and they are certainly handsome cats.  Eddie will walk right up to you and give you a shove when he’s hungry, with his paw.  It was quite funny.  Both of the cats snore; Giz is wheezing quietly right now.

I’m contemplating the pile of remotes and wondering if I dare try to turn something on.  I need coffee.

Geeking out

Honest to god, Kung Fu Mike wasn’t through the door at the new place an inch before he and Jeff were geeking out.  Mike and I hung around for a Few Days in September and a single beer, and then I got a lift home.  A pleasant evening hanging around and watching a movie and shooting the breeze.

Earlier Mike and I went to Kathmandu Cafe.  Small menu but everything we ate was delicious.

We got to the new place and Jeff had already set up the tvs. He described how he got everything moved – I was stunned because that stuff is super awkward when you’re by yourself.  Mike drooled so hard on the tv (and why not) and examined it closely for burnt out pixels. Then they geeked out some more (Jeff moved through part of a scenario in Assassin’s Creed.)  Happy sigh. All in all a thoroughly satisfying evening, and I even got enough sleep!!  No packing, of course….
Oh, and Gizmo ran away earlier and came back while Mike and I were visiting. Then he demanded to be let out again, and I told Jeff to let him.  (He showed up, guzzled some food, and demanded to be let out again…. welcome to having a teenager, I said.)

Busy day

I HOPE I didn’t catch what Tammy had.  She was not exactly deathly ill while she was here, nor was she knocked much out of her usual cheerful demeanour, but man, she was sick, and I am really glad I could put her up where she’d get some TLC. I got the car around 9 and drove her to the airport.  We had an extremely long and involved conversation on the way out there – and Tom L. tried to run me off the road in HIS Prius, which was amusing after I stopped cursing at this bozo who couldn’t stay in his lane.
I dealt with the flat (total props to Joe at the Shell at Main and King Eddy) and then thought f*ck it, I’ll call ScaryClown and ask him what he’s up to, seeing as how he lives about ten blocks from where the tire got fixed.  He was sitting with Tyson and Luke, two buddies of his, in the Starbucks at Main and 14th, and then we had a late brekky at the breakfast joint on the south side of the intersection.  His buddies (whom I have heard MUCH about, mostly positive and somewhat in relation to alcohol consumption, life threatening illnesses and mischief making) were funny and sweet and entertaining and it was a remarkably successful lunch given I’d never met them before. ScaryClown had of course said much about ME, which gave me pause, but it must have been mostly positive because they seemed disposed to like me.

Got a call from Kopper saying that I need to do something political soon, and I agreed, smiling at the notion that given what an absurd bunch of clowns we have on council in Burnaby anyway, why not have a comedian run for office?  So I will be supporting same.  Updates as events warrant.

Then I paid the March rent for the new place, crossed the alley and tried my front door key for the first time, and in a burst of energy, unpacked the kitchen so that when Jeff gets there in about three hours there will be one room of the house (besides the bathroom) that isn’t a complete disaster.   Then I called him and gave him an update.

Sigh.  Unpacking is way more fun than packing. I have now reassessed how much room will be in the new place and I will be storing every stick of furniture I have except my bed and dresser.  I literally won’t have room for anything else.  Oh, and I must have been taking colour blindness pills when I looked at the kitchen.  The kitchen is red white and green. Yup, I have a red (REDDDDD!!!! RED RED RED counters) and white (trim and cupboards) and SLIME GREEN (remember slime green???) kitchen.  The slime green is going to get buried under eggshell white as soon as I have the paint, the energy and the buy in from brother dearest.

Tammy was all upset on my behalf that Jeff is getting the lion’s share of room for stuff, but I think we’ll both be reassessing things after we’re in, and his furniture’s way nicer than mine anyway.

I am SO excited.  My life is about to drastically improve, and I’m already thinking of ways I can improve the shining hour during my commute.

Happy

Despite everything I’m happy.  Things are clicking along very well in my personal life.  It’s Facebook style complicated but loads of fun.  The Luddite has sent me a number of Muppet Show links, including Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger.  With Turkish subtitles.  All Hail the Inertnests!

Also the last line of his last email he made me laugh so hard I had a five minute coughing spasm afterwards. I am however getting better and I figured out which cough medicine to buy so I’m getting less coughing and fewer side effects from the cough medicine, all a good thing.  Also in the email was a querulous “Why would your daughter want to meet me? If she wants to inspect me she can come on down to the shop and I won’t even know who she is.”  Men, o my god.  The answer to that question is “Because I never shut up about you, how’s that?”
My apartment is somewhat cleaner, but with all the boxes, quite cluttered.  I am trying, in the midst of the chaos, to keep all my tax receipts in one place…..

Two more days and Jeff is here!!!! For good.  Katie says, “It’ll be weird having him here,” and I said, “Like you swapped uncles.”  For Dr. Filk is in Victoria, and Jeff is here.  “I’m used to him being far away.”  For me it will be weird getting through the “Meet my crazy friends stage.”  I know he’ll like Kung Fu Mike and vice versa – the rest of them who the hell knows.  It’s not like ALL of my friends are crazy (I can HARDLY WAIT until he meets ScaryClown, he’ll either like him or loathe him, and versy vice) but they are certainly pegged out against the smarter end of the spectrum and they have that delightful Fun Loving, Common Decency, Brutally Practical combination that makes me melt. Melt Melt Melt.  I heart my friends.

My Buffy Valentines are all over the office.  Te hee.

I’m thinking of giving cooking lessons once I’m in the new place.  Everybody tells me I can cook.  Then they wish they could do it.  Oh, I guess this is not the time to start fantasizing about lesson plans. I learned how to cook an omelette in the nuker from Keith the other day…. he fed me last weekend, I guess I forgot to mention it.  Did I mention that I was happy?  Stressed, but happy.

I light a candle for my grannie.  Without going into details, she was in and out of hospital on a pre-existing condition and everything is managed and she slept in her own bed last night.  I am very grateful that she’s living in the same town as relatives who adore her and help her every chance they get. I light a candle for all the grannies who face old age without much help or sympathy.