Category: Domestic Life

Renos

For the next week and a bit, internet access will be a trifle spotty, as we are doing renovations.  So if I’m a day late and a dollar short you’ll surely forgive me.

Tom and Peggy fed us BOTH salmon and roast beast last night, as well as fresh asparagus.  Life is good.  We sang and played but rather briefly.

I think I am allowed to be amused by the paint colour we’ve picked as being ‘dusty road’.  Goodbye snot green walls!  Won’t miss ya.

The four singer songwriters

Alex, may she abide in bliss, has procured a ticket for me for a concert tomorrow night with Joe Ely, John Hiatt, Guy Clark and Lyle Lovett.  As far as I can tell it’s like the male singer-songwriter version of an on-stage slumber party.  I am really looking forward to it.

Unca Dave will be helping Paul, and, as it turns out, Janice, work on the renovations.  Janice is in town to drop Casey off after a visit to Seattle.  Casey has recently been published in On Spec.

Brief visit

Paul used the opportunity, when Tom and Peggy dropped by for tea last night, to show them his 100 year old guitar. It’s not worth much because of all the work it’s had done on it… and it needs more, of course… but when in good fighting trim it’s the loudest 12 string I’ve ever heard. Tom much enjoyed the purfling. I only wrote that because it’s true, and because it’s a unique combination of English words.

I am feeling very blue about everything. I will have to work very hard all weekend to help Paul get the house ready for painting, and since I’ve erased this next part of the sentence four times now, I guess I’ll leave it at that.

Elf Bars (granola bars) – thanks to Jan Maxwell

Made these yesterday. Tonstant Weader will recollect that I ‘had to get’ this recipe, and I did. Now I have cooked them myself, so herewith the recipe.
Preheat oven 325 degrees

  • 3 c rolled oats
  • 1 c chopped nuts
  • 1 cup raisins or dried fruit
  • 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
  • 1 c chocolate chips (or omit)
  • 1 300 ml can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1/2 cup melted butter

Use a lipped 15×10 pan lined with buttered foil.

Mix ingredients very well. When you think they’re mixed, continue mixing for at least another two or three minutes. Press firmly into a pan with a rubber spatula. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes. Cool slightly and cut into bars. (I actually let it cool completely and it worked better for me. I also omitted the chocolate chips but OMG are they good with chocolate chips as well.) Note for next time… I’m going to nuke the condensed milk until it’s runny. I think that will really help.

Wii Party & other stuff

Brother Jerome held a Wii party last night. I mopped the floor with him bowling – the only game I played. Then I had a very satisfactory evening drinking a few beers (Paul found more Lion Winter Ale!), talking to Cam and Yoni (and getting Yoni’s version of Cam’s proposal after I admired her tasteful emerald engagement ring), and watching Margaret, Paul, Keith and Jerome go Rabbid and play golf. The avatar construction was the most fun of all. I wish I had a screen cap of mine. Keith’s looks like a, uh, chemically challenged Weird Al Yankovic.

It was probably too soon for Keith to be out flailing around – he had all four wisdom teeth pulled out on Friday, for gosh sakes – but man, it was nice to see him not thinking about the pain and swelling for a while. He kept some of the teeth, and they are quite impressive. Dr Rondeau actually called him on Saturday to check up on him! Keith, of course, is following the aftercare instructions scrupulously.

Kate is home asleep. There was some kind of emotional upheaval yesterday that got really ugly… details thankfully not available. She claims to be done with Daxus again, but I am past the point of believing it. The lure of his – whatever the hell it is that has such a zombie hold on her – and his family, of whom Katie is inordinately fond – will probably resurface. At last report he was making noises about coming up here. I have to say, Dr. Filk will be disgusted if he shows up when he’s not around to give Dax the welcome he may hastily prepare; Dr. Filk is on the island for the weekend.

Today, more dejunking (we got banker boxes and shredder yesterday) and I’ll be heading over to Tom and Peggy’s to catch a lift to church shortly.

More weather…

This time the weather is gorgeous.  It’s just hanging on the freezing point and gloriously sunny.  The sunlight is bouncing off what’s left of yesterday’s snow in a glorious way.

We ate dinner en famille last night (happens so rarely these days that I must comment… ) I baited the table with sushi.

I bought and tried an ammonia-free glass cleaner last night.  It’s quite expensive, but it really works – the soap scum was leaping off the glass doors in the shower in a most entertaining way.  The brand is Seventh Generation.  Unfortunately for me, cleaning things is going to be my highest priority until the house is sold.  Yeah, I know, cry me a river.

 

Katie’s talking up her next tattoo

A lily, from Strangers in Paradise.

A word about Strangers in Paradise.  There’s Maus, V for Vendetta, Sandman and Strangers in Paradise.  All have brilliance and beauty.  Strangers in Paradise has the advantage of having lots and lots of nice looking females – the other books are thinner on the ground in the pulchritude department.

Hrrm.

Had a second realtor through here today. I must say I prefer this one over the previous one; especially when he cut to brass tacks almost immediately and laid it all out. He confirmed what Paul and I are already thinking, that spending a nickel more than paint and upstairs broadloom would be insanity. Also, and interestingly, he figures that he’ll get out of the all of the houses/condos he owns in or before 2009.

Hrrm. Says Allegra. See previous posts, if you want an idea how I am thinking about this. Current notion is that we anticipate (ernh, who the hell knows) a four person household within about 2 ks of here, most likely closer rather than farther away from the airport. Katie…. ah well. Not much to say there; I spoke to her briefly today and she isn’t coming home tonight and will likely not come home tomorrow.

Back to the grind

Pic is of Smith, Jan’s salamander.

I had a fabulous time at brunch with Tammy, at a place called the Only Cafe which has an AMAZING beer selection, best I’ve seen since Fogg n Sudds closed, then snackies at Jan and Soon’s (where Catherine showed up with major amounts of awesome cheese and crusty bread, AND spiced olives; my small offering of trail mix seemed rather badly thought out!) and then a Sunday dinner en famille at John and Ruth’s where I (as threatened) inspected their children and was filled with pot roast AND approval.

John gave me a lift to the airport, where I came within a hairsbreadth of losing my ID as I stepped out of the car… good thing I didn’t… and then my flight was delayed but once again I was among the last ones on. My seat mate watched most of An Inconvenient Truth with the subtitles on so I got the benefit too. His laptop then died, and I felt like saying, have you considered any of the fine alternative power products manufactured by … but that would have been just plain wrong. My back this morning is a paean of protest, but apart from hearing that Katie’s planning to move out with her boyfriend April 1, Yes, p0p, it’s true, April 1st….. well, other than that I have little to complain about.

Printing out the Valentines

I am almost but not quite overcome by the excitement of my upcoming trip.

Still haven’t got hold of everybody.  This VOIP line is messed up, or nobody in Toronto has an answering machine, or I don’t have the correct numbers.  Or possibly there’s another explanation, but it’s odd, for sure.  Guess I’ll just have to sit in Tammy’s hot tub the whole time, woe is me!!! with a side of snickering.
I am almost, but not quite finished this year’s batch of Valentines.  I am hoping to curry them (courier them???) over to my cow-irkers at the sales & CS meeting, so they can take them to my US cow-irkers later.  The meeting which, once again, I was not invited to attend…. and every year it’s the same thing.  I get all pretend pouty ’cause I wasn’t invited, and then afterwards the participants describe their boredom, frustration and lack of pumped upness in Cecil B. DeMille scale terms. So really it’s good.  And I’m still thrashing my way through a nasty project at work, so it’ll be nice and peaceful while I finish up preparatory to my trip.

Mac and cheese

I taught Keith how to make home made macaroni and cheese.  I asked him to boil up some noodles and he did – rather a lot of them – and he watched me assemble the dish, but now, strangely enough, it’s almost all gone.  This time I cooked it in the dutch oven, and man, what a difference the little crunchy bits at the edges made to the flavour.

Katie didn’t come home last night.  However, I know where she is.