The Hellhole

2011-12-08T20:24:00.000-05:00

I spent the afternoon crying off and on at my desk. We found out today that we have to get some major home repairs done, in the high four figures. This is just after we spent a great deal of money on the bathroom renovation, finished about two days before the news of this latest disaster. It's true that Matt saved us a lot of money by doing the work, for which I am profoundly grateful, but it was still expensive. This new repair is quite a bit more money than we have just lying around, so it'll have to be financed but the amount is so large that financing is going to wreak havoc with our monthly budget.

I feel so sad and defeated.

I know no one wants to read my depressed whinging, so for the second time this year, I'm all done blogging. I think this time it's for good, though. Sayonara.

2011-11-28T17:01:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We certainly did, not once but twice. My brother and his wife were doing the holiday with her family on the actual day, so we didn't have our family get-together until Saturday. Then, because we weren't busy on Thursday, Matt and Tammy invited us to their house so I got two delicious, delectable meals. I also have leftovers from Mom that I am eying for tonight's meal.

Today was Miss Betty's day to clean our house and Alan told me a funny story. As she was about to leave, she called back to him (I guess to tell him she was heading out) and Mister Fusspot made this odd, high-pitched little howlie. Miss Betty hollered, "AAAAAAH! What was THAT?!?"

Alan said, "It was Mister Fusspot."

Miss Betty said, "Oh Lord, I thought it was the spirit of Finnovar!" Apparently she worries about the spirit of Finnovar quite a bit, and expects to see his ghost every time she's over. Alan reassured her that it was most definitely Mister Fusspot. Nonetheless, she thinks Finnovar's hainting the place and keeps a keen lookout.

I rather like the idea of a ghost-cat. I wish he would put in an appearance.

2011-11-16T19:49:00.002-05:00

Gah, I had to go to the doctor AGAIN today. I think I've been to physicians more in the last two months than in the previous decade, and I'm not exaggerating. This time, it was for a dog bite.

Sprocket bit me on Sunday, for which I don't blame him a bit. He has a bacterial infection so in addition to his prescription pills, he has to be regularly laundered with a medical shampoo. This consists of wetting him down and spraying said shampoo all over him, and making him sit wet, cold and miserable for at least 10 minutes for the medicine to work. He has a few raw skin places where he's chewed himself, and I'm sure it stings there. So he was mad, and I truly don't blame him. I'd have bitten me too.

Alan wanted me to go to the emergency room, but I protested partly because I didn't want to go to the ER but also, I was afraid they'd have to report it to Animal Control or something, and I refused adamantly to do anything that might get my precious puppy quarantined or...shudder...worse. So I poured rubbing alcohol all over it, soaked it in alcohol afterward and eventually Neosporined and bandaged it. It hurt a lot but I thought this was because it was so deep. He is a Shih-Tzu (#2 or #3 on the most dangerous breeds list, I believe) and only got me with one fang, but he got me good.

Then today, I had to make a terrible phone call. "It pains me a lot, more than you can know, to say this," I said to Alan.

"What is it?" he asked, fearing the worst, both because of what I said and because I normally don't phone him unless something dire is afoot. Mostly I e-mail and sometimes text.

"[heavy sigh] I really hate to say this, but...well, you were right," I admitted. A few minutes previously, I had gone to the bathroom and hence washed my hands, so I got my Band-Aid wet and needed to change it. Upon actually seeing the wound, it was plain that it was infected - badly - and alcohol and Neosporin weren't going to cut it. I mean, it was well and truly gross.

I phoned The Boss. I told him what had happened and asked if he (thinking he'd be more sympathetic than Alan) really truly thought I really truly needed to go to the doctor, or if more rubbing alcohol would do the trick. The traitor sided with Alan and said for me to go immediately, never mind the afternoon's work, and why the heck didn't I go Sunday when it happened?

I explained that I didn't because I feared for my dog, and did he think they'd have to call Animal Control (like doctors have to if they expect child abuse) in which case I still wasn't going, no matter what. The Boss said it would be fine, to just tell them that we were playing, it got a little rough and when he went for his toy, he missed and nailed me. He said that's what both he and his wife had done when they were badly bitten at separate times by two different pet cats. And the story is totally plausible, because at 13 years old (nearly 14 actually) The Sprock doesn't see all that well anymore, so after The Boss assured me that nothing bad would happen to Sprocket, I phoned the doctor and actually went.

I had SHOTS. PLURAL. SHOTS. If you know me personally, you probably know I have needle-phobia. I can't even watch it on television, and it doesn't have to be something vile like an addict shooting up, it can be on a medical show - I can't stand to look. I asked Dr. Desai if she'd do it further back on my shoulder so I couldn't see it, and she agreed. But still - plural shots!

Immediately after the appointment, I telephoned The Boss, outraged. "You didn't say ANYTHING about shots!" I accused. "I had to have antibiotics and a tetanus too because the last time I had one was over ten years ago when YOU took me to Crawford Long! If I had known shots were on the agenda, I wouldn't have done this!"

"Which is why I didn't tell you about it," replied The Boss, placidly. Sigh. I've worked for him too long; he knows me too well.

2011-11-13T11:06:00.002-05:00

Pondering the mysteries of life, the universe and everything...

Why is there a dart in my kitchen flatware/utensil drawer?

Seriously - why???

2011-11-12T09:06:00.002-05:00

In which your intrepid author catches up to join the 21st century...

Everyone but me may have already known this, but I was so pleasantly surprised last evening. I intended to make a certain dessert for Alan (see previous post) and the recipe called for low-fat Cool Whip. I don't like Cool Whip (hWIP, channelling Stewie Griffin) whether low-fat or otherwise - it's too sweet and has a weird chemical-y taste. So I was going to buy cream and whip it myself, although I had doubts about how that would work within a recipe - was the whipped cream alone good enough? or did it need sugar? if so, how much?

I wandered (lonely as a cloud) through Publix debating this conundrum when I spotted, in the dairy case, right by the Reddi-Wip, cans of actual whipped cream. Publix makes cans of whipped cream that are whipped cream, not foamy perhaps-milk-based whipped dairy-like topping substitute. Ingredients are heavy cream, sugar and 2% milk. They make both heavy and light whipped cream; I bought heavy because I wanted my dessert to be rich. I was so pleased to find not only a shortcut, but a shortcut I could happily use. Alan was quite satisfied with his dessert (baby Boston creme pies) and I am glad to know that for future recipes, I can have actual real whipped cream quickly and easily, without using another mixing bowl and set of beaters.

Maybe everyone knew that already, but previously I thought all one could get in cans was imitation vaguely dairy-like topping substitute and so I was happy to find authentic whipped cream.

2011-11-11T22:28:00.005-05:00

It's All About The Desserts

I made Alan some Baby Boston Creme Pies. They have French vanilla/amaretto filling and a glaze of chocolate ganache. You would be amazed at how easy they were.

However, I am not going to tell you the recipe for how easy they were, because then you might think I am less than a culinary genius/artiste. And I would hate for anyone to suspect the truth.

2011-11-06T19:38:00.003-05:00

Where the heck do people buy bathroom ensembles, should they find themselves in need of one? I know it's possible, I've seen them - not just in magazines, but in some of my friends' houses. Our front bathroom is near enough to completion that it was time to start thinking about towel bars and towels and mats and stuff so we went shopping today. We got some hardware, then went to four different stores (Macy's, JC Penney, Anna's Linens, Bed Bath & Beyond) for the finishing touches, only to find that each place had a hefty assortment of some, and occasionally most, but in no cases all of the stuff I needed all in the same color.

I don't think what I wanted was particularly unusual. I wanted a bath-mat, toilet lid cover, shower curtain and at least two towels all in the same solid color. I want too much, it seems. (Rocky Horror moment: "I ask for NOTHING!" "And you shall receive it - in abundance!") - but really, are those items that autre, and is it that unusual to want them to be the same color? Alan wanted burgundy accessories and I had in mind that dusky purple that is popular right now, but any of several other colors would have worked for us and for the bathroom; however, none of the stores had all of the (four! count 'em, FOUR!) things I wanted in any one color, whether choice one, choice mildly acceptable, choice hideous or otherwise.

It is similar to my problem in buying bathroom hardware - if you need a shower head, you need faucets, and is it really - REALLY?!? - that odd to want them to match? What the hell.

Ultimately, I bought burgundy at Penney's: bath-mat, toilet lid cover and towels. We bought a clear shower curtain liner at Bed, Bath and Beyond but still do not have an actual shower curtain. I shall endeavor to order one online, but while I'm sure they are out there, I won't be able to color-match using my monitor, and mismatched colors will distress me. I'm like that.

I'm not so much p.o.'d at this point as puzzled. Is what I want that unusual? Do people not try to color-coordinate things any more? Why is it apparently impossible to buy a set of things that actually match???

2011-10-24T19:04:00.004-05:00

Way too long between posts but I've had a couple of hurdles, health-wise. After cutting my knee and the sudden, inexplicable foot pain I caught a nasty head-cold which has not fully departed. I still don't know what went wrong/what I did that caused the foot problem but I have an appointment with a podiatrist Wednesday. Almost all the swelling is gone and there is very little pain, so I do not hold out much hope of learning anything from said appointment, but I'm going because, if nothing else, it will placate Alan and The Boss.

This is my last story from our weekend away: the power of being nice. Our first night there, I used a couple of the toiletries the hotel had provided and the shower gel smelled so good. I just loved it. It smells like nothing so much as 'fresh and clean'. I made a mental note of the brand and figured I'd Google to see if it could be ordered online. It can; it's this stuff.

The next morning as we were on our way down for breakfast, we passed the hotel housekeeper in the hall. We spoke to her and chatted for a couple of minutes - 'hey, how's it going, isn't this nice weather, have a good day' sort of general pleasantries. She was still on our floor when we returned from breakfast but this time passing her, Alan noticed a ton of the little shower gels (and soaps and lotions) in her cart. He asked if we could buy a couple. She seemed a little puzzled so he elaborated on how much I liked the shower gel. She said, "No, you can't buy them from me! But you can have some!" She handed me a couple and I thanked her very nicely. She called after us, asking what room we were in and we told her.

Every day when she cleaned our room, she left extras of all the bath products and lotions, and then the morning we were to depart, there was a knock at our door. She handed Alan a plastic bag FULL of the shower gel. This is what I have left over after using it every day and giving some to my mom:

It turns out that they sell the stuff in the hotel gift shop, and if she'd directed me there, I would have thought nothing of it and thanked her for the info. Instead, I believe because we chatted with her and treated her like an actual person instead of "the help", she was extra nice to us - and we left her an extra-nice tip. The warm and fuzzy goes around.

And the shower gel smells fabulous.

2011-10-15T22:05:00.006-05:00

It Wouldn't Be Me Without A Disaster

So, I was silly enough to think we could have a long weekend/mini-vacation along with rejoicing at the reduced/subsidized cost so I didn't have to fret that I'd spent money (which is genetic - I'd fret about it no matter how much we had in the bank) but of course it didn't end that way at all. Everything was wonderful, fun and lovely until Sunday when we left for dinner - which was delicious, relaxing, elegant and delectable despite Fate's efforts, so HA! on her. We were walking through the lobby on our way out of the lodge. The lobby has these slate tiles that are not uneven, exactly, but are textured like natural stone, with teeny tiny ridges. A toddler could do it, which obviously means I was unequal to the challenge. I caught the toe of my right shoe on the tiniest of ridges and pitched forward, all my weight going down on my left knee.

Now, to most anyone else this would be an embarrassment (trust me, I was embarrassed) and maybe a bruise, but not much else. Not so your faithful narrator! Real-life friends might remember about ten years ago, I took a fall on a downtown Atlanta street while I was out at lunch, making the bank deposits and getting a sammich. Me being me, I couldn't fall on the 78 thousand acres of cement in downtown Atlanta; no, I had to fall smack in the middle of a sidewalk grate and this split my knee wide open. It hurt, but I didn't realize how bad it was until I'd walked back to my building and gone upstairs to my office. I had on black pantyhose, which were in shreds, so I went to the ladies' room to remove them and clean up what I thought was a scrape. I'll spare you the details but what was seen cannot be unseen.

My boss says he'll never forget this moment. I came into his office, sat down in one of the visitors' chairs and waited quietly while he finished up his phone call. Then I said calmly, "Hey, I don't mean to be a pussy or anything, but I think you need to take me to the emergency room." The only reason I was bothering him was that I (then, and still two cars later) had a stick shift, it was my left knee and I didn't think I could clutch properly. He took me to Crawford Long, where it took eighteen stitches, seven of them subcutaneous, to close up my knee.

Back to present day, when I stumbled in the lobby and went down on my knee, I managed to bust my knee wide open right across the ridge of scar tissue from the above incident. Alan and Mom wanted me to go to urgent care but I refused to spend the last evening of my far-too-short, far-too-infrequent vacations sitting in a waiting room waiting to be punctured. We went to dinner, had a fabulous time, it was GREAT. Alan agreed that I could disinfect and bandage the wound but if it showed signs of infection, it was off to the ER for me. I conceded.

Now, if I'd written this post earlier, it would have ended here - haha, my klutzy ass and another misadventure! But wait there's more.

Ever since I glued and bandaged my knee (no, not with antifungal nail glue, this stuff called New Skin that's made for that purpose, though I can't blame anyone who knows me for thinking nail glue, or maybe Elmer's), I've been completely fine. We went to brunch Monday, came home and unpacked, I went back to work, drove my car, ran errands, all was normal. I walked a bit differently and maybe hesitantly, trying not to re-open the wound but I had no pain or difficulties.

Thursday when I woke up, a place on the side of my foot was aching, rather like a bruise, but it didn't hurt particularly badly so although I noticed, I didn't think much of it. By 1PM or 2PM that day, however, my foot had swollen to clownlike proportions, was throbbing so badly I was crying at my desk, and I couldn't bear to put any weight on it whatsoever, not even to stagger three steps to my mini-fridge for a water. I work in the middle of a giant office complex and I couldn't imagine how I was going to get all the way through the labyrinth of my building, across another building and to my parking deck, much less home, since I couldn't even walk to my file cabinet. It was horrible. And of course the twisted Helly humor is there because if someone asked me, "What happened to your foot?", I'd have to say "I don't know," because I didn't do ANYTHING to my foot, I cut my knee!

In order to get me home , Matt dropped Alan off at my office, he had to fetch a wheelchair from Medical and ferry my butt out of the complex in a wheelchair! AAAAAAAAAAAGH! The humiliation! People were looking at me! Y'all know I hate that! Again Alan wanted the doctor; again I rebelled. We compromised. I would be allowed the evening to use cold compresses, elevation, aspirin and horsey liniment (don't laugh, horsey liniment is better than anything I know for backaches, muscle soreness, tendon pulls...) but if there was no progress, I was doctor-bound.

Ahem. So, starting yesterday at 10:30, I spent the day between the doctor's office and Rockdale Medical being x-rayed. We still don't know what I've done, whether it's a severe sprain from walking oddly to pamper the knee or a stress fracture or something else. I have prescriptions, plural - and I hate taking pills almost as much as I hate people looking at me or going to the doctor. So I've done something horribly painful to myself but I'm not sure what yet. I go back Monday at 2PM for results.

Oh, P.S., Dr. Desai says my knee is fine, cut healing nicely, no signs of infection or any damage to the kneecap itself. It figures.

2011-10-14T20:50:00.000-05:00

At the resort, we were allotted one snail, and cautioned not to squander it.

2011-10-11T21:00:00.002-05:00

It occurs to me that I haven't updated you guys on the story of Kismet, the little kitty Anne and I rescued. We were not successful in finding her a forever home and both husbands were against granting her even prolonged visitor status, so I begged and begged my mom to foster her. I shed actual tears (as opposed to for-dramatic-effect tears, which I'm pretty good at, but the real kind I don't do very much). I promised to subsidize vet bills and continue our adoption efforts. Mom whined, "But that just won't work! Even if the boys [her two dogs] don't hurt her, I'll have her for two or three days and I'll get attached and I'll love her and even if you find someone who wants her, by then I won't give her up to anyone!"

I replied, "Yes, I know. Thus the basis of my cunning plan."

Mom hung up on me but after a few minutes she called back, relenting, but only for a while until Anne and I found Kismet a home. By the time I got the reminder card from my vet that Kismet needed her kitty booster vaccines, Mom had already bought Kismet dishes, a kitty bed, a scratching post, a better litterbox than I provided and some toys. I think I'd get my eyes clawed out, and not by a kitty, if I tried to place her elsewhere. YES! SUCCESS!

I'll post new pictures next time we hang out at Mom's.

2011-10-10T12:23:00.024-05:00

Back on September 7, I was lamenting the fact that another summer had come and gone without us being able to take a vacation. We still haven't, exactly, but we did get a long weekend at a fantastic resort.
These folks are one of our advertising clients and the guy with whom we interface had told The Boss he'd offer a special 'friend' rate if he wanted to go up sometime, which he did. Later on, The Boss said he could get us that special rate and also offered to subsidize our stay, up to a certain amount, as my birthday present! Yay! So we chose this past weekend. I left a bit early on Friday, hoping to drive up before metro Atlanta rush hour started (a plan which crashed and burned most spectacularly, but that's okay).

When we got there, our client had set us up not with a room but a suite - a HUGE suite - I think it's about half as big as our house, seriously. It was gorgeous.

This is only part of one of the three rooms. They take their luxury seriously. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

French doors looking into our bedroom, from whence another balcony opened.

Friday we had a nice dinner at one of the restaurants on the property; I drank a Cosmopolitan, one of which I hadn't had for quite some time and so enjoyed immensely, went for a pleasant walk afterward and then relaxed with a Pelligrino (him) and a glass of wine (me) on one of our balconies (yes, plural, ha!) enjoying the breeze and listening to the sound of the water. Heavenly.

Saturday after a yummy breakfast buffet, we made a run to a nearby Publix. Water and sodas from the machine were $2.00 each so we bought a bag of ice, a cheap styrofoam cooler and our own bottled waters, plus a few Rolling Rocks for me. We explored the beautifully landscaped property and hung out variously on balcony and couch, reading books and being fantastically lazy. We took many pictures of passing boats and planned to rent one for a couple of hours Sunday, but that didn't work out because the day was very windy and it would have been too cold to be out on the water. However, we did rent a golf cart for an hour and zipped about all over the resort - there are many things besides the lodge: a water park, stables, a spa, lake houses and condos you can rent if you don't want to stay in the lodge itself, and the entirety is delightfully landscaped and well maintained.

We ate two lovely meals here and here. We are definitely going back to Aqua Terra, despite the distance, because it was just that gastronomically amazing. If you go to their site and check out the menu, I had the grilled salmon, Alan had the rib eye and Mom had the scallops. Oh yeah, Mom drove up to hang out with us Sunday and go golf-carting, which was very fun. She got lost in a roundabout getting there, which I find funny but it's okay for me to poke fun on the blog because I already teased her about it in person. Oh, and Nancy? If you're reading this, you and Mark are legally obligated to join us at Aqua Terra for dinner sometime, preferably in the near future.

I overpacked as usual but this time, it wasn't entirely my fault. This place is about an hour north of Atlanta so I didn't expect it to be any different from home, weather-wise, except that it would probably dip down a few more degrees cooler at night. So I packed both my black and faded denim skorts and three t-shirts, as well as an extra pair of jeans and two long-sleeved shirts. However, the wind off the water was really cold! Sitting in the car wearing a sweatshirt, I was too hot but once outside, there was no question of me putting on a short-sleeved shirt or a skort. We even bought a sweatshirt for me at the gift shop, because the long-sleeved cotton shirts (with camisoles!) I'd brought weren't nearly warm enough. We bought Alan a sweatshirt too, but his was more a souvenir than a necessity. Each day I wound up changing tops several times, totally unlike me, because I couldn't seem to get the right clothing-to-ambient-temperature ratio figured out.

There are more vacation anecdotes to follow, involving snails, the power of being nice, and 'it wouldn't be me without a disaster' but I'll conclude this post with more pictures that I liked.

2011-10-03T18:52:00.016-05:00

For the Wilco concert, we stayed across the street from the Cobb Energy Centre at an Embassy Suites hotel, where they upgraded us to a suite for free (yay!!!). Straightaway, I thought of my pal Delaine, who loves the harvest gold, because the recently redecorated, very new stuff in the room was all harvest gold. Here are some photos - quality is not that great because they were taken with my phone instead of my Canon. Note the swirly harvest gold carpeting!

There was also this weird 70s lamp.

I took this picture of another harvest gold chair (I know it looks kinda reddish but it wasn't) and I was going to write something funny about having tossed my jeans across the bed, about narrowly missing being caught in the mirror pantsless.

And then I decided to throw caution to the winds and show y'all me in the mirror pantsless anyway, which is funnier than a near miss.

Alan bought me a Wilco t-shirt with a pouty little girl crossing her arms. Art imitating life, as it were.

2011-10-01T22:27:00.005-05:00

So on Thursday we went to see Wilco here. I have many great compliments to pay about that venue. The acoustics were fabulous, everyone was friendly and the seating was great. I can't exaggerate how wonderful the sound is at that place. Nick Lowe opened for Wilco and he plus his guitar was a fantastic opening act. I didn't care one way or the other going into it, but OH. MY. GOODNESS., was he great! If he were to tour by himself, I'd very much like to see his show - he was that good.

Then Wilco came on and did about 9 songs off their new album, and the rest off the other...seven? yes, seven, I think, though Alan is much more the Wilco fan. They did 2 of my 3 favorites but I missed "Handshake Drugs". "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" and "A Shot In The Arm" are my other most preciouses, and off the new album I like "I Might" and "Dawned On Me". It was a wonderful show and the sound was incredible. Loud doesn't equal superlative, and it's great when bands realize this and mix accordingly.

After seeing Wilco in Montgomery, and loving the way that we walked out of the concert, down the hall to the elevator and up to our room, instead of fighting traffic out of the parking deck and driving an hour to get home, we decided to stay right by the Cobb Energy Centre. We stayed at an Embassy Suites which, when we got there, did not have our room ready. We were carefree about it and said we'd go get a snack while we waited, but the receptionist kept offering up options. We could have a room with double beds instead of a king! (No.) We could have one without a bathtub, just a shower! (No.) We could have a smoking room! (No. Really, it's fine, we'll just go over here and have a snack, and you let us know.) Well, what if we give you a suite at no additional charge? (No, really, it's oka-wait, what? Yeah, yeah, that will do!) So we got a suite for the night at the cost of a room, YEAAAAH!

We ate a leisurely dinner at the hotel restaurant, which was full of dorks, furries and anime fans because an anime con was starting the following day. People-watching was good at that meal, let me tell you. Then we walked across to the concert, and I was totally THRILLED because we saw the guys who sat in the row in front of us at Wilco-Montgomery!

We had been talking about them and hoping we'd see them, after they chatted with us and hung out a bit at the earlier show, but it seemed like such a long shot that we didn't really expect to run into them. After locating our (CHOICE!!!) seats, I decided to go buy a drink and while I was waiting in line, I saw the guys walk past. I pointed at one of them and called, "Hey! Don't I know you from Montgomery?!?" It was so fun, because they had been talking about us too, and saying, 'I wonder if we'll see that couple from Conyers?' - and they came over and we talked a bit before Nick Lowe took the stage.

It was a great concert - the band was wonderful. Nels Cline is great, Glenn Kotche is incredible, and don't even get me started on the innovation, imagery and artistry that is Jeff Tweedy. W00t, it was too much fun, and then today I went to my friend Brooke's birthday Barbie Glam Party!

Okay, my friend Brooke just turned four - I brought two sparkly fairy Barbies and I actually frosted cupcakes (hey, I love Brooke and her parents). We made nacho cups and Mexican dips and a Barbie cake - well, really Beth and Tammy made the Barbie cake, I just observed. There was a bouncy castle with a giant slide...I'm kind of pissed because at NONE of my birthdays did I ever have a bouncy castle with a slide - but I guess it doesn't help to be bitter. Still. Bouncy castle. I want one. And Wilco playing in the backyard.

2011-09-30T15:44:00.003-05:00

I have much about which to write - there were concerts and adventures and such. But in the meantime, my husband transferred pictures from my phone to my Mac-mini, and I became intrigued. What was this a picture of? Why had I taken it? Was there fire? (Guess, who knows, and no).

First correct guess wins a valuable Hellhole prize, and it's been way too long since I gave away a prize, so I'll make this one good.

Hint: it's not The Edge in an arty avant-garde U2 video. It's a real picture I took.

2011-09-20T16:14:00.003-05:00

Last night was one of the best concerts EVER, a tsunami of pure awesomeness. We went to see the Adrian Belew Power Trio and the Stick Men at Variety Playhouse. Hmm, which was the best part? Sleepless? No. Having tickets that included soundcheck and a meet-and-greet! No, wait - Thela Hun Ginjeet! Definitely Thela. No, it was introducing Adrian and my brother by saying, "Mr. Belew? Mr. Ballew". Wait, but then there was getting some DVD swag and CD goodness. But getting Adrian, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Julie Slick and Tobias Ralph to sign said swag was even cooler. Hanging out with Bo and Sarah is always a great time too. No, wait, Frame By Frame! B'Boom! Elephant Talk! Three of A Perfect Pair!!

No, wait, I've decided! The really really best part was DINOSAUR!

Except I left out talking to Tony Levin! I said, "I can't think of anything to say without sounding like a total syncophantic fanboy, so I'm just going to say thank you for all the great music." He laughed and said, "You are so very welcome! But whatever you said, it would have been fine." OMG, Alan just noticed something and now I have yet another Best Thing! Look! There are two pictures of me (and Bo and Sarah and one of Alan!) on Tony Levin's web page!

Now that you've read my review of the Best. Concert. EVAH., here is Alan's take on events: all I heard was a bunch of noodley prog-rock guitar wankery and atonal honking, but in the middle of the noodliest, honkingest parts, every time I looked over at Helly and Bo, I could tell they were following along note for note with the music and knew the entire piece by heart.

Why yes. Yes we did. And remember, making fun of my prog-rock gods is no way to get laid, son.

2011-09-19T12:43:00.003-05:00

Our front room a little bit, and our garage a lot, is full of construction implements and tools and supplies - drywall, insulation, tile, grout mix, sharp metal things I'm not allowed to touch. Thus far during the renovation process I've been very good about not running over anything and damaging a precious Pole Position tyre but Friday when I arrived home, I ran over a piece of drywall. I caught my mistake quickly and while most of the piece was intact, a corner was shattered into dust. After ascertaining that I hadn't damaged the Hellmobile, I went inside and told Alan what had happened.

He looked shocked. "Have you told Matt?" he asked. "What did Matt say?"

Well, no, I hadn't because I was worried that Matt would be angry with me, but I bravely trooped up front and confessed to him what I'd done.

"WHAT?!?!" he shrieked. "That was my MOST CRITICAL piece of drywall!!!!"

His outrage was palpable, yet he was totally kidding. Gawd, I love Matt. (and his wife and his kidlets. They're great too.)

2011-09-17T13:58:00.004-05:00

In which we are most politically incorrect...

We are out running errands and I am surfing SiriusXM in search of a good song. There is, unusually for them, a plethora of terrible things on the airwaves. Things like Pearl Jam and Depeche Mode. I find something tolerable (Gorillaz) but all too soon, the song gives way to something new that I've never heard before.

Me: What the hell is this crap?
Alan: (looking disgusted) I don't know, but whatever it is, change it. It sounds gay.
Me: [pushing channel buttons, not even bothering with the info button that would have told us title and artist]
Alan: And not gay in a good way, like coming over and redecorating your house, and helping you match clothes when you don't have a girlfriend. Bad gay, like talking all the time about the hot sex with his boyfriend.
Me: And then getting all whiny and depressed because they broke up, and staying way too late at your house crying into his wine cooler.
Alan: Exactly!

(I find Metallica. Our world makes sense again.)

2011-09-10T21:47:00.004-05:00

Anne and I rescued a stray today. You might remember that our most recent previous effort went well, and we plan to maintain our 100% success rate.

On Wednesday, Anne went out walking her dog Bailey (our first success story!). As they were returning home, passing the house next door to hers, which has been vacant for a couple of years, they were joined on the walk by a lovely gray tabby cat, who cuddled up to Anne and purred, and accepted food and scritches. Anne could tell she was a stray, probably abandoned, so she called me, knowing I've been miserable in my kittyless state since late January. She explained that she'd found the sweetest, most loving little girl and said, "This may be kismet. You want a kitty, she needs a home."

I asked Alan but he doesn't want another pet and/or a cat. So be it, he's home all day, he's the one that will have to deal with most of...whatever, I get that. But still, we were committed to feeding the baby and keeping her safe while we tried to find her a home, so Anne did what she could.

Then the kitty disappeared for a day, reappearing early this afternoon. We went over to Anne and Rick's house, bearing bags of canned food and some treats, and walked over to her hiding place to give her some food. As she ate, we noticed that one of her back paws was swollen to about 2.5 times the size it should be, so Anne and I sprang into action! It was after both our vets' offices had closed, so Alan and I decided to make our grocery run as planned, giving the kitty time to digest her can, and then return to take her to the emergency vet.

It turns out that she had an abscess on her foot, probably the result of some other animal's bite. She is between six and eight months old, has some mild ear mites but is otherwise healthy. She is currently installed in Anne's sunroom with food, water, treats, a bed and litterbox. Anne and I both want very much to keep her, but both our husbands are steadfastly against it. So a sweet baby needs a forever home!

She is very sweet and loving, obviously used to humans and well socialized. Even after we stuffed her into a plastic box, took her to a strange and scary place where people prodded and hurt her, and took her to another strange scary place with new and strange smells (no, I'm not talking about Anne's husband Rick, I meant their dog Bailey), she purred and purred, and rolled over for us to scratch her tummy. Even with her bum leg, she was leaning so she could rub, rub, rub against our legs, all the while purring loudly to eleven.

At the emergency vet, a lot of the blanks on the form we had to answer with a '?'. Obviously we knew she was a feline, DSH, but her age? Last vaccines? What had actually happened? No clue. Then we got to the blank for 'pet's name' and (hey, we're chicks) we felt so horribly emotional about filling that in with a question mark or a N/A...so Anne asked, "What should we put?"

"Kismet," I answered. "You named her. The night you called me to tell me you'd found her, you said, 'This may be kismet', and so it is. It's Kismet."

This is Kismet. If you can give her a loving, forever home, let us know. But wait, there's more! We will sweeten the deal! I paid for the emergency vet, I'll pay for her visit to our regular vet on Monday for vaccinations, parasite testing, etc., and another animal-loving friend of ours has agreed to cover the costs for her spay! We'll provide a bag of Blue Buffalo kitty-chow and a litterbox - so you can have a total loving, purring snugglebug at little to no initial investment! She only requires lots of love!

And we'll be checking up on you to make sure you give it. It's kind of what we do.

2011-09-07T19:35:00.012-05:00

Another Labor Day passes, heralding the end of the summer holiday season, and once again we've not gone on a vacation anywhere. Every year for the past three or four, we swear that we are not going to let summer get away from us without taking a trip, and every year, work/projects/life intrudes and we keep putting it off, and now here we are. Sigh. Still, I suppose it's best that we didn't spend any money on a week at the beach this year, since we're having to pay a good bit for the renovations at The Hellhole. Of course, Matt is saving us tons of money but there's a lot that needs replacing/repairing even so.

On that note, I have been extremely irked trying to buy bathroom hardware/fixtures. You would think that big companies like Price Pfister, Moen, Delta, etc. would make matching sink, bathtub and shower fixtures, but if you thought that (like I did) you'd be WRONG. Every time I found, say, shower/tub handles that I liked, I looked for the corresponding model/line in a sink faucet but it either didn't exist, or didn't exist in the size I needed. This happened going the other way, too, finding a nice sink faucet assembly and trying in vain to match the shower stuff to it. I mean, I realize that matching is a very big thing for me, but wouldn't that be logical for most people? If you wanted this design/finish for one area, wouldn't you want the other to match? In the end, it doesn't really. The items are the same color (oil rubbed bronze in one bathroom, brushed nickel in the other) and similar in design, but not exactly the same. That's just weird to me - wouldn't a contractor, especially, just want to buy 25 bathroom's worth of XYZ, and not spend hours on the internet trying to match it to something that's kinda/sorta like it for the other area? Grrr.

It wasn't like I was making my job more difficult by only looking at sale/closeout items. I was just looking wherever, for something I liked. I mean, I wasn't going to get ridiculous about it and spend nearly two thousand dollars for a bathtub faucet (I'm so not kidding - did you know that was even POSSIBLE? I didn't a week ago...) but honestly I was more concerned with looks, quality and functionality more than price. I wanted something I liked, since I'm going to have to live with it for quite some time, though like I wrote I wasn't going to be stupid about it either.

If you're interested, this is the faucet for the front bathroom and this one is going in the master. If you hate them, don't tell me; I'm already disgruntled enough about everything not matching perfectly. We've replaced a lot of accessories and stuff in the master: towel bar, shower curtain rod, tp holder, hand towel rack, soap dish, trash can, switchplates and sanitizer dispensers, and it doesn't exactly all match each other, though it is all brushed nickel and similar in design. I'm going to try to do that up front as well.

We also continued the brushed nickel theme into the master bedroom, replacing the curtain rods and hanging hardware. I ordered some new curtains from JC Penney last weekend and they're supposed to be here Friday - I got the scarf valance and two panels per window in "seagrass". (Link is weird because it's Flash and not a jpg, but what I'm going to do is the 4th little picture across the bottom, two straight panels and the draped valance.) I've had the same draperies in the bedroom since I moved in more years ago than I care to think about; I suppose it was about time. This sort of continues the theme for the bathroom where I've had brushed nickel curtain holders for some time, and swagged a sheer valance across the top like I'll do with the scarf panel. I am very fond of those curtain holders; they are topped by small globes of pink depression glass. Real pink depression glass, so let's not talk about how expensive certain faucets/hardware are, or it might occur to Alan to ask about those curtain holders, even though they were purchased way back in the pre-Alan days. Hmm...I'm pretty sure I paid my mom back for those.

2011-08-27T20:53:00.003-05:00

Bo And Phil Would Be Appalled

I meant to blog about this earlier in the week but forgot. When we were leaving Bed, Bath & Beyond last Sunday, parked right beside my car was what at first looked like its identical twin. Closer examination revealed it to be a SL 550, the far hooptier big brother of my car. These start - start - at $103,000. So after I get into my car, I'm scoping it out and assessing the two and I notice the 550's tyres.

They have put Yokohama tyres on this car. Really? REALLY, Mr. SL 550? You bought a car that cost over a hundred grand and shod it in Yokofreakinhama tyres?!? We have better tyres on the 2000 Saturn, no lie. I couldn't get past it for days and walked around muttering, "Yokohama?!? What were you thinking?!?" They weren't even low-profile ones.

I have Bridgestone Potenza Pole Position tyres on mine. It had Continentals on it when I bought it but as they wore out, I replaced them with Potenzas - you know, actual high-performance tyres intended for a sports car.

You disappoint me, Mr. SL 550. You cut me deep.

2011-08-22T17:31:00.005-05:00

Delicious New Recipe

Over the weekend we made Ina Garten's mushroom lasagna. I changed a few things about her recipe, though. The most important thing - for the love of all that's holy, unless you suspect that your kitchen is about to be invaded by a horde of starving vegetarians, halve the recipe! That's halved, right there, filling a standard 7" x 11" baking dish to the brim.

Second thing: when I saw her make it on television, she used blue oyster and some other exotic type mushroom, not portobellos as it's written. At our grocery store, they often (but not always) have this 'exotic mushroom blend' over in produce which is portobellos, shiitakes, oysters and chanterelles, so I used the blend instead of only portobellos.

Lastly, I also finely minced some cloves of garlic, about two tablespoons I'd guess, though it can be varied according to how much you do or don't love garlic. I made this addition because, to quote Alton Brown, "garlic don't need no reason!".

A plated slice, along with a grilled marinated chicken breast.

Oh, and if you make it - splurge and get a good wedge of imported Parmesan and grate it yourself; don't use the jar of pre-grated Kraft. I'm not a cheese snob (okay, maybe I am) but it's not like there isn't a jar of Kraft in the fridge for me to sprinkle on spaghetti. But in this case it's more of an ingredient than a condiment, so get the good stuff. Bon appetit!

2011-08-21T09:48:00.002-05:00

I wish I were more like my friend Tammy. Recent text from her: "If you need help picking out your bathroom stuff, I'm your girl. It is fun remodeling. I actually enjoy it. I did our entire basement colors and the bathroom (except the tile)." I really wish I could see it that way, like a fun project instead of a huge ginormous hassle that I can't wait to be over.

2011-08-20T17:11:00.003-05:00

We have just returned home from Bed, Bath & Beyond where I purchased all new hardware for the master bathroom and bedroom (for shower rod, towel rods, TP holder, bedroom curtains and the like). I am installing same.

"ALAN! ALLLLLL-AN! Do you have a drill? It says I need a five-sixteenths drill bit! To drill a hole!"

Alan: No, I don't have a drill anymore. It died, remember? But I'm sure Matt does.

(Matt is renovating the front bathroom and many of his tools are in our garage and front room. Alan goes about searching, I go to the garage and obtain a ball peen hammer).

Me [singsong]: Never mind, it's okay, I don't need a drill anyway. Total superfluousness.

Alan, seeing me walk industriously by carrying a hammer: Oh God. Just kill me now.

2011-08-20T13:30:00.004-05:00

I do some boneheaded things sometimes, as regular readers or people who know me personally will attest. Today after errands, I was bustling about the kitchen putting our groceries away - cabinet, fridge, fruit bowl, vegetable basket, repeat. For no discernible reason (even to me) I put Alan's new stick of underarm deodorant into the refrigerator and left the sour cream on the counter, for placement in the hall closet momentarily.

Back at the fridge to put all the cheeses into the cheese drawer, I noticed what I'd done and removed it. Alan observed this from across the room.

"That would be way too cold in the morning! Why did you do that, sweetie?"

"[not wanting to admit I'm a dumbass] To teach you a lesson!"

"A lesson?"

"Yes! I don't know what lesson that might be, but it would definitely teach you one!"

"Um...okay?"

"I mean, that'll show you!"

"I can see that there is definitely a lesson to be learned here. I'm not sure what it is, but it would certainly be a learning experience."

"Yes! My point exactly!"

"Because I said so! I'll give you something to cry about! Because I'm the parent, that's why! You'll know better next time! Don't look at me in that tone of voice! Don't make me stop this car!"

2011-08-13T09:42:00.004-05:00

Pant(ie)s On The Ground

Yesterday Matt was leaving after another hard day of Hellhole restoration, and Alan walked outside with him, chatting and saying goodbye. Then Matt spied, right there on our lawn, a pair of my panties (beige, lacy ones). Alan picked them up and walked back inside to ask me what the hell, how did my panties end up on our lawn?!?

They WEREN'T my panties.

I wear one particular style (bikini) which these weren't, and 90% of mine I get at Vicky's, though I might occasionally buy elsewhere if there's a sale or something. These were bordering on Granny-Panties, though they had a nice lace-trimmed border. I went back outside to ask Matt if maybe they belonged to his wife and had fallen out of his car somehow, stuck to his jeans leg like a dryer sheet or something. No - Tammy wears (as I understand it, not having firsthand knowledge) exclusively a totally 'nother style.

So.

How did some unknown person's random pair of underpants wind up on my lawn???? Especially given that the two houses on either side of us are vacant and that my subdivision is populated by OAPs who are not the sort to engage in sudden, unexpected lawn sex, much less on someone else's lawn.

Discuss.

2011-08-12T20:01:00.005-05:00

In which I wintificate...

Last Friday I went to my favorite booze-a-rama where Cindy, my trusted sommelier, holds court. She often makes recommendations to me and now that she knows a good bit about my taste, she's usually not wrong. Even if something is not an instant new favorite, at least I can tell what she thought I'd find interesting or appealing about it. So on Friday I bought a couple of standards and a couple of new things she recommended. One of them, a white wine, I'd saved for last and only tried yesterday, thinking I'd like it the best of the new recommendations, because she described it as "aromatic, but dry, which I know you like, but I mean BONE DRY, it's almost crunchy" - yessss, I like dry. I don't like sweet like I'm drinking Kool-Aid. Sec est bonne.

The wine she sold me was called Rot Gut Fleur...no, wait, that's not quite right...Rotgipfler. She said a wine salesman she dealt with was surprised and disbelieving. "Where did you find ROTGIPFLER?!? There are like two vineyards in the world producing Rotgipfler and no one imports to the States!" He's mostly right; it seems less than 300 (292, if we're being particular) acres of Rotgipfler grapes are being cultivated. If you didn't realize (I didn't) Rotgipfler is the varietal itself (as in cabernet, pinot gris, merlot, chardonnay, etc.) and it is, at least as far as I've learned so far, exclusive to Austria.

Rot Gut Fleur = GOOOOOOOOOOD.

Here's the vintner that produced my Rot Gut; he's about 30 km south of Vienna. There are 4 acres of Rot Gut Fleur being grown near Tattendorf, and that's about it. So it's scarce and I daresay not something you'd find in the wine aisle at your local grocery, but if you can get some at your booze-a-rama, I highly recommend picking some up. Especially the Johanneshof Reinisch.

I had to exert a real, Herculean effort to keep myself from drinking it all. At some point, probably tomorrow, I'm making Ina Garten's lemon/garlic chicken, (with Basmati rice) which calls for a cup or so of dry white wine. I made it 10 - 12 days ago with my "everyday favorite", Chateau St. Michele Riesling, but I can't WAIT to try it with the Rot Gut.

Alan says we can go see Cindy tomorrow to buy another bottle or two of Rot Gut - y'all want to come over???

2011-08-07T22:03:00.004-05:00

A post...and a question.

OMG, this is AWFUL. As I may have mentioned, renovations are underway here at The Hellhole, and our front bathroom is totally gutted. I love our contractor, who is my brother Matt, and none of this is his fault, but still, the front bathroom is off limits. This leaves us with one other bathroom, which is a complete bathroom in the sense that it has a sink and a toilet and a...cleaning facility. But the thing is, it has a beautiful ivory-tiled shower stall but that's it - no tub.

I don't take showers. I never have. I do not like. Understand, I'm not stinky: I take baths. I take lots of baths, sometimes more than one per day, and I spend far more than one probably should on scented soaps and bubbles and oils....oh, the loveliness of a hot bubble bath with tons of scented bubbles and a glass of wine and a bath pillow and probably a candle - like in a movie probably starring Marilyn. I like it that way, so I baff, I don't shower. But right now, I have no choice so I've been stuck and - WHAT THE HELL. How do you chicks do this??? I mean, I'm forty-something and I've never had to shave my legs in any way other than, prop it on the side of the tub, soap it up and leisurely do one's grooming. Now, it's like put the leg up over my head on slippery tile and hope for the best, as I pray I don't fall down go boom, or bend over to get shot in the eye with jets of water, and not get the job done properly...really, WHAT THE HELL??? I'm not going to have a REAL bathtub for at least a couple more weeks, despite Matthew's best efforts, so how do I keep from becoming Bigfoot in the meantime???

How do you showering chicks cope? I need to know. Now, before I drown mah self.

2011-08-07T00:22:00.006-05:00

WHOA!!! EXCITEMENTS!!!

Okay, so Alan and I went to this concert at Variety Playhouse and a good time was had by all, and they played "I'll Fly Away" and "Jackson" which was awesome and then we came home and I had to go to the bathroom to widdle, which I did, and then we were surfing and doing computer stuffs, and then Alan wanted to widdle, which he did except when he finished we didn't have any water for the flushening.

I felt sure I'd paid the bill.

Why was there no water???

Alan took a flashlight and went outside, scoping. Perhaps he thought he'd see a major breakdown. Or a broken pipe lying in the street or something. Or at the very least, a reason why we had no water.

Nothing happened, nothing was seen. But then THE COPS ARRIVED!!!!

Four cop cars were outside our house, surrounding our next door neighbors' place WITH GUNS DRAWN. They were storming her Florida room like it was the beach at Normandy. We were all, like, WTF??? But they were very interested, doing this military surround maneuver, so I said, "Let's go tell them we have a key, if they are really interested in storming the place, we can let them in," and Alan's stance was, "Yeah, good, but let's go around front where the spotlights are, not around the back way where officers are creeping with guns drawn!"

So we went around frontwise and talked to the cops, who as it turns out had ZERO interest in getting into the house next door, but had been summoned because the guy across the street had seen a suspicious figure lurking around with a flashlight. Being all suspicious and shit. Which if you'd paid attention, you'd have known was my husband looking for our water meter. !!!!

The cops told us a water main had busted. I said thank you for looking out for us and coming so quickly for what turned out to be no reason. They were really sweet and said they'd rather have a hundred false alarms than one really bad thing. I heart the Conyers cops. Saturday excitements.

2011-08-06T15:41:00.002-05:00

Just bought tickets to see Adrian Belew's Power Trio and The Stick Men (Tony Levin & Pat Mastelotto) at Variety Playhouse on September 19. I bought VIP tickets that include soundcheck and a meet-and-greet. To say I am a happy girl would be a massive understatement. But wait there's more! The sibling and his wife are going to the show too! And maybe Matt!

Life is good.

2011-07-31T09:23:00.001-05:00

Commenting over on Neil H.'s blog, my word verification was "slusnulk". I think that sounds like a Lewis Carroll beastie - like after they finish with the hunting of the snark, they're off to slay the slusnulk.

2011-07-27T19:08:00.001-05:00

To work today I wore a multi-colored turquoise dress with a tank-top style neck. At around 3PM, I happened to look down as I was scratching my shoulder, and realized I had been wearing my dress backward, all day.

2011-07-25T20:01:00.001-05:00

This is my favorite song of the moment. Alan likes Wilco very much; in fact, they may be either his favorite band or his favorite band other than Radiohead. We went to see them perform in Montgomery back in May, and have tickets for an Atlanta show coming up in September. While I think the band is extraordinarily talented (Glenn Kotche is a supremely great drummer!) and enjoyed the show very much, in general they're a bit too mellow for my taste. But when they perfom live, they rock harder so I like those versions more. This is my other favorite of theirs. Alan likes "Impossible Germany".

I want to know, though, what on earth Mr. Tweedy means by, "Take off your Band-Aid because I don't believe in touchdowns". WTF?

At the show in Montgomery, he was clearly amused by something, then pointed out this fellow in the audience and said, "That guy looks just like my cousin Frosty!" The fact that someone has a Cousin Frosty is, in my opinion, truly awesome.

2011-07-24T11:56:00.004-05:00

My telephone rings. It is The Boss.

The Boss: Hi! How is your morning going? So, about these pro-formas--
[I hear unusual background noise]
Me: Where are you???
The Boss: Buckhead.
Me: Well, okay, but I mean where? - like the St. Regis, the Ritz, the--
The Boss: Oh, at The W. We've just had breakfast. We're going for a swim later. So anyway--
Me: Fuck you.
The Boss: heh-heh. So anyway, about that pro-forma--
Me: No, fuck you. Really, FUCK YOU.
Mrs. Boss, suddenly re-entering the room: Who are you talking to?!?
The Boss: Helly.
Mrs. Boss: You called her at home?!? This early?!? On a SUNDAY?!?
The Boss: It's fine. She's fine. You see, it is important, early on, to foster an environment of synergy and cross-communication, such that dialoguing is welcomed, and the channels of approachability run simultaneously, so --
Mrs. Boss: She said 'fuck you', didn't she?

2011-07-20T15:59:00.009-05:00

The remodel of The Hellhole is underway.

Here's Matt installing the new tile in the laundry room.

While he was working, he moved the washer and dryer to the back yard (there's a French door you can't see in the pictures, over to the right, which opens into the back yard).

Unlike my former neighbors the Pigbys, however, we did not leave the appliances in the back yard.

2011-07-18T18:31:00.023-05:00

Depicted on the right is the new barbecue grill I purchased for my husband. On the left is my mom, who I did not have to purchase but who took me to pick up the barbecue grill because it wouldn't fit in my tiny two-seater roadster. It almost didn't fit in her PT Cruiser, either; I had to ride in the back cargo bay all scrunched up where I totally DID NOT spend the drive home making faces and thumbing my nose at cars behind us, because I have totally grown out of that phase, no matter what you may hear to the contrary from, say, the Rockdale County constabulary.

She bought Alan that green canopy/tent thing so he could be in the shade as he grilled.

A tasty marinated flank steak and portobello mushrooms. Told y'all you should have come over.

Renovations are underway inside The Hellhole (the real one, not the virtual one). Matt has hooked up the ice-maker in our new fridge and installed a new kitchen faucet, along with some repair of kitchen sink pipes/valves/fittings/thingies. "Thingy" is a very important word in home improvement lexicon.
Here is Alan enjoying ice cubes from our new ice-maker,

and a tasty glass of chilled water from the dispenser in front.

This is our new kitchen faucet assembly.

This is the destruction that is Step One of the renovation of the front bathroom.

This is the destruction also featuring Matt's butt, for his wife Tammy's enjoyment because she is out of town visiting friends and family in Vegas. Or so she says. But can we be sure? Because what happens in Vegas...(you know the rest).

Saturday night I ripped up the tile in our laundry room and tomorrow Matt is going to install new flooring. Here is our spokesmodel Alan, displaying the new tile I have chosen.

It is imitation, obviously, but looks like Travertine. I like it and I think the neutral grey color bodes well for the future. I may even use it in the front bathroom, when the time comes that there is once again a floor upon which to tile.

2011-07-17T08:38:00.004-05:00

We have decided to take our house off the market. It's not going to sell any time in the foreseeable future so we're facing reality and doing some things we'd been putting off for that elusive day 'when we move'. Generally, the Atlanta real estate market is not improving and specifically, three houses on the main road near us have gone into foreclosure, all of which are newer, albeit smaller, than ours, which means cheaper and more buyer-enticing. That's not including the house next door to us which will either be a short-sale or a foreclosure, depending. (Sniff...I miss Theresa and the Chinese Crested pups.)

The second factor that really made the decision for us is that we're about to have to put a substantial amount of money into this house, meaning we'd have to take a loss even if someone showed up tomorrow with a fistful of cash, so we're staying long enough to recoup at least some of that investment. What happened was, the tile and grout on the floor of the front bathroom had started cracking, which I thought was because the house was 40+ years old. A very close friend who is quite handy (he finished his entire basement by himself and it is GORGEOUS) has been out of work for a while, again thanks to the recession, so we agreed that he'd re-tile the bathroom for us. We had to have it done, regardless if we stayed or sold, and I'd rather pay him than someone I found in the Yellow Pages. Plus, we know from hanging out in his house what great work he does. That was all well and good but when he actually got a close look at what was going on, he found that the tile wasn't cracking because of age, but because of an insidious leak behind and below the bathtub, so the entire bathroom is going to have to be demolished, gutted and rebuilt.

He's still going to do it for us, along with a few other minor repairs that are beyond my capability especially now that my dad is not here to advise, supervise and rescue, but the scope of the job and the cost have increased exponentially. So we are stuck here for a while, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just knowing what the plan is makes me feel better than the previous uncertainty. The mortgage and utilities are quite low; we could not rent a one-bedroom apartment in anything like a half-decent neighborhood for the same amount as our mortgage. And we like the suburb where we live, honestly - we'd just like something larger and newer, but that's not going to happen for a while and so, as my boss likes to say, "it is what it is".

As I mentioned, I'm looking forward to doing some things that we'd put off for too long. For example, I'm buying Alan a barbecue grill. He loves to grill and we both love the taste of grilled foods - not just meats, but we like corn roasted in the husk on the grill, garlic bread, portobello mushrooms...drool. Well, we hadn't bought him his own grill not because of the expense, but the impending move. We'd been to a few different friends' houses who happened to have gas heat and their grills were piped right into the home system, no propane tanks required. We figured, knowing our luck, we'd spend a few hundred dollars on a nice grill for him, only to find that the house we bought would have one already installed. But of course, at that time we didn't think the potential house was years away. So Imma gonna get my sweetie a bad-ass grill. Probably today. Want to come over for steaks?

2011-07-09T15:43:00.003-05:00

CALLING ALL VIDEO GAME GEEKS!

I tried to blog about this earlier, when we were home briefly between errands, but Blogger was being weird. I e-mailed and texted a few of my friends who I know are game geeks, but for everyone else, general public, anyone I may have inadvertently omitted: today Best Buy is selling Fallout: New Vegas for TEN BUCKS. Well, $9.99. I picked my copy up when we were there buying the latest extended special edition collector's pack director's cut (or whatever we're being taunted with at present) of Lord Of The Rings. Ours came with spiffy diecast metal figurines.

We joke that when Eliza (our little niece via Alan's sister) comes to cart us off to the old folks' home, she'll be thinking, "My poor demented aunt and uncle! They must have about 40 copies of the same movie. Did they forget they already had it? Every time they went shopping?!?" - because different editions keep coming out, which we have to have. We bought every one on DVD - in fact we bought those twice because we were buying them as individuals before we started dating, so we had two sets of a lot of the movies once we moved in together, and since then have had to re-buy everything on blu-ray. And soon there will be hobbits!

Wait, where was I? Oh yes, Las Vegas! Fallout Las Vegas for only ten bucks at Best Buy! Why are you still sitting at your computer reading???

2011-07-06T20:30:00.003-05:00

On Sunday the husband was taking a nap so I decided to read the newspaper. There on the cover of the "Parade" section of the AJC was none other than Guy Fieri, one of my favorite Food Network chefs to poke fun at. Always up for some infantile humor, I drew horns and a devil-tail on him. Then, I replaced the section and restacked the newspaper neatly so that it appeared undisturbed. I couldn't wait for Alan to innocently open the "Parade" section, see my handiwork and explode with laughter. I was hoping maybe for some Pelligrino up the nose.

Nothing happened. Nothing at all. He perused the newspaper, he read "Parade" - the puppies and I were beside ourselves, willing him to notice how tres amusing we were, and...nothing.

Finally, I wailed, "I'm being funny and you didn't even notice!" Even after having the "Parade" cover pointed out to him, he looked blankly back at me. Still nothing. I finally had to point out very specifically what alterations I had made to the publication.

Alan claims that his not noticing makes it even funnier, because, "What does that say about how much of a douchebag Fieri is, that I totally found that picture believeable? He wears sunglasses on the back of his fat neck and cooks with knives with flame-handles; it never occurred to me that it was at all out of the ordinary for him to accessorize his stupid blowtorch with devil-horns!"

Hmpf.

2011-07-04T11:38:00.003-05:00

I may never drink beer again.

Oh, I know what you're thinking. "She must have pitched a roaring drunk last night!" because that's usually what precedes such a resolution, but I didn't, I totally didn't. I was fairly well-behaved last night (well, for me). Yesterday was the anniversary of our first date so in honor of the occasion, we went to the same restaurant (Applebee's) and watched the same movie (Shrek 2). I even wore the same outfit, including the same earrings and necklace, but not the same shoes, the original ones having worn out long ago.

However, I had to wear a black silk cardigan over the outfit because the top doesn't fit well at all since my weight loss. It's a modestly cut pale green tank top but now the arm holes gape open hugely and I would have been showing a lot of side-boob, hence the cardigan. I'm not sure my mom can do anything with it either, because both the top and pants are this stretchy, clingy weird material that I'm not sure will stand up to retailoring.

But anyway, I had a Grey Goose and tonic with dinner (okay, maybe that was plural - Grey Gooses? Grey Geese?) but did not overindulge. Why, then, am I eschewing beer?

Because I just now opened one, a Rolling Rock if you're curious, and eeeeuw gross! I couldn't twist the top off as usual but thought nothing of it because sometimes that happens and I can tell that I'm going to cut my hand if I keep trying, so I use the bottle opener. So that's what I did just now but as I was about to have a sip, I noticed that around the lip of the bottle there was all this...stuff. It looked rather like the bottle had been rolled in oregano - green, spiky grassy looking stuff. Grossed out, I presented the evidence to Alan, who advised me not to drink it. (Yeah, I'd already gotten that far on my own.) But then he sniffed it, made a face and told me to smell it. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! That which has been smelt, cannot be unsmelt! I may never drink beer again.

Fortunately for the fermented barley industry, we shall be going later today to Matt & Tammy's, for a Fourth of July celebration and barbecue. I am confident that I can rely on the strength of my stalwart buddies to help me get back on a path to normalcy. I might be able to attempt a Corona. If someone holds my hand.

2011-06-29T19:58:00.012-05:00

This post is for my internet pal dkzody. She left this comment on my previous post: "I just wish they still made harvest gold appliances!"

If we lived closer, I would totally hook her up. I give you (drum roll please) my Previous Fridge!

Woo hoo, harvest gold!!!

All my appliances were harvest gold when I bought this house.

You may be thinking, "I've been to her house and she doesn't have a harvest gold kitchen!"

Well, no, I don't. After moving, I had to buy a new stovetop and range hood in short order, which were white, but that left a wall-in double oven and fridge in harvest gold. I painted them white to match. I am a very matchy sort of girl.

However, as we see from this photograph, I only painted white the portions of the fridge that showed to the public, so one side, the back, and half of another side are still harvest gold.

Front of old fridge:
The paint is kinda fading after 15 years.

The writing on it says, "Milk sucks! Got beer?" Don't judge, I did that when I was young and stupid.

Like two weeks ago.

KIDDING, KIDDING! I did that several years ago at the height of the "Got milk?" advertising campaign. Er, still, I refreshed it with bright blue just before the relocation of the Previous Fridge to the garage where it will serve as a spare drinks/extra freezer space appliance.

Delaine writes on her post about refrigerators, "I keep appliances until they will no longer work nor can be repaired." Me too! Totally me too! I knew it was old when I moved in, but being 23 or 24, and new to home ownership, I had very little spare cash and it still kept things cold, so I figured I would replace it whenever it died and I absolutely had to do so.

It's never died. I've never replaced it. (It's a Kenmore, in case you are interested in unusually long-lived appliances.) We only took action now because our neighbor needed cash, had no use for her fridge (it's a Maytag) and we had already been talking about getting a nicer fridge for the kitchen and using this as a spare drinks fridge, like my mom and some of our friends have.

I was the same way with my television: I had a TV that was probably 20 years old, one of those huge console things that was more like a piece of furniture, with stereo speakers on either side. My grandparents had given it to me for my birthday. Projection TVs, plasmas, flat-screens, hi-def, all sorts of innovations came out but I never bothered replacing it because, well, it worked. It got channels and on those channels, they showed shows. When we finally replaced it two years ago thanks to year-end bonuses and wanting to treat ourselves, our eyes and minds were blown at what a difference it made.

Our new fridge was pouting because I hadn't posted a picture of it, so here's the new one.

Another thing I did not know (along with refrigerator height variation) was that magnets don't stick to stainless steel, so all our magnets, pictures and miscellaneous stuff are stuck onto the side that's visible (if you stood to the right as you look at the picture). One thing, a big metal magnet that we bought at World Market, I use all the time. It's a conversion table of ounces, teaspoons, tablespoons, cups and grams (all to one another). It comes in very handy when halving or doubling a recipe. And while I guess I could do those sums in my head, it's nice having them already written out and available.

This is the inside of the new fridge. Can you see the stuff inside well enough to tell that the condiments in the door are in alphabetical order? Er, they are. For real.

Barbecue sauce through catsup to mayonnaise, row one. Mustards through pickles to salad dressing, row two. And yes, the salad dressing is sub-alphabetized so that it starts with Asian Sesame and Bleu Cheese, and continues on row three with Tuscan house Italian and vinaigrette, continuing on through salsa and Tabasco and Teriyaki to tomato marinade.

I have CDO. That's like OCD, but in alphabetical order, as it should be.

I have one last thing to share, again totally for dkzody. Don't be too jealous, okay? My flour/sugar/rice/stuff canisters:

Harvest gold for the win!!!

The tops are even better.

There are pop-art mushrooms! Alan disagrees. He contends they are toadstools.

2011-06-27T19:13:00.003-05:00

Well, our new refrigerator is inside, the old one is in the garage and all the food has been switched to the one inside. Our friends came over to help as promised and we said we'd buy them dinner at our mutual favorite Italian restaurant as a thank-you. Boy, did they earn that meal, and maybe more! Because of course this is me so things could not possibly go without a hitch, right?

When I first called, I thought mainly I was borrowing a dude, just someone stronger than me that could help Alan muscle one in and the other out. As it turned out, though, Rick had all sorts of items that would be helpful: ramps, hand truck, tools - so I chose a good friend to ask for this favor. Poor Rick, the Grey Goose on the rocks I gave him doesn't come close. We thought we'd done well getting everything emptied and on the counters, the old refrigerator pulled out and the floor underneath cleaned before they got here...heh, not so much. Getting the old one out wasn't that big a deal for the guys but once they started edging the new one in, they found it was too wide and Rick had to take the kitchen door off its hinges.

As if that weren't enough, they got it in the hole and pushed a little way back when we realized it was too high! This had not occurred to me. I had measured several times to make sure it wasn't too wide for the hole, but I assumed fridges were just a standard height. I never even thought to check this. It turns out that fridges come in three categories: 59", 60" - 68" and over 68". I didn't feel as bad when Anne and Rick both assured me it wouldn't have occurred to them either. They've bought several new refrigerators over the years and never checked.

So then Rick used my jig saw to cut about half an inch of trim off the bottom of the cabinet but then he discovered as he approached the wall that there was a corner mounting thing attaching the cabinet to the wall that was going to make the hole about 0.25" too narrow even once the trim was cut short. AAAAAGH! Banging ensued. I discovered later that Rick was using a hammer and flat-bladed screwdriver to try to chip enough off of that piece for the fridge to fit. I didn't realize that at the time because Anne and I were sitting on the couch, waiting for the guys to finish their part so we could reload all the food. Rick finally gave up and said he'd have to return tomorrow with the proper tools.

"If I had a chisel, I could do it, but of course I didn't think to bring one - we were moving a refrigerator!" he said.

"Oh, a chisel? I've got a chisel," said I, and rummaged through my red toolbox. For some reason now lost in time, I had a mammoth chisel. I know it's from my dad's set of many chisels but I don't know why I borrowed it. Anyway, I went back inside and handed Rick this huge chisel with a razor-sharp blade. His eyes widened and he said, "Yeah, that's a chisel all right! That'll work."

So to recap, instead of helping Alan with a quick appliance swap, Rick had to take a door off its hinges, saw over three feet off a cabinet trim piece, chisel out a chunk of cabinet and replace the door as well as maneuver and wrestle the appliances.

He's coming back later in the week to hook up the ice maker/water dispenser. I think we're going to be taking them to dinner many, many times.

I'm sorry it turned into such an ordeal when I believed originally that I was asking for a fairly minor favor. Still, I'm sooo glad I asked them, because Rick is so very handy and knowledgeable. I wouldn't have had a clue about how to proceed if we'd run into such problems with just the two of us here. Way to earn that Chianti dinner, buddy! You can have appetizers and dessert! (He could order the lobster if he wanted, but he won't - he'll order the Dover sole.)

2011-06-26T15:29:00.002-05:00

So, our neighbor left and her fridge is in our garage. Things didn't work as she'd planned, though, so there was no dolly or lift. She, Alan and her two kids carried it across our yards to the garage where it waits to be relocated for a different set of friends who are helping us kitchen it. And wow, how much of a girly-girl am I (okay, I know I'm totally a girly-girl) that two people I'd never met before assigned me the task of holding the plastic ice and water tubes while other people toted the entire huge fridge across acreage?!? I don't know if I'm relieved or insulted.

Last night we went here for a Metafilter meet-up. I read Metafilter but am not a member, so I went mostly for the husband. It was cool, a new place we'd not heard of, nice people we'd otherwise not have met, tasty food and a Newcastle Brown (I'm tellin' you will sure smack you down) - a good time.

Today, chores and stuff around the house. I spent the morning cleaning carpets, which really equates to fighting the carpet shampooer into doing that which it is supposed to do (mostly unsuccessfully) and it was really gross seeing how gray and nasty the water was. If there is a mess or a stain, I deal with it, but it was kinda gross seeing how filthy things got just through day-to-day living here. Then I played some video games which didn't go well, because in all the games I am currently playing, I am stuck on various bosses and cannot progress. Grrr,

Which brings me to this: have I ever told you guys how I became a (very very very local) video game legend? No? Oooh, allow me to pontificate! Okay, so this was back in the mid-80s when video games came in these self-contained "cabinets", kids, and the way you played them was to insert items from an obsolete gil system which were called "quarters" or "tokens". So there was this place that was very much like Chuck E. Cheese, without actually being Chuck E. Cheese, because I think at that point Chuck E. Cheese only existed in California but we lived in Georgia, but other people had the same idea and stuff. I'm pretty sure it was called Showbiz Pizza, and besides pizza and video games they also had those animatronic animals that played songs. So anyway, my younger sibling had a birthday party, and I had to go even though I was too old to have anything in common with them and was bored out of my skull and probably humiliated (because I was a teenager) to even be seen at said sibling's birthday party.

So there was a birthday party going on, I was over-aged and bored, so I collected my share of tokens and went to play TEMPEST. I ran up a pretty high score, then decided to beat that high score, then set out to beat that one. If I recall correctly, I suddenly was 6th, then kept trying to beat that score and beat that score. I eventually got the highest score (I'm #1! I'm #1!) and tried to beat that one (which I did) and kept trying to beat my own best time.

Now, fast forward several years from my brother being in elementary school at the time of the party, to one of his friends being old enough to drive and have a part-time job. As it happens, the friend, Ryan, got a job at Showbiz Pizza and one day related to my brother that he'd been cleaning or rearranging or something the video game machines, and the TEMPEST machine still had a number one high score belonging to "HEL", and wasn't that his sister, and wasn't that amazing after like a decade?!?

Yes, yes it is. Yes, yes it was.

2011-06-21T18:10:00.002-05:00

We went over to our next-door neighbor's house after work today (the one who's leaving, sadly). She has a very nice refrigerator, 2 years old, stainless steel side-by-side and we are going to buy it. We've been wanting a new fridge for a while, she has no use for it and this gives her a little money in her pocket, so it's a good thing for all but I still regret the circumstances.

The current fridge in our house was here when I bought the place well over a decade and a half ago and it wasn't new then. For a long time, I've been biding my time, figuring that whenever it eventually died, I'd replace it - rather than replacing it being a top priority because, well, it still works. It keeps things cold, so why spend the money until it's necessary? But it's old, it doesn't have the ice and water dispensers in the door, it's small - so we're buying Theresa's much newer, nicer fridge and moving the old one into the garage for more storage of cold drinks and extra freezer space.

Last night we went up to collect Sprocket, having concluded that Operation Puppy Procreation was not going to be successful this time around. We may try again in December, when Belle goes into heat again. Before bringing him home, we had dinner with our friends here. I thought the food was quite tasty; we split some appetizers and had some beverages as well as yummy entrees. I'd like to go there again with them.

We shared many stories of our misspent youth, many of which the spouses had not heard, including one which involved Certain People who shall remain nameless standing at the end of my driveway after midnight, pants down around their ankles, screaming, "The British are coming! The British are coming!" It wasn't me. I was taking pictures. However, we are getting together with these same friends for the Fourth of July and I can't promise that this time, I won't.

2011-06-19T21:29:00.001-05:00

Big Pimpin'

On Saturday we went to our friends' house (Matt and Tammy) for a cookout/visit. We brought along our eldest dog, Sprocket, because they have a female Maltese/Shih-Tzu mix that they would like to breed, and she is in heat. I was very much looking forward to having a tiny Sprocket offspring added to our household but I'm afraid it might not come to pass. They are almost totally ignoring each other. There was some initial "hey how you doing?" sniffing, but he is showing little interest in, uh...doing The Deed. This is despite Matt putting on some Al Green and lighting scented candles.

It's odd; I thought of a lot of potential problems and things to worry about, but lack of interest wasn't one of them. I was afraid he might bite one of the kids, not because he's particularly aggressive but if they caught him by surprise - he's old and grumpy. I worried he might make a mess in their house - he's housebroken but sometimes he thinks he is going on the puppy pad when really he's only on a part of it. So far, nothing has happened. A big nothing.

But still, it was fun hanging out with them, and Matt smokes some mean ribs! Dinner was great.

In other news, we are losing our next-door neighbor, the lady who raises Chinese Cresteds. I was very sorry to hear this yesterday, both because she doesn't want to move and because who knows who will take her place? Long-term friends will remember that I haven't had the best of luck with my neighbors, from the Shouting Redneck Family to the Pigbys. I liked Theresa (the Chinese Crested lady), who never did anything loud, messy or annoying. She got laid off a while back and hasn't been able to find anything else, so she is moving to south Georgia. I will be sad to see her go.

As I was typing, I got a text from Tammy. It seems Sprocket still hasn't gotten busy with Belle and may be a little homesick. Sigh. I was really hoping for a Sprock-pup but I guess I waited too long (he's thirteen as of March).

2011-06-06T06:53:00.002-05:00

Weekend recap: Saturday morning we slept later than usual, courtesy of Sprocket the Shih-Tzu who decided that barking a lot at intervals all night was his new hobby. We ran our errands and then headed to our friends' house for a cookout (the parents of Brooke from my previous post). We had a fabulous time with them - food was great and it was so fun just to hang out, chat and catch up. Eventually Alan remarked that he was getting tired and I was stunned that it was nearly 11. Time flies, and all that.

I have a Funny Brooke Story (though not as good as "Discover Mills!") but still cute. She had drawn a couple of pictures which were just random stripes on a piece of paper - hey, she's three, she deserves a little artistic slack. She gave me the pink one with instructions for me to take it home to my house with me. She gave Alan the green one and informed him that it was a picture of him riding a donkey. I would love to know what goes on in her little blonde head. I mean, why a donkey and not a horse? Why was he riding anything? Anyway, both pictures are on our fridge right now, if you'd like to come over and see Alan Riding A Donkey from Brooke's green period.

Sunday we had one additional errand to run, because Alan needed socks and cargo shorts. Once that was done, he developed a headache so he went for a nap. My brother reports that Con Carolina was a big success for them, selling out of one CD and nearly selling out of another. I'm sure he'll post more details. After dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant and catching a few cartoons on Fox, it was off to bed where Sprocket practiced his hobby anew. I am very tired and yawn-y thanks to him. How was your weekend?

2011-05-30T12:40:00.003-05:00

We had a wonderful day yesterday. If every day could be like yesterday, my life would be perfect. We'd made plans to go to Mom's, grill and hang out (good enough already), then heard my brother and his wife (Bo and Sarah) were free and coming the same day (even better). Then in the morning as we were getting ready and getting stuff together, I got a text from a friend that I hadn't talked to in far too long, saying we needed to get together soon. I texted back something like, "Yes, and to that point, if you aren't busy today, we're about to go to Mom's for grilling and chilling, you should totally come." And they weren't busy, and they did come and it was pure, unadulterated fun with a capital F!

The day was fabulous, with lots of great food, beer, wine, friendship and catching up. One of the highlights, for me anyway, came with these friends' daughter Brooke, who turned three last October. Brooke is great, she's always well-behaved and one of the happiest kids I've ever known. I'm not sure Brooke knows how to throw a tantrum, even if circumstances dictated that a tantrum might be in order. She makes me almost want to pro-create, that's how awesome of a kid she is.

So, for background: in Atlanta, like most metropolii, there are shopping malls. There is Lenox (my preferred mall of choice because they have a Macy's with a Chanel counter AND a Lush store), Phipps Plaza (my second most preferred mall because they have a Tiffany's AND a Jimmy Choo store, and what is more vexing and more thrilling than trying to decide whether to spend your money at Tiffany's vs. Jimmy Choo? (Jimmy Choo. Every time. I'm like that.)), Gwinnett Place, Discover Mills, Stonecrest (which is only 2 miles from my house but, though there is a Macy's, lacks a Lush store, a Tiffany's AND a Jimmy Choo, so is a total waste of retail space, mallwise).

But my point - and I DO have one - is how funny little Brooke is. At one point yesterday afternoon, her brother Josh (13) piped up and said, "Hey, Brooke! Where do babies come from?"

And Brooke chirpily replied, happily and with total confidence, "DISCOVER MILLS!"

2011-05-26T18:21:00.003-05:00

Alan is so funny when I'm playing video games, providing commentary and back-sass. Maybe you have to know him to get the full mental picture, but here goes anyway. I'm currently playing Bayonetta and in that game, she can destroy pretty much anything when enemies are absent. So suppose she is walking through a park: she can destroy park benches, decorative urns, planters, certain statues and when she destroys objects, these yield halos (like currency in this game) or magical items. I'm hard at work creating a huge swath of destruction and enriching my stores, when Alan walks into the room.

He watches for a bit and then mock-yells at Bayonetta, "Bitch! What do you think you're doing?!? My tax dollars paid for that stuff!", "That's OUR park you're destroying! You better run!", "HEY! I was gonna use that!" and then a bit later, "Hey! I thought I warned you about that!", "Cut that shit out!", "[muttering grumpily] Where's a cop when you need one?!?" and still later, "WHAT?!? I liked that bench, that was a good bench! Oh, you're in so much trouble now!", "Yo! Destruct-O-Bitch! You're gonna have to pay for that, you know!"

2011-05-24T18:33:00.000-05:00

This Could Only Happen To Me

So today one of our new clients is supposed to drop off a payment. I've spoken to her a couple of times on the phone and she sounds like a nice, completely normal person. She called today when she neared the office because I was going to come downstairs to meet her and grab the check, so she wouldn't have to pay to park or go through building security. She tells me what kind of car she drives, I reply with a brief description of me and my clothes.

I go outside and as I approach the car, see that she looks like a nice, completely normal person. Until I get close enough to see inside the car, shake her hand, etc. and see what I cannot now unsee.

Girlfriend is not wearing any pants.

I repeat, Girlfriend is not wearing any pants.

This is worse than you think because she's not wearing a skirt or shorts, either. She has on a nice, normal scoop-necked blouse and black panties. They were Granny-panties so they covered everything; it's not like I had to see her hoo-ha, but OMG. Girlfriend got in her car and drove to an albeit brief business meeting sans pants. Not even any pants on the ground. I returned to my office and e-mailed The Boss, "You TOTALLY do not pay me enough money".

In relating this story to my husband, he offered up the possibility that it was a bathing suit bottom. That is marginally better, so that is what I'm choosing to believe, but still - who DOES that?!? Who decides it's okay to wear bathing trunks to meet a business associate?!? I've been writing this a lot lately, but my flabber was ghasted.

2011-05-23T18:49:00.000-05:00

The Saturday after Mothers' Day, we attended my cousin's wedding which was here. Everything went well - the venue was beautiful, so was the bride, the food was great. They're going to the Dominican Republic for their honeymoon. No criticism of them intended, but I'm not sure I could handle the stress of an international flight so soon after all the stress leading up to getting married. I hope they have a wonderful time.

On Sunday, we headed down to Wrens, Georgia for the reunion of Alan's mom's side of the family. It's always a challenge because it's way out in the boonies and our GPS refuses to admit that the church/address actually exists. This year, turnout was noticeably less than previous years. As far as I was concerned, the event was a total bust - no Monkey Baby, no crazy Great-Aunt Cleo (who performs hymns she composes herself), no rednecks dressed in t-shirts from strip joints...still, it was good to see Alan's immediate family, except that his sister had to work and couldn't attend.

This weekend, we celebrated our wedding anniversary on Saturday. I got him a huge rock engraved with our names and wedding date. We got one for some friends as a wedding present - well, theirs had their own names and date on it, otherwise it would have been a pretty strange gift - and Alan had mentioned several times since that he would like to have one. He got me two necklaces with Celtic designs, one with a center stone of Connemara marble. We went to a nice dinner here. Sunday was quiet and laid-back, but I really needed a day like that after so much activity.

How was your weekend?

2011-05-19T17:05:00.001-05:00

After we returned from our trip to Montgomery, our busy May continued. The following weekend, we attended the baptism of the baby daughter of Alan's co-worker. They are Indian so the entire service was in Syriac. There was much pomp and ceremony and swinging of perfumed censers. Of course I couldn't understand the ceremony but it was beautiful to watch. Many of the ladies had on breathtakingly beautiful saris; one lady's in particular was brilliant pinks and turquoises, with silver decorations. The wife of Alan's co-worker/mother of the baby looked gorgeous. The baby was so cute, especially when she expressed her extreme displeasure at being drenched from tip to toe!

Afterward, there was a luncheon of Indian food in the fellowship hall - delicious! It was very spicy, but we both like spicy. Alan's co-worker told us that he'd even told the caterer to tone down the spice factor because there would be several non-Indian folk in attendance. I was really glad that we'd been included and thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to observe such a grand and important ceremony.

I had dithered about whether we should buy a gift. I would have for a christening or First Communion, but I wasn't sure about a baptism, and an Indian one at that. In the end, we bought a silver filigree picture frame that had a cross atop it, an engraved ribbon saying "Faith - Hope - Love" and rectangles of filigree on either side of the space for her picture. Underneath that was a heart which we had engraved with the baby's name and birthdate. I figured even if a gift was not the norm in such circumstances, that would be okay. As it happened, there was a table for gifts and while not everyone brought something, enough people did that I would have felt badly if we hadn't. So that all worked out well.

Sunday was Mothers' Day so earlier, I'd asked Mom what she'd like to do. She picked a local restaurant and we met there for a late lunch. My brother and his wife couldn't come down so it was just the three of us. We shared tasty appetizers; Mom and I both had a sizzling chicken/Cajun shrimp dish. Yum. After that, we hung out at her house for a bit and a small dessert of chocolate-covered strawberries. It was a good day; I hope she had a nice time.

Sunday evening was fairly uneventful, just hanging out with the doggies and getting ready for the work week, with yet more activities both Saturday and Sunday of the weekend ahead. It seems to be feast or famine for us with regard to social activities.

2011-05-18T20:15:00.000-05:00

Historic Montgomery Tour, story two: as the trolley pulled away from Union Station it neared the first street corner, where it would turn right (back toward our hotel). At the corner were a couple, and when the woman saw the trolley she started waving frantically and jumping up and down. This was not someone hailing a cab; she was putting her entire body into some serious acrobatics such that you’d think she was trying to flag down the last plane out before the fall of Hanoi. So the driver (Dorita Jones, isn’t that great?) opens the door to see what this woman wants.

The woman wants to get on board. Dorita explains that it’s not a public transport, you have to buy tickets back at the station. The woman begs and pleads. Dorita says she doesn’t have tickets to sell, you buy them before the trolley departs the station. The woman begs and pleads. The husband intervenes. Understand, we’re not getting all of this in detail because of the DVD playing and the Chatty Cathys going strong, but that’s the gist. This goes on a while and Dorita, probably wanting to stay on schedule, finally grudgingly holds out her hand and accepts the couple’s $2. They get on, the woman smiles big at all of us and says, “Sorry,” and they flop into the two front seats. Then the woman says to Dorita, which I heard clearly because she deliberately projected over the DVD, and I am so not kidding, brace yourself,

“So where is this bus going anyway?”

WHAT.

THE.

HELL.

One would think if she wanted to get on THAT freakin’ badly, she’d know what the hell the trolley was, why, where, etc. Who does that?!? Who goes to that much trouble to hail a bus with absolutely no idea of where it’s headed, how long the journey might take, etc.? Based on their accents (Australian, I think) they weren't local and had no idea that the transport they were hailing was a tour of local history. I repeat,

WHAT.

THE.

HELL.

My flabber was ghasted.

2011-05-17T18:17:00.000-05:00

Our first night in Montgomery, we ate dinner here. It was excellent. It has a lot of bad reviews on Urbanspoon, but we had a delightful dinner and good food (delicious meatballs!) when we were there.

After dinner, we walked around the downtown area a little and saw an interesting building across a parking lot from the hotel, which turned out to be this. After breakfast the next day, we walked over. It's a BEAUTIFUL old building, carved ornate woodwork, stained glass above every transom, even in the railroad shed. The docent told us about a trolley tour they run of the downtown area for $1, driving around showing historical landmarks. You can get off at various points such as the Capitol building or Rosa Parks Museum, tour that place and get picked up by the trolley in an hour. Well, they call it a trolley but it's really a small charter bus.

We decided why not, it’s only a buck each. On the trolley with us were a foreign chick all by herself and two moms with two or three kidlets each. The moms/kids sat at the very back (thank all the gods), we were on one side kinda toward the front and the foreign chick was on the other side a little ahead. The deal was, a DVD played about Montgomery history and was paused as we neared particular sites, at which point the driver took over with a mike and told some facts about that site. It was pretty interesting – like in addition to historic landmarks like the Confederate White House there were more…well, I guess it’s an historical landmark too but in a different sort of category – she pointed out the barbershop where MLK got his last haircut before being assassinated, a famous restaurant that’s been there for nearly a century, things like that.

This puzzled me more than annoyed me: those two moms at the back NEVER shut up, the entire time. They weren't talking about things we were seeing on the tour, either, like, "Oh, that's a lovely old house" - no, there was a steady stream of “I know, right? And then he…”, “Oh so I told Allison...”, "Really? What did he say to that?" blah blah blah blah blah blah blah to eleventy the entire freakin' time. There was no way either of them or any of the kidlets heard ONE SINGLE syllable of either the DVD or anything the driver said. They even made it difficult for us to hear, and we were much closer to the front. Now I like to chat with my buds too, but what in the hell was the point of going on an historic tour if you weren’t going to listen to a damn thing about any of it?!? If you’re not at least marginally interested in history, why go? Take the kids to an ice cream shop and gossip over coffee. It was amazing, and not in a good way. Forty, forty-five minutes and they never shut up or took in a single word.

There is an even better story about the trolley tour. Tomorrow I will write about the frantic couple.

2011-05-16T20:15:00.006-05:00

Baby Steps

A few people have e-mailed me asking me to resume blogging. It's nice to know I've been missed. To be honest, a few times I've logged on intending to delete the blog, but hesitated and ultimately (obviously) didn't, not because I thought that I would take it up again but because I thought I might want to refer back to it for when something happened/when I did what. That's been a useful function of my blog over the years as, while I might not think something happened two days ago or even two weeks ago, it is usually kind of a surprise to find that the something happened eight months ago...but anyway.

This May is probably a good time to return to blogging as we are having a very busy month fraught with activity. Every weekend so far, we've had An Event for both weekend days. As far as the first weekend of the month, we went to Montgomery, Alabama to see Wilco. We stayed here and went to the concert here. Wilco is one of Alan's favorite bands and we were in the eleventh row so pretty great seats. While I mean no disrespect to them, I enjoyed it thoroughly and the concert was great (acoustics in that venue are FABULOUS), they're a little too mellow for my taste. Still, it was a fun trip and a great evening.

Some funny and interesting things happened during the course of our mini-trip to Alabama, but I'll write about them and subsequent events (it's been a busy May) in following posts. There were funs and good meals and weddings and reunions and stuff...

One intriguing thing was this building. A valet parking dude told us totally straight-faced that the little pink catafalque thing on top of the burgundy dome was the tomb of one of the building owners. He was unclear as to whether it was Mr. Steiner or Mr. Lobman, but certain that the guy wanted to be interred there to keep an eye on the family business. Locals that we spoke to were evenly divided between the "oh yeah absolutely isn't that weird?!?" camp and the "whaaaaat? omg I've never heard anything about that no way!" Interestingly enough, there is a friend of ours whose grandfather owned a building just down the very same block as that building and she said that she had always been told, growing up, that the tale was true and there was indeed a body in that little pink cement thing. I prefer to believe that it's true. Because dictating that you be buried in a cement coffin on top of your building is so much more interesting than 'we just did a weird arbitrary architectural thingy right there'.

2011-01-20T22:32:00.002-05:00

Finnovar
05/15/1994 - 01/19/2011

On Wednesday the most evil, wonderful, scornful kitteh anyone could ever hope to have breathed his last. RIP, my friend Finnovar. Thanks for letting me be your hoomin for nearly 17 years.

"You in a heap o'trouble, boy."

Finnovar plays Katamari Damacy.

Remember the massive cat-food recall? Finnovar coped.

"P.E.T.A. can kiss my fuzzy ass."

"No autographs."

Better quality/size of the pictures here: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5.

I don't expect that I shall be updating my blog again anytime soon. My heart's just not in it. My heart's not in much of anything anymore.

2011-01-12T16:27:00.007-05:00

We have been snowed/iced in all week. We haven't lost power and we made a grocery run on Sunday so it's been fine. What is happening, though, is that the salt and sand trucks are getting the ice melted and then it promptly re-freezes. I haven't tried to go in to my office all week and tomorrow's not looking that great either. The interstate might be okay but our driveway is a solid sheet of ice and if I tried to leave, I'd either wind up smashing Alan's car or in the ditch. Or both.

View of our road and the house across the street.

I had almost geared up my courage to try to go in (driving on icy roads terrifies me) when the AJC posted a picture of my very exit ramp, and the three SUVs that had braved it sliding all over the place. Of course I don't see that picture on the site now, but there's this one - the street I have to take to get to my office. I was too scared to try; I have plenty of vacation days so that's not an issue so much as not having planned on being away from the office.

A shot of our yard and Alan's car, covered in snow.

I got an unpleasant surprise this morning when I tried to do a few things from home. I needed a couple of Micro$oft Office programs so I powered up my laptop and it refused to boot, not even in safe mode. Sob! Why did you have to die, Ferrari laptop? I loveded you! I loveded you! I got my work done on Alan's old MacBook, but still - sob! My laptop!

My magnolia tree, dusted in snow.

It's an odd mental state for me. I can't really enjoy being home and having some unexpected leisure time because I feel guilty about not being at work, but then I check the Georgia D.O.T. website or the AJC or watch the news, and work myself into a state of terror about trying to drive. I won't be going anywhere tomorrow unless it melts and dries; I just need to come to terms with that.

2011-01-06T20:41:00.005-05:00

Blarg. So much for my plan to blog more regularly in 2011. I wrote Monday that Alan had caught a cold and I followed not far behind - started feeling puny on Tuesday afternoon, had to leave work early Wednesday and stayed home today. Except for two baths and some bathroom breaks, I didn't get out of bed from about 2PM Wednesday until 4PM today, and that was only to migrate to the couch with pillow and blankies. I'm going to work tomorrow because there are a few things that I have to handle but I may not last the whole day. I'm at that stage where I start to think I'm feeling okay, things are better, and then get dizzy and have the shivers.

One thing I don't mind about being sick is the weird dreams induced by a slight fever. Sick is no fun, but makes me dream the oddest things and since I'm tossing and turning, I usually remember them. Early this morning, I dreamed that Alan and I were on a cruise (I blame Sandy for this part) but we weren't on a Disney cruise like she was; we were on The Love Boat - remember that cheesy 80s sitcom? Or was it a cheesy 70s sitcom? Hmm, I just looked it up: it was both. That's not the bizarro part, though. Remember Isaac the Bartender? Well, he had waiters to help him and circulating on the deck where we were, serving drinks, were Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street. Ernie brought ours: Pelligrino & lime for Alan, and some frothy tropical drink for me. Alan loves to drink Pelligrino but I never drink those sweet umbrella-laden drinks. However, I drank this one; I suppose I didn't want to hurt Ernie's feelings. He seems the sensitive type.

2011-01-03T20:10:00.002-05:00

Happy 2011, everybody! We had a very low-key New Year's Eve; we stayed home and cooked prime rib, garlic and herb roasted potatoes, salad of mixed greens with tomatoes and cucumbers. I didn't even make it to midnight. I fell asleep on the couch after dinner and when I woke up around eleven, I just stumbled on to bed.

Alan kicked off the new year by getting a cold. I stopped by the drug store for Sudafed for him today after work. The Sudafed we had at the house expired in 2007, so I guess it's pretty obvious that we aren't running a meth lab.

I don't bother making New Year's resolutions; it's too depressing when I've broken them all by MLK Day, so I guess that's about all to report from The Hellhole. Slainte!

2010-12-29T21:04:00.004-05:00

Purrrrrrrrr...I am a happy, relaxed girl. I got home from Anne & Rick's house about an hour and a half ago, and now I'm blogging and drinking a glass of wine after having some cheese and crackers (pretty much my favorite dinner). Among other talents, my buddy Rick happens to be a licensed massage therapist and not long ago, they turned one of their upstairs rooms into a massage room. It's totally spa-tastic! He has his massage table in there, mood lighting, a couple of small tables holding candles, a stereo system for soothing music/nature sounds - it was fabulous! Also, he uses some wonderful massage lotion delicately scented with a secret ingredient (which I know but I'm not telling - go get a massage from Rick to experience it!!!).

I thought I might feel odd about having one of my friends - moreover, the husband of one of my BFF's - seeing so many of my body parts and touching me all over. I knew he wouldn't; it's totally clinical to someone in that profession. A leg is just a leg, as it were - but I wondered if it'd be weird for me. Totally not, it was better than fine. I suppose it doesn't hurt that he's the best masseuse I've ever experienced! Not that I have a hugely extensive sampling, but damn! Rick is a talented masseuse. It wasn't awkward at all and I feel WONDERFUL.

Once I dressed and went downstairs, Anne asked me, "So how was it?" I replied, "If I could purr, I'd be doing it!"

Mmmmm, it was delicious.

If you live anywhere in the metro Atlanta area, particularly on the east side, I highly recommend a massage by Rick. Send me an e-mail; I'll hook you up.

2010-12-27T19:50:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. Ours was okay - nothing bad, just not what I'd hoped. We had a great Christmas Eve at my aunt and uncle's house. He grilled steaks and she had tons of tasty treats. It was good to see my cousins and meet my cousin Aaron's new fiance. Christmas Day we went to my mom's where she had spiced wine and a table groaning with meats, cheeses, all sorts of goodies. However, we got to stay only about 1/3 as long as I'd hoped because a storm of rain and sleet moved in and we were afraid we wouldn't be able to get back home. The storm continued throughout the night, turning to snow and the roads iced over. This meant that not only was our visit with Mom cut short, but we couldn't go to Augusta to visit Alan's family yesterday. I know we can see everyone another time and I have no right to complain because everyone is safe and healthy, but I was disappointed.

Among other treats, Mom gave Esme a tiny stuffed pink elephant, Mister Fusspot a blue hippopotamus and Sprocket a wild duck. Esme and Fusspot promptly switched toys; he's been carrying that elephant around everywhere and she is gnawing and gnawing on the hippopotamus. This prompted me to sing at various times, in the "Esme voice", "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas; only a hippopotamus will do!" Alan asked me, "Is that a real song or are you making it up?" I was surprised he hadn't heard it - have you?

2010-12-23T07:43:00.001-05:00

Last night I worked on party treats to take to Anne & Rick's tonight. I made sausage- and cheese-stuffed mushrooms, hot artichoke dip, little smokies in a tangy sauce, ham and cream cheese pinwheels with pickles, spicy pecans. I was disappointed in the pecans. My mom makes them every year at Christmas and they are delicious. I asked her for the recipe, which she gave me - and she is not the sort of person who would deliberately distort it or omit an ingredient so that yours is never quite as good as hers. Well, she might do that to one of her DAR ladies but not to me. Anyway, I followed her recipe pretty closely and if anything, erred on the side of more spicy; I added a bit more garlic powder and a couple of dashes more Tabasco than she suggested, but mine turned out rather flat. They're okay, still a decent snack, and I might like them if I hadn't tasted Mom's before, but I have so mine don't measure up.

2010-12-17T20:54:00.004-05:00

Wow, the work week is over. I'm weary and ready for doing a whole bunch of not much. We finished our Christmas shopping earlier in the week, for the most part; I'm not satisfied with and want to add to the gift for Cheryl, but we probably won't get together before the holiday anyway, so I have some time. Last night I finished the last of the wrapping, staying up a bit too late doing so, but I had all the stuff dragged out and only two presents to go, so I wanted to complete the job. The whole reason for doing a flurry of wrapping last night instead of this weekend was that The Boss was coming by my office today, so I wanted to get his stuff ready, but then he got caught up in a meeting that ran long and didn't even make it to see me.

I had a lovely Christmas lunch today with my friend Theresa. For three years now, we've had a tradition of going out to lunch at the holidays to one of the more upscale downtown restaurants. Today we went here; the last two years were here. We exchange gifts, too, but nothing too overboard; the lunch and spending time together is the more important part.

I'm doing something similar with Anne. We talked about exchanging gifts but decided that whatever we'd normally spend on one another, we'd rather put toward tasty noms and libations, and the four of us (she and I plus husbands) would spend a nice evening together with good food, good drink, good friends and lots of laughter. Hey, I don't think I ever blogged about Anne getting married, which she did last month! She and Rick eloped to Helen, Georgia in mid-November. I was really touched because she was doing the "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" and she wanted the 'something borrowed' to be borrowed from me. She was wearing her aunt's pearls as the something old, so I took her several different pairs of pearl earrings and a pearl bracelet from which to choose, all of which had some emotional significance to me. She wound up choosing and wearing the earrings I'd worn at my wedding, which were given to me by Cheryl. Awww!

Tonight after work, we had dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant and then got the grocery shopping done. So between that, and most of the Christmas preparation and Christmas planning being done, we can spend the whole weekend staying far, far away from the mall. I am looking forward to a long, lazy weekend - a far cry from this time last year.

2010-12-12T22:31:00.001-05:00

Alan had a bad fall on Friday. He had given out puppy treats but Esme rejected hers. After a while, the boys discovered it and had a set-to over who would get the extra nom. Alan came running to the kitchen from his study to separate them, slipped in his socks on the hardwood floor and came down on his elbow. He hurt his shoulder too. I put some horsey liniment on it but it was very swollen for a couple of days. It's better now but bruised and very sore.

Going into the weekend, I had exactly one Christmas present purchased. We went shopping on Friday night, then again yesterday, and now we're almost done. Interspersed with shopping expeditions, I had a nice weekend of sipping wine and wrapping gifts while A Christmas Story played on the television. I love that movie; even though I know every scene and every line, it never gets old for me. Grizzly bears near Pulaski's candy store! Scut Farkus! Fra-jee-lay! Soap poisoning! The tongue on the flagpole, the queen mother of all dirty words, the leg lamp, the bunny suit...I love that movie.

Other highlights: we met some friends for dinner Saturday night at our favorite local Italian restaurant and had a great time. I watched this Christmas movie too and even though I'm not a big fan of Jim Carrey, I think he did a wonderful Scrooge.

Tomorrow after work I need to stop by Target for some shirt boxes and more red bows, in order to conclude this season's gift-wrapping. That's about all from The Hellhole!

2010-12-11T08:27:00.003-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to go to Michael's to see what new cross-stitch kits might be available. This is despite me not finishing - or more accurately, not starting - several cross-stitch kits that are in my hall closet. I found a couple that I quite liked and am looking forward to working on, one of which was a smaller project with dragonflies and water. Since it was smaller and much less ambitious than the hummingbird wreath I did for my mother-in-law, I was eager to get going.

I couldn't make heads or tails of the dragonfly project. It didn't look like I expected and I was confused. I attributed my confusion to it being fairly late at night and my having two vodka drinks with dinner. About a week later I pulled it out again, sorted and labeled the colors, read the directions (yes! me! reading directions!), turned it sideways, squinted at it, and still couldn't figure out what was going on or make sense of the instructions. WTH? I've been doing counted cross-stitch since high school; what was the problem? After an even more thorough examination, I discovered that the problem is that instead of the dragonflies being a counted cross-stitch kit, they're a needlepoint project.

I don't know how to do needlepoint.

I don't think I can learn how to do needlepoint, either, after studying the instructions for some time, researching the various stitches online and consulting a crafty friend (who recoiled in horror and said, "I think you should stick to video games and driving small cars extremely fast."). I mean, seriously. I don't see anything different about these three diagrams, which are apparently three different stitches. They look like the same slanty 45-degree-angle stitch to me. Maybe if someone demonstrated, I could get it but not on my own.

Anyway, I have this pretty needlepoint kit that I can't return to Michael's because I'm not sure where the receipt is and also I pretty much destroyed the packaging. I have everything in a Ziploc bag at the moment, but the entire kit is there: canvas, threads, diagram, shiny new needle. So - do you do needlepoint? Do you know someone who does? I'll happily send the dragonfly project to whichever of my friends and readers would like it. Let me know, comment or e-mail.

2010-11-30T20:41:00.008-05:00

Not even a full week after Thanksgiving and I've already gotten the house decorated for Christmas!

My obligatory "Bah Humbug" banner.

Santa Flamingo.

The Christmas tree from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" - gift from Alan's family.

Under the tree, a small Christmas troll whose pin says, "Just say 'bah'!"

Santa Flamingo and the BH banner again. We were watching Sky Sports News, just to get into that festive spirit, y'know.

2010-11-27T08:50:00.001-05:00

Demonic-possession Dog says, "Don't even look at my chew-bone, or I shall devour your soul!!!!"

2010-11-26T11:04:00.015-05:00

Round Ground-Up Cheese

Yesterday's feast was excellent!

This is Mom's festive table.

Esme found one of Bucky's bones (Bucky is one of Mom's dogs and much bigger than Esme) and wouldn't give it back. She growled and faced down all the bigger boys when they dared to so much as look at her bone. Mom packed it up with the leftovers and Esme's carrying it around the house today.

Mom pouring the wine.

Baby corns as part of the centerpiece.

I recently told this story to my friend Anne and realized that I've never blogged about it. It's how "round ground-up cheese" became a part of our internal family lexicon. One year I arrived at home for Thanksgiving and, as I am wont to do, started lifting the lids on various pots and pans, checking out what we'd be having and enjoying the wonderful aromas. And trying to steal samples when Mom was otherwise occupied.

Something was missing. Something important! I'm not sure of the proper name but here in the South they're called "field peas" or "crowder peas" - not green peas or black-eyed peas, anyway.

I like them. I don't like that many vegetables; well, compared to my husband or his best friend Mark (that's Mr. Nancy), I'm a major vegetable-lovin' fool. But anyway, I do like crowder peas. I asked Mom about the dish and she said she didn't prepare any because she thought we had way more than enough to eat with all the other things she'd cooked.

I was horrified. "But...my peeeeeeeeeeeas! Won't you please make some?"

Mom said, "I'm sorry, angel, I don't even have any on hand." Seeing my disappointment, she suggested, "Why don't you call Gram and Granddaddy [the maternal grandrents lived next door] and ask them? I'd be very surprised if they don't have some in their freezer."

So I called and my grandfather answered the phone. I asked him if I could come over and get a package of peas.

"Cheese?" he asked.

"No, sir - peas. Field peas."

"What kind of cheese?"

"Peas! Brown crowder peas!"

"Round ground-up cheese?" He was getting more puzzled at every exchange.

I tried to speak more loudly and clearly. "Brown crowder peas!"

"We don't have any round ground-up cheese. Never heard of any such."

"Never mind, it's okay. We'll see you later at dinner."

"Well, hang on. I don't have any idea what you want, but come on over and whatever it is, if I've got it, you can have it."

[Wasn't it wonderful to have somebody love me that much? No idea what you want but if I've got it, you can have it.]

So anyway, I went next door, obtained my peas and Mom cooked them along with the forty-eleven other things she'd already prepared. Ever since, this particular dish is referred to as "round ground-up cheese". If you're ever at dinner with my family and you want someone to pass them to you, you'll have to ask for it that way, or we'll probably look at you in utter puzzlement.

2010-11-25T09:41:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

We will be leaving shortly to go to my mom's to enjoy the gastronomic bliss that is her cooking. Roast turkey, of course, homemade cornbread dressing, green bean casserole, corn, brown field peas, homemade yeast rolls, two kinds of gravy, at least two kinds of pie (usually apple and pecan, sometimes key lime too), relish tray...maybe deviled eggs. She usually makes deviled eggs but I'm not sure about this year, because although I like them, it's my brother who is the deviled egg pig. He will generally allow people to take one, but then appropriate the tray and growl menacingly if anyone approaches. He and his wife aren't coming this year; they're not actually going anywhere, but staying in for some much-needed rest and relaxation. I understand the need, all too well, though I'm sorry we won't be seeing them.

I hope all of you, friends and readers, have a safe, happy and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

2010-11-20T22:51:00.002-05:00

We had to go to the grocery store, as folk are wont to do, and one thing we needed was toilet bowl cleaner. Now, I hadn't bought toilet bowl cleaner in, like, three or four years, because the last time I needed some, I bought it either at Sam's Club or Costco where I had to buy it in the handy, dandy economical 86-pack. So, a little lost, I stared for a while at the part of the aisle where toilet bowl cleaner was located, trying to determine what I normally bought, what we needed, and what was most wallet and environmentally friendly.

We looked around, trying to decide what we usually used. The main choices were Lysol and Clorox, though there were many sub-genres and sub-choices among the two. One choice was "Country Fresh!" bathroom scent. This puzzled me. Wouldn't a 'country' smelling bathroom be...well, an outhouse? I don't want my bathroom to smell like that. That's kind of the whole point of indoor plumbing. We eventually chose - and by "we", I mean Alan - Clorox 'Rain Fresh' cleaner.

This still troubled me. "Well," I said, "That's all well and good if Miss Betty has just Cloroxed the bathrooms top to bottom, I guess, but I don't want them smelling like real Atlanta rain. As such."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Alan. "It will just smell nice, that clean sort of smell that means Miss Betty's been here. That's all."

"Hmpf. Well, okay, so long as it doesn't smell like outhouse."

2010-11-17T20:49:00.002-05:00

Oh...oooh...erg...eeee...I can't believe I'm about to write this about Hanson, of all groups, but whoa, this video is SO COOL. Best Blues Brothers homage ever. Really. And can you spot Weird Al???

2010-11-13T09:27:00.005-05:00

Hardcore, like pants on a cockapoo

Last night, I started a new video game. It's acknowledged as not just hard, but 'brutal' by the participants on GameFaqs, and yet it looks SO FUN. Well, it may be eventually - it took me like 12 minutes just to create my character and there is a dizzying blur of mathematics - stats, vitality, dexterity, hyper armor, character class...I long for the day when understanding THACO was the most difficult part of playing a game.

I got killed in the freakin' tutorial.

By the first boss, but still. In the tutorial.

I was playing late last night after Alan had already gone to bed, so this morning he asked me how it went. I admitted that I'd been killed, remarked that I just wanted to play the game, I didn't want to revisit algebra and calculate if 40 endurance was ultimately better than 10 Faith and a bit of Luck, and observed, "It's like being plopped down in the middle of an in-progress game of Advanced D&D, where all the other players are taking a brief break from the Applied Science Club."

Alan said, not unkindly, "Well, you can always trade it in at GameStop."

"No!" I replied. "I don't want to trade it, I want to play and at least earn a few trophies, even if I don't finish it. But I want to finish it because all the kids on GameFaqs say this is not for the pampered, want-my-hand-held gamer, it's only for hardcore gamers! And I'm hardcore, Alan! HARDCORE!" (making an 'obey the fist' gesture to italicize my hardcore-ness)

"Yes, sweetheart. You are very hardcore. In your pink lace-trimmed pajamas."

2010-11-11T21:47:00.007-05:00

The first eggnog of the season has started to appear in our area grocery stores. We are big fans of eggnog at The Hellhole. Well, Alan is a fan of eggnog; I'm more of a Jaegernog girl.

[A side note, which I've blogged before but if you don't know the joys of Jaegernog: mix about 3/4 eggnog with 1/4 Jagermeister and the result: delicious goodness beyond any dream of ambrosia. I didn't invent Jagernog; Bo and Matt did. We were all at the 'rents hanging out, the 'rents had gone to bed and Bo and Matt came running into the den from the kitchen, insisting that I had to taste this drink they proffered me in a cup. Now, I'm no fool. I was sure they'd mixed together the nastiest concoction they could think of, hoping I was tipsy enough to drink it. At worst, they'd probably spit into my share. I refused and a debate ensued - no, it's really good vs. I don't believe you, YOU drink it. Finally one of them (I don't remember which but I think Matt) said, "Okay, I'll drink it!" and drained the cup. At that point, I suspended my belief that a sibling trick was being played and tried lovely, lovely, silky, creamy, delightfully intoxicating Jagernog.]

Alan was apprehensive about this year's crop of eggnog. Last year, he drank two large glasses and believed this to be the source of some severe gastrointestinal distress, which actually turned out to be The Adventure of The Assploding Appendix. Intellectually he knew that the eggnog had nothing to do with it, but he wondered if it would sicken him this year, in the way that if you get food poisoning or a stomach virus, you can't stand to even think about the last thing you ate even if you know that particular thing wasn't at fault. Also, he had that long spate of post-surgery antibiotics, which altered his tastebuds so that even old familiar things like Coca-Cola and McDonald's french fries tasted odd, if not downright bad.

We shouldn't have worried.

That's what's left after I made a 'nog run last evening after work.

Wait a minute...it seems to me that there should be rather more half-gallons here. Hmmm. *gives The Husband the squink eye*

(The big white carton is orange juice - not so good with Jaegermeister.)

2010-11-09T20:22:00.000-05:00

Alan, calling from the study: I think I found a video game I really want to play!
Me: Really?!?
Alan: Grand Tourismo 5, you can drive Monza but that's not the good part!
Me: What is?
Alan: You can drive the Top Gear track.
Me: So, there's a PS3 game you really want?
Alan: Only if I can have the steering wheel. With the pedal attachment.
Me: (holding his hand) Oh darling - welcome to the dark side!

2010-11-02T19:41:00.007-05:00

A while back, I posted about my thieving tendencies. I stole a cedar plank from some salmon and before that, a decade or so ago, I stole a sweatshirt from my college's bookstore (albeit accidentally). Well, evidently, those were not isolated incidents as I'd hoped, but a developing pattern as I turned further and further to a life of crime.

This is the funny story I mentioned yesterday, even though I don't know exactly how it turned out. While the other, law-abiding Bowmans were at church, Alan and I went out to breakfast at this great cafe with WONDERFUL food. Once we'd finished our meal and gone up front to pay, Alan saw this magazine in one of those black wire racks near the register.

"Here, take one of these," he said, handing me a glossy magazine. It was "Columbia County" magazine, not unlike the free one we get in the mail called "About Conyers", though a little slicker. Still, I thought nothing of it; many similar 'local interest' or 'upcoming events' magazines are free at grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations, etc. around here and, to the extent I thought about it at all, I thought this was something similar. There were plenty of ads in it, that one might think it was ad-based rather than subscription-based - not that I even gave any thought to it - my husband said 'here take this' and I did.

I made no attempt to hide or conceal it as we paid for our breakfast. If anyone had said, "Hey! You need to pay for that!", I would have. Back at our hotel, we took turns looking at the magazine. Eventually, I came upon a page that was three perforated subscription cards.

"What the hell?!?" I said to Alan. "Why would anyone PAY for a subscription to this magazine when you can just grab one for free at the Sunrise Grill?" As soon as I said it, this troubled me, and I turned the magazine around. Sure enough, right there on the cover, was the bar code and $3.95! I was supposed to pay for it! It wasn't free at all! I could easily blame Alan because it was he that picked it up and handed it to me, or the cashier because I had it in my hand as we handed over the breakfast check and money, but still! I have THIEVED AGAIN!!! Still unintentionally, however.

Later that night, I was telling this story to Alan's parents. His dad, after retiring from the Army, was a probation officer, and he had this to say: "That's pretty pathetic. You're very smart, smarter than the people I've had on probation, and that's the best you can come up with?!? Surely you can think of a better cover story than that!"

"Um..." I said. "Well, that's not mine; I'm just holding on to it for my husband, who gave it to me. I thought it was his."

"Bah!" said Mr. Bowman. "I've heard THAT one before, about four thousand times, but usually about drugs. Never before about a four-dollar magazine - I'll give you that."

So the next day, after we met for lunch and hung out at their house, I left the stolen magazine there, on top of some other magazines but hidden underneath Mrs. Bowman's purse. I got the girl at the front desk of our hotel to give me a post-it note, upon which I wrote,

P L A N T E D

E V I D E N C E

and stuck on the cover. I delayed writing about this bit because I wanted to relate what she/they thought when they found it, but Alan told me just now she probably wouldn't call or e-mail or say anything, just mention the next time we saw them - whereas my mom would call the moment she found the Planted Evidence to say something along the lines of, 'You bonehead!', 'You evilness!', 'You hellyon!', 'Your father told you to do this, didn't he?!?', and so even though it would have been funny to document Mrs. Bowman's reaction, apparently she's already inured to expect that sort of thing, so the final funny bit is me leaving stolen planted evidence, and not her reaction thereto.

Still - *hangs head in shame* - I have SINNED AGAIN!!!!

2010-11-01T19:10:00.003-05:00

We're back in town after a three-day trip to Augusta to visit Alan's family. In order to take the pets, we had to rent a car because none of the carriers will fit in mine, much less four. This time we were issued a Nissan Xterra. Alan didn't like it much ("okay, but not outstanding") so it's not on his list for consideration, although it was a marked improvement in every way from the Kia Flaming Ball of Feces we were given back in December.

We loaded up all four pets but dropped the older two at my mom's on our way out of town. I am no pet psychic but I figured there were few things (being dipped in floral-scented melted candle wax, maybe) that Finnovar would like less than being uprooted and stuck into the midst of a bunch of strangers who would want to pet him and tell him that he was a pretty kitty, so he got to stay with Mom. Sprocket stayed so he could get groomed; she does such a GREAT job with him - he looks fantastic. I'd take a picture, but he'd see the camera and make sure I only got a vague black blob like he always does.

We stayed at the Doubletree, which is becoming our regular hotel for Augusta trips. It's always immaculately clean and even when there is a raucous party or two going on, like last Hallowe'en, well-built enough that it's quiet inside our room. Alan got us a big suite, which was not very expensive since Augusta is only a vacation hotspot during Masters Week. His parents and their neighbors have a Hallowe'en tradition of a big block party, grilling out, tons of treats of the "my favorites" variety like raw veggies and dip, cheeses and crackers. It was great fun and our hotel room included a jacuzzi tub so I ended each day with a Lush bath and a glass of wine.

We had a very relaxing, fun trip. Best of all, we're off tomorrow too. We have a few plans, such as going to vote, but nothing busy or stressful. Alan returns to work Wednesday but I'm off one more day, so my mom and I are going to the spa; I'm cashing in on her offer of a spa treatment as my birthday present. My birthday was back in September but we've had a lot of busy weekends so we're only now getting it scheduled.

I have a funny story from the weekend but I want to wait to relate it until I know how the last little bit transpires.

2010-10-29T21:36:00.004-05:00

Discussing the 1993 European Grand Prix at Donington Park...

Jeremy Clarkson: And that was it: one lap, fifth to first.

Martin Brundle: Yeah. If you want to have forty seconds of 'what is Ayrton Senna the racing driver all about' - well, there it is. In a nutshell.

16.5 years on, and my heart still has a sad. A big one.

2010-10-21T19:10:00.004-05:00

More quiz-type questions (lifted from a random website, not anyone I know) because today a whole bunch of not-much happened.

1. How old do you look? I think I look kinda mid-thirtyish - no wrinkles or crows' feet or liver spots, but I don't look twenty-two either. Of course, I could be wrong and servers at restaurants and people at shops think, "Oh, it's THAT old hag!"

2. Where do you live? I usually say Atlanta, though technically it's a suburb thereof.

3. Are you waiting for something? Yes, for our house to sell so we can move, for the job market to improve, for timing/circumstances/fate to coincide so we can take a real vacation - but waiting generally, not anxiously like a teenage girl after prom night praying for her period.

4. What’s one pet peeve of yours that is not common? I have a couple of grammar-type ones; I know lots of people have grammar-peeves but perhaps mine are particular to me. I hate the phrase "close proximity" because if something is in proximity to something else, it IS close. That's what the freaking word MEANS; you can't be in far proximity to something. Likewise, the phrase "a high rate of speed" grates upon me. Speed IS a rate, it's the rate of distance over time, so that phrase translates to 'a high rate of rate of distance to time'. I have other semi-CDO peeves (CDO is like OCD, but in alphabetical order, as it should be) like drawer and cabinet doors left ajar or with stuff sticking out of them, or things that could be sorted into alphabetical order but aren't, though I daresay those aren't peculiar to me.

5. Do you want/have kids? No and no.

6. Have you ever thought about converting your religion? Yes but thus far no one wants to exchange Catholicism for hard currency.

7. Last shocking news you heard? This question is apt because only today I was shocked (and saddened) to read that Ari Up had died.

8. What was the last thing you drank? About two seconds ago, sip of Riesling.

9. Who do you most look like in your family? My mom.

10. If you could have something right now, anything, what would it be? The ability to grant wishes. You have no idea of the friends' problems I'd fix, the lives I'd enrich, the good I'd do, or the number of classic Ferraris in my garage.

11. Where does most of your family live? Georgia with a smattering of South Carolina.

12. Where did you grow up? Cowshit, Georgia, until I escaped to Atlanta.

13. Where do you want to go on vacation? On vacation! Seriously, the lake, the beach, the mountains or [other] would all be fine with me; I'd just like to go someplace where we could take the pets, relax, have a nice meal or two, a hot tub to relax in, books to read and, to quote Chuck Berry, "no particular place to go".

14. Have you ever had a panic attack? Not really; I have a hard time with teeming crowds and feeling hemmed in/people coming at me from all sides but I think my...er, episodes? are more in the category of "extremely uncomfortable and getting freaked out" than actual "panic attack" though it's been close a time or two.

15. What can’t you wait for? I've pondered this and have no good answer. There's not any one major goal or event for which I'm longing. Most of the things I "can't wait for" are things like the next season of Top Gear, the start of hockey season, the release of the latest Terry Pratchett book - things like that.

16. When’s the last time you told someone you loved him or her and meant it? This morning as I left for work.

17. Have your parents ever smoked pot? My dad has; I'm pretty sure my mom hasn't. But she might surprise me; one never knows, does one?

18. Want someone back in your life? You can't begin to have a one-trillionth of an inkling how much.

19. What do you order at the bar? Depends on my mood. Sometimes Rolling Rock if I'm in the mood for a beer, most often a Grey Goose and tonic with lime, but if it's colder out I might go for a nice snort of The MacAllan.

20. When was the last time you cried really, really hard? Um, actually? Today. For reasons of the 'that's a long/another story' variety, I was doing a Flickr search for pictures of one of my bestest friends and saw a thumbnail image that I thought was her with my adored Uncle Artis, but when I clicked and enlarged it to full-size, it was her with my daddy. At my wedding brunch.

21. Ever licked someone’s cheek? Eeeeuw. Just eeeeuw.

22. What is your favorite thing to eat with peanut butter? A spoon. No, wait, that would be 'with which to eat peanut butter'. A slice of bread - even though I have been a kid, I have never been a fan of peanut butter and jelly. I don't like sweet things mixed with salty things, not at all.

23. Where were you on July 4th, 2008? I'm sure I was here at home, but as to what I was doing, specifically, I have no clue because I checked the trusty blog archives and the 4th fell during a long blog silence involving work-related depression and angst, and the death of a friend's dad.

24. What are your nicknames? Hellybeans, The Helster, Hels, sometimes Cheryl calls me 'Rabid Red'. Alan doesn't call me nicknames so much as endearments (my love, sweetie, punkin). I have this feeling that I've left an obvious one out, yet can't think of what it might be. It's not "Your Majesty", I know, because far too few people call me that.

25. If you could go back in time, how far back would you go? How many go-backs do I get?!? I want to dine with Oscar Wilde, drink with Lord Byron and then with Dorothy Parker, attend the premiere of Die Zauberflote (30 September 1791) and hang out with Doc Holliday in Tombstone (he'd like me: we're both from Georgia, y'know; he's from Griffin) but then I don't want to go so far back as to give up hot and cold running water... can't I just skip back and forth? I'd like that.

2010-10-19T20:52:00.010-05:00

I don't seem to have much about which to write lately, which is a bit of a downer because I love to write. It just seems like very little of note, whether bad, good, funny or weird has been going on lately, which I suppose is a good thing but makes for a very dull blog.

Here is a quiz.

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought? Which time? 7AM: oh god, it CAN'T be morning already; 10AM: hey, my hair looks pretty good today; 1PM: ooh, I need to reapply my lipstick; 3:30PM: I wonder how long that random red hair has been stuck on my shirt right on the end of my boob, sticking out?; 9:15PM: I sure look goofy with wet hair wrapped in a big pink towel.

2. How much cash do you have in your wallet right now? Fifteen dollars and mixed change. I know because I went to buy lunch today, checked to make sure I had some money and found a twenty. Lunch was $5.70 but I had the seventy cents in coinage.

3. What’s a word that rhymes with DOOR? NEVERMORE. Feeling Poeish. Hallowe'en is upon us.

4. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone? I don't know. I mean, the number is there but I missed the call because I didn't recognize it and therefore didn't answer. I don't answer a lot if I don't know who's calling.

5. What is your favorite ring tone on your phone? Fruity Oaty Bars. Alan put it on for me when we got new phones.

6. What are you wearing right now? New 'jamas we got over the weekend, pale blue with darker blue and green stars. Clean and fresh from bubble bath and hair-washing in brand-new 'jamas.

7. Do you label yourself? Yes. My label says, "HELLO! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father; prepare to die."

8. Name the brand of the shoes you’re currently own? This is a most ungrammatical question. The shoes that are currently ON, or the shoes I currently own? I'm not wearing shoes at the moment, being fresh out of the bath, and if it's brands I currently own, 'twould be a very long list. See this post.

9.Bright or Dark Room? Dark - we loves the dark, prrreciousss...

10. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you? No idea - stole it off a random survey list.

11. What does your watch look like? Gold with a mother-of-pearl face and a diamond bezel. It's spiff.

12. What were you doing at midnight last night? Snoring, maybe. Dreaming, probably. Cuddling a tiny, warm, fawn-colored puppy definitely.

13. What did your last text message you received on your cell say? "Break on thru to the other side!" That probably doesn't make sense out of context, even if you recognize the Doors lyric. My carpool buddy and I had decided to try to leave 5 - 10 minutes early, if possible, to avoid a downtown event so long as nothing at either of our jobs went awry. Previous to that she'd texted me to let her know when I was leaving, and I'd replied, "I be about to shut down and bust out right now!" So bust out = break on through, which hearkens to a theory of ours that 3/4 of Atlanta's downtown city streets are covered in ill-fitting steel plates because of The Mole People, who are always tunneling and trying to break on through to the other side, but every time they almost make it, industrious city officials slam a steel plate down on them, and they have to move on to the next block. (Really. Drive here for a week - you won't find it far-fetched.)

14. What's a word that you say a lot? 'Fucknuttery' - see "Atlanta traffic", above. 'POWWWAAAAAH!' or 'POWERSLIIIIDE!' when I'm driving. 'Goes to eleven'. Lately, "EZIO!" - I'm playing Assassin's Creed II and yell at my character a lot when he does something stupid/unexpected/harmful.

15. Who told you he/she loved you last?(please exclude spouse , family, children) One of my best girlfriends.

16. Last furry thing you touched? Baby Esme. Before that, Finnovar.

17. Favourite age you have been so far? 33. I liked that; I was good at it. Neither too late nor too early. Still, now is pretty good too.

18. What was the last thing you said to someone? "Alan! What's a word that I say a lot?"

19.The last song you listened to? "I Stay Away" by Alice in Chains off of "Box of Flies". It was playing on the DirecTV music station we had left on, right before I played some PS3.

20. Where did you live in 1987? Atlanta, same as now. Not the same address, but the same area. After that I lived in Washington DC for a while.

21. Are you jealous of anyone? No, not really. I know there are people smarter than me, prettier than me, with more money than me, better jobs than me, but jealousy seems like a waste of my time more than anything. Why bother? Especially when I have The Husband and kitty and puppies. That's all I could really want.

22. Is anyone jealous of you? Not that I know of, and I should hope not.

23. Name three things that you have on you at all times? Keys, a pen and at least some money. I like to have cash even if I have my ATM and credit cards. Sadly, I can't say that I always have my cell phone; I charge it on my credenza which is behind me and sometimes, I'm so ready to leave that I walk out without it, leave for the day and then work myself up about doing something boneheaded.

24. What’s your favourite town/city? Atlanta, Georgia. If it wasn't, I'd move.

25. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper and mailed it? Hmmm, I've written a few this year to my mom, Aunt Jean and some others but I think the last one was to Nancy, using a GORGEOUS glass pen and ink she'd bought me as a gift.

26. Can you change the oil on a car? Of course. I can do brake pads and shoes, air and fuel filters, coolant flush, spark plugs and a number of other things. Some other things, like starters and alternators, I can pull and let someone else rebuild, then re-install. My theory is, it can't be THAT hard - guys do it. Heh heh heh, I just wrote that to be funny; I'm not really sexist. But my dad made sure that even though they bought me my first car, I knew how to do a lot of necessary things. He helped a lot (as in, took over and did it for me) because sometimes, even if I knew exactly what to do, I wasn't strong enough to do it, but I had to demonstrate know-how to earn his help.

27. Your first love/big crush: what is the last thing you heard about him/her? Boring answer but I couldn't even decide/remember who that might have been, so consequently have no idea what I may have heard about him. Er, it was a 'him', I know that much. I remember some boyfriends (a few more fondly than others) but I honestly couldn't say who was the "first love/big crush". Who cares, now there's Alan. They kind of pale into oblivion after that.

28. Does anything hurt on your body right now? Yeah, my right hip. I think I slept on it funny, or maybe too hard/long.

29.What is your current desktop picture? The logo and brand name of my current car, in this kind of hammered/distressed steel.

30. Have you been burnt by love? Not enough to be bothered about.

2010-10-14T19:04:00.002-05:00

A short meme from DKZody - the Essential Eleven!

1. When is your birthday? September 15
2. Favorite coffee drink(s)… Irish coffee with Bushmill's and a drizzle of creme de menthe. Mmmm, haven't had one since last winter at least.
3. Favorite type of food(s)…Italian, seafood - both at once is optimal
4. Favorite snack(s)…Cheese and crackers; I like a variety of cheeses (a hard, a soft, a sharp, a creamy, etc.) and this assortment best
5. Favorite fast food(s)…McFood. They have the best fries.
6. Favorite restaurant(s) – both regular & nice…Bone's (see previous post), two local restaurants - fabtastic Mexican, Frontera, and a wonderful Italian place, Chianti. Also DePalma's in Athens where I haven't been in way too long.
7. Favorite place(s) to shop…Bookstores. Oh, in particular? I like Dillards and Macy's, and echoing DK Zody on Target. If I'm being honest, though, I probably spend more money at Yankee Candle than any of the aforementioned. :-)
8. Favorite color(s)…Dark green, dusky pink
9. Favorite musical artist(s)…Far too many to list but the top few: Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Rush, Foo Fighters, Rob Zombie, the Rolling Stones - and see "Valentine Wolfe" link to your right. Lots of others and lots of genres, though.
10. What do you do when you’re not working or going to school (hobbies, pastimes etc.)…Reading, playing video games, reading, counted cross-stitch (this is mostly a winter hobby, historically, though I'm not sure exactly why), watching hockey and Formula One, playing with puppies, more reading
11. Finish this sentence: I really like to…snuggle on the couch with The Husband and a puppy or three, reading a book with one eye and watching Top Gear with the other, a glass of wine handy by.

2010-10-12T20:13:00.002-05:00

I haven't spent much time on the computer during my few days off but I have had a most excellent time. Tonight, I'm a little depressed as work and stress and all the offal I left behind in taking my days off loom nigh, but I'm trying to work through it.

Friday we did something not unusual for us, visit to the bookstore and lunch, but to change it up a little we went further afield, to two different bookstores instead of the one two miles from our house and to a different, non-local restaurant. I bought some cool books and we had delicious burgers at Ted's Montana Grill, bacon/American for me and bacon/bleu for Alan.

One of the books I bought was a Batman graphic novel, which is very cool, Batman Chronicles. It's a reissue of the original DC Comics from May 1939 to Spring 1940. Sure, the drawings are a little...basic, rendered in primary colors and not nearly as pretty as a Dave McKean, and the storylines are a little cheesy, full of "It's YOU!", "SOCK!", YAA-A-A-A-A!" but the coolness factor of seeing the original comics as they were 70 years ago (seventy?!? WTF?!? Is my math off? No, 1940 was 70 years before 2010.), which include the first appearances of Robin, The Joker, Dr. Hugo Strange, and a very, very early version of Selina Kyle where she is known only as "The Cat"...this badassery totally outweighs the lamer elements.

Also picked up Top Gear Season 13 and a few other novels that look promising.

Saturday was mostly lazy, slept in and went to the vet's office for doggy heartworm remedy, nothing much.

Sunday we were invited to our friends Matt & Tammy's house, for a birthday party/cookout for their daughter Brooke, who is turning 3. It was really cool - they had a petting zoo! There was a pony, a donkey, lots of doggies (poodles, two Italian greyhounds, some mixes), two goats, some doves, bunnehs of all sorts and three little pigs! I held the smallest of the pigs, a tiny white one with pink on her snout. Her wee little hooves were adorable. Held a dove and a bunneh also, and scritched the donkey's ears. I wanted a piglet but Alan said no. I had a really fun time; every time I'm around them I wonder why we don't hang out more often. They don't live particularly far from us, just kinda cumbersome to get there. My brother Bo and his wife Sarah came down for the party, which it was great to see them, and also in attendance were some other friends, Adam and Gina, that I hadn't seen in some time. Great day.

Monday we went grocery shopping and then had dinner at Bone's, courtesy of my boss. My birthday was last month and he said, for a present, to go out to dinner with my husband and bring him the bill. He's done that a few times and it's a fabulous present, I've got to say (er - write). Bone's is consistently rated in Zagat's as the best steakhouse in America - not just Atlanta, America. We had a fantastic meal: I wasn't in the mood to fill up on salad so I asked about this "hors d'oeuvres board" appetizer. It varies daily but yesterday was these four pieces: a sort of flower made of the most savory salami ever, topped with shaved Parmesan, a prosciutto-wrapped asparagus spear, a deviled egg half topped with a sliver of smoked salmon and a small herbed crostini topped with foie gras. It was exactly what I wanted, some small savory noms of deliciousness without being half-a-pound of any one thing. Alan had their signature salad, featuring mixed greens, apples, pistachios and Stilton. I had a filet and he had a dry-aged bone-in rib eye, sharing side orders of onion rings and truffle-butter mashed potatoes. NOM. If you go there, though, order half sizes of the side dishes; otherwise they're way too much food and it's too fantabulous to waste. Warm pecan pie with ice cream for Alan's dessert and a creme brulee with fat blueberries, raspberries and mint for me. MMMMMMMmmmmm.

Today was very lazy, lying on the couch petting my puppies and kitteh, reading some of the books I'd bought and finishing off the bottle of Napa Valley Silver Oak 2005 from last night - you can order it at Bone's by the bottle but if you don't drink it all (because, say, your husband doesn't drink and you're not the type to down an entire bottle at dinner), they recork it and seal it in plastic so you can leave with it without violating Georgia's open-container laws and thereby are not constrained to the limited selection of wines by the glass. Aces.

It was a fabulous few days off: bookstores, good friends, delectable meals...I'm sad to see it coming to an end. Tomorrow's going to reek. But I suppose it's like the all-wise philosopher Butt-Head once observed, "Uhhh, well, if nothing sucked, and everything was cool all the time, then, like, how would you know it was cool?"

2010-10-08T08:08:00.002-05:00

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I'm here at home, holding a puppy, at 9:10 AM. I am officially off work today, Monday and Tuesday. I'm so happy to be away from the office and the stress and the b.s. - what shall I do today? The possibilities are endless. The bookstore, lunch with The Husband, playing with puppies, maybe even doing absolutely nothing. I'm totally with Peter from Office Space on this one - sometimes I've spent a day on the weekend doing absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be.

2010-09-28T22:22:00.003-05:00

This incident has kept me amused most of the evening. There's a guy whom I don't know at all who is on the board of my town's local theatre troupe. My friend Anne is involved in said local theatre troupe and the guy was over at her house last night to talk about some theatrical-type things. He was showing her some pictures on his iPhone and she was scrolling through when she stopped at one.

"Um - why do you have a picture of this car?" she asked.

"'Cause I loved that vanity tag 'cause I love Top Gear! And that is a really schweeet ride!"

Yup. My car. He had a picture of us commuting. He even sent it to a Top Gear-loving friend with the text, "Check out this awesome tag!"

Anne said, "Dude. That's Helly's car. I commute to work in that car every other week."

Isn't that wild? Some guy I never met took a picture of my car 'cause he liked my tag! And then happens to be showing it to someone who knows me, with no idea that the car belongs to a friend of hers.

I took a close-up of the tag (which by the way is STIG 7, if I've never blogged about it) and sent it to Anne's phone with the text, '"Baby Benz says, "Hi Tom!"' He sent back "Beyotch!" Heh heh heh.

2010-09-27T19:07:00.003-05:00

I haven't abandoned my blog, I just haven't had much about which to write lately. Today I have two funny stories courtesy of my friend Regina who works at a huge corporation. I'm giving her an alias for this one even though I've written about her before using her real name; I said I'd do this anonymously because I don't want her boss to recognize himself. Not that he knows me or reads this, but why take chances?

Part of Regina's job is to order catering for certain lunch meetings her bosses are involved in, and she tries to vary it though this is made difficult by budget restraints. She tried a new company who provided some delicious sandwiches for an admin meeting and thought she'd give them another try for the bosses. Well, her boss - a partner in this multi-million dollar firm - felt it necessary to call and chew her out from his Crackberry while in the meeting because he chose a chicken club sandwich and (gasp, brace yourselves) it had an onion slice on it. He berated her that he was allergic to onion and she should never, ever, EVER order anything with onion on it, ever, not even if she ordered non-onion dishes too. "I feel nauseous," he whined. He went on and on about the guy in front of him in line getting a chicken club, and it looked so good, and that guy's didn't seem to have onion on it, so he got one too and was soooo looking forward to it, and then there was an onion and he wasn't just disappointed (though he was that too) - no, it's worse than that. "I feel persecuted!" he says.

Persecuted?!? Really? Melodramatic much? But what makes it even more ridiculous in my opinion is that this guy is Jewish. Yeah, a member of an ethnic/religious group that's been discriminated against, subjected to violence and hatred, and dare I say truly persecuted and yet he's got his yarmulke in a knot over a freaking onion slice. Auschwitz, I'd call persecution; an onion, not so much.

Regina and I have had great fun mocking him. I told her that The Onion Persecution should be the name of our first collaborative album. We've been swapping texts.

Me: I feel persecuted by this tomato in my fridge.
Regina: Tomatos be like that. They'll be all up in your fridge, judging you, persecuting you, stalking you...
Me: I like persecuted by parsnips better.
Regina: Hooray for alliteration!

- later -

Regina: I feel persecuted by the mozzarella cheese on the garlic bread. It's very sneaky.
Me: It's the garlic. Peer pressure turns to mob mentality so quickly.

The other story happened today and is even funnier. Regina and one of her coworkers needed to have a quick one-on-one meeting so, since her boss was gone this afternoon (not the one who's persecuted by onions, there's a normal one) they used his office, sitting in the visitors chairs in front of his desk. His walls are all glass so perpendicular to them was the hallway and beyond that, their cubicle farm.

At her office there's this dweeb who we make fun of for a myriad of reasons. He's at the bottom of the food chain there but his favorite activity is stalking about holding The Wall Street Journal and summoning other dweebs to join him in important-looking discussions, whenever he's not primping his hair and checking his reflection from a variety of angles in the men's room. Regina's cube is just outside the men's room door so when guys come and go, she sees the aforementioned primping. So today Regina and the other lady are having their discussion when the dweeb walks by with a highlighter stuck up his nose.

Me: Wait, I need clarification! Was he picking his nose with the highlighter [she's caught him mining for boogers before] or was it just stuck up there, like for storage?
Regina: Storage! It was just hanging there, cap down, shoved all up in his nose.
Me: Magic-marker size highlighter or pen highlighter?
Regina: Pen highlighter.
Me: Please tell me it was pink.
Regina: Florescent yellow.

The other lady sees the bizarre WTF look on Regina's face, turns and looks. Dweeb sees them looking and snatches the highlighter out of his nose. But seriously, WTF?!? I mean, it's not like he was doing something weird in the not-very-private privacy of his own cube, he was walking down the hall with a highlighter pen shoved up his nostril!

Me: Well, maybe unbeknownst to us, today was Shove a Random Object Into a Random Orifice Day, and he figured -
Regina: Of the options available, this was the least...intrusive!
Me (simultaneously): Painful!

I feel persecuted by yellow highlighter pens.

2010-09-18T10:43:00.006-05:00

I is a greedy florin-pig.

A boy and his puppy.

A pup and his boy.

So sweet I had to repeat it.

2010-09-16T19:04:00.002-05:00

I am playing Assassin's Creed II (electric boogaloo) and when I got to a certain point in the game, I stopped to text my brother, who's already played it: "Is there any reason I shouldn't just run around Florence mugging people?" He replied, "None that I can think of." Hilarity ensured. I remarked later to Alan, "This game is GREAT! It's like Grand Theft de Medici!"

Some days later, Alan asked me, "Whatcha doin', sweetie?"

"Lootin'."

"Is that what you're supposed to be doing?"

"No. There are missions and stuff, and races and collecting things. Mostly missions."

"So you're supposed to be doing things that will advance the game, and instead you're rolling people?"

[in kind of a C. Montgomery Burns voice] "Yeeeeeesss."

"Oh, my sweetheart. You are a bad, bad girl."

Why yes. Yes I am. I have over four thousand florins and I'm still in Sequence One.

2010-09-13T19:54:00.004-05:00

I think it says something about my brother (and probably me, too) that on Saturday when I sent him the following seemingly enigmatic text, utterly without preamble, "WTH just happened?" he knew without asking for an iota of clarification that I was talking about the UGA football game, and responded with a critique of Mark Richt's coaching strategy.

2010-09-11T08:40:00.007-05:00

Wednesday right before I got to my parking deck, the computer in my car started fussing at me, saying that the right and left lamps that illuminate the license plate WERE! MALFUNCTIONING! AND! NEEDED! ATTENTION! Something had happened, and something have got to be did, you know. So I called the dealership, made a service appointment for Thursday and showed up promptly at 10:50 (my appointment was for 11:00 - y'all know I like to be on time).

Now, my dealership of choice is very nice - there is a whole wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that look down on the repair floor so if you want, you can watch what's happening with your car. There are flat-screen televisions, leather couches, they've always given free water, coffee and soda but now they also give free treats from their new cafe - while I was there, I had a turkey sammich, chips and a Diet Coke, free but they also have wraps, salads, pastries, yum! - it's a nice place full of nice people.

So while I was there this dude comes in who is angry that the entire instrument cluster on his car has gone out. He had to be well past retirement age and was the most white-bread, straightlaced standard-issue boring looking dude (this is important later, that he's not a 17-year old rocker, he's a yawn-inducing git that probably measures his lawn after he cuts it, to make sure it's even). He had on charcoal-gray socks with lighter-gray patches on the toe and heel, which he'd matched (and I use the term loosely) with brown slip-on shoes, the kind that don't really have a back, just sort of a rim where the heel goes, khaki shorts and a blue-grey polo. He owns the cheapest, most stripped-down model of this car that it's possible to buy, which there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but he's walking around fussing loudly, griping at the workers, generally being an ass about his instrument cluster malfunction and wanting everyone to know how big his wee-wee is, when (a) we all have the same brand of car he does, that's why we're here - we're not impressed; and (b) these are the nicest people - and even if they weren't, there's no reason to be a fucknut.

So they pull his car around to the service bays and after a while, his service advisor comes to update him. I happen to be couching just outside her door so I hear a lot of this, though he is much louder than she is. I learned much of what happened piecemeal, as the conversation progressed and Blah Dude got louder and louder, but instead of writing it as it happened, I will sum up. Blah Dude had, for whatever reason, felt it necessary to install a power amp as an adjunct to his stereo system, which he had done himself. What? Why? You need to blast your Earth, Wind & Fire CDs to impress the ladies at the old folks' home??? The standard Harman-Kardon multi-speaker setup wasn't sufficient for you to enjoy the finer nuances of Benny Goodman???? He's not a 17-year-old boy who has a car that you can't sit in the back seat because of all the subwoofers and giant Rockford-Fosgate speakers, right? He's a total bland, boring geez! And kind of an assclown, to boot.

So anyway, seems Blah Dude had drilled a hole in his car to accommodate the cord for the power amp and drilled it bigger than it needed to be, leaving a gap. Then later, at some point he'd spilled a water in his car. His power amp shorted out and blew the fuck up, and apparently the amp itself has fuses in it, not just feeding off the fuse box in the car, so the resulting short-out explosion had blown up his entire sound band and the instrument cluster.

You should have heard him bitching.

BD: What do you mean, it has to be replaced?!? Can't you people repair it?
Kim (his service advisor): No sir, it's completely fried.
BD: Can't you get a refurbished one?
Kim: No sir, not really. When these things go, it's because they're really blown - there's no way to fix or refurb it.
BD: I can't BELIEVE this! I just bought that car 18 months ago, and now you're telling me I can't drive it, because the instrument cluster is gone and I can't tell how fast I'm going?!?
Kim: Sir, you drilled a hole in your car. And then spilled water in it.
BD: This is ridiculous! I want it repaired, not replaced.
Kim: Sir, you drilled a hole in your car. I can't repair your blown out sound band.
BD: This is an outrage! I expected better quality when I bought a [this brand]!
Kim: Sir, you drilled a hole in your car. It has nothing to do with build quality.

More goes on in this vein, with him insisting that she find a refurbished part or that she can repair it or get a part cheaper, and Kim explaining that, well, once you drill a hole in your car and get water in it, all bets are off. Then he starts insisting that he shouldn't have to pay for the part - I don't know how much it was, because she was not nearly as loud as he was - because he had a warranty.

Kim: Sir, you drilled a hole in your car. The warranty doesn't cover that.
BD: Do you KNOW how much I PAID for this car?!? [No, but considering you have the bottom-of-the-line stripped down model, I'm guessing not that much and anyway - ]
Kim: Sir, you drilled a hole in your car. And then got water in it.
BD: This is unacceptable!
Kim: Sir, you drilled a hole in your car. No warranty in the world covers that.

So he got off the warranty and was arguing with Kim about the price for the replacement part and when they could get one in when Tyler, my service advisor, came bopping out of his office over to me. The problem with my car was that a wire had broken that went to those particular lights, not that big a deal but lots of time/labor involved taking the car apart to get access to the broken wire, and this fell into a gray area warranty-wise. I'm 100% covered for things like the fuel injectors dieing or the alternator going bad, and not covered for things like needing new brake pads/shoes, oil changes, stuff that wears out. Well, Tyler had checked with someone and came out to say, "Good news! They decided that they're going to cover this under your warranty!"

This set Blah Dude off again. He pointed out from Kim's office door toward me and said, outraged, "Well, HER stuff is being covered under warranty!"

Kim replied, "Sir, she didn't drill a hole in her car."

Seriously, what goes through peoples' minds, that they think drilling a hole in their car and pouring water in it is the dealership's problem??? Still, if you want to make me laugh these days all you need to say is, "Sir, you drilled a hole in your car"!

P.S. here is poor Kim, the long-suffering girl who had to explain that if you drill a hole in your car, the results are kinda your problem:

This is Tyler, my service guy, who is way cuter in person than in this picture:

2010-09-06T21:33:00.012-05:00

If you don't know why this hat, that my brother and sister-in-law bought me at Dragon Con, is the BESTEST. BIRTHDAY. PRESENT. EVAH., then I really don't know how to help you.

Here is Mister Fusspot modeling my Jayne hat. Pretty cunning, don't you think?

He robbed from the rich
And he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man
And gave him what for
Our love for him now
Ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton
The man they call Jayne

Our Jayne saw the mudders' backs breakin'
He saw the mudders' lament
And he saw the magistrate takin'
Every dollar and leavin' five cents
So he said, "You can't do that to my people -"
He said, "You can't crush them under your heel!"
So Jayne strapped on his hat
And in 5 seconds flat
Stole everythin' Boss Higgins had to steal

He robbed from the rich
And he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man
And gave him what for
Our love for him now
Ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton
The man they call Jayne

Now here is what separates heroes
From common folk like you and I
The man they call Jayne
He turned 'round his plane
And let that money hit sky
He dropped it onto our houses
He dropped it into our yards
The man they called Jayne
He stole away our pain
And headed out for the stars

He robbed from the rich
And he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man
And gave him what for
Our love for him now
Ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton
The man they callllllll - Jayne.

(Played today by Mister Fusspot.)

2010-09-03T22:36:00.005-05:00

Identified Flying Objects

Nobody has problems like mine. Let me clarify: I know there are many people who have worse problems; that's not what I mean. Others' problems might be worse, but they're not LIKE mine.

At first I was not going to blog about this, because the beginning has me doing something so impolite and gross that I don't want to admit to doing it, but the resulting funny was, well, so funny that here we are. Let me preface this by saying that I would never, never in a million years have done any of the following if I wasn’t the only person in my office. I don't mean that I have a private office with walls and a door (which I did in our previous location), I mean, there is only ME in my office. I don't have cow-irkers just outside my door, sharing hallways and common spaces and occupying adjacent offices/cubicles. While I do have cow-irkers, they are all at different sites. Since it is only me in my actual office location, day-to-day, that is why I engaged in behavior that is...well, certainly not something to which I'd stoop if I shared an office with others, nothing to which I'd subject other people.

I’m typing away, hard at work on a spreadsheet and I kicked off my ballet flats. (First offense, barefoot and unprofessional.) I was kinda scrunching my feet around as I worked and one of my toenails snagged in the carpet. I took a closer look and the nail had a little break on one side, near the top and the hangnail had caught in the carpet threads. So I got out my nail clippers to remedy the situation. (Second offense: clipping the nails of any of my four appendages in the office. Horrible. I’m aware of this and I totally assure you that I DO have manners and that if anyone else was in my office, even momentarily, I'd NEVER have done this.)

So I lean over in my chair and wield my tiny implement of destruction. Y'all…when I clipped that toenail, the fragment FLEW OFF, up in the air and landed IN MY HAIR. In the back of my hair.

So today I found myself in the unenviable position of having to comb my fingers through my hair in search of my own toenail.

No matter what your day was like: bad, good or mediocre, I bet you didn't have to fine-comb your hair to RETRIEVE A TOENAIL - yours or anyone else's.

2010-08-29T15:11:00.003-05:00

Yesterday after running some errands, we painted our new garage door. I'd still rather have had a vacation on the lake, though. We put on a coat of primer, let that dry and then a coat of paint. It needs another coat but we decided not to do that today since a rainstorm was coming, and we weren't sure we'd finish in time for it to dry before the rain started. As it turns out, we probably could have, but we can do it tomorrow or next weekend.

Alan did most of the painting, but I helped. No, I did! Stop laughing, I really did! Here, here is proof:

See, you know I had a paintbrush because Alan wouldn't have painted an anarchy on his own driveway.

But me? I totally would. And I did.

I painted some door, too. You can ask him.

2010-08-25T20:13:00.001-05:00

And the man in the back said, "Everyone attack!"

Something both kinda weird and kinda cool happened this morning. I was flipping back and forth between Classic Vinyl and Classic Rewind, because every now and then something terrible would happen like Supertramp or Elton John. For absolutely no reason (for example, I didn’t happen to hear another song by Sweet or anything similar) suddenly it popped into my head, “You know what I haven’t heard in forever? Ballroom Blitz. I wish they’d play Ballroom Blitz.” Well, neither Classic Vinyl nor Classic Rewind did, but after one started playing Spirits in the Material World and the other some John Mellencamp, I surfed on over to Boneyard where I caught Operation Mindcrime at the very beginning. Excellent! Then what do I hear but a familiar pattern of drums followed by “Are you ready, Steve?” Yep – Ballroom Blitz. Less than 10 minutes after I thought I’d like to hear it, Boneyard obliged. What do you think: happy coincidence or Sirius is monitoring my brainwaves?

2010-08-24T21:41:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, after taking two of the pets to the vet for their annual checkup, we prepared to depart to run errands. Our garage door would open only a few inches and we were unable to raise it manually, either. Investigation revealed a broken spring. My car was trapped inside but we ran errands in Alan's, and on Monday he called for a repair. The repair company could replace the broken spring, but pointed out (accurately) many other things that were wrong with the garage door and recommended that we replace the whole thing. Our choices were replacing the spring now, and the whole thing, spring and all, in a few months, or replacing the whole thing now. So for my birthday I'm getting a new garage door instead of a trip to the lake for all of us. Yay. They did get my car out though.

Sunday, we went down to Mom's for an afternoon of grilling and conversation. My brother and his wife came down from Greenville, and our friends Matt and Tammy came over with their kids. I hadn't seen any of them in way too long; it was a good day. Yummy bratwurst, too. I really enjoyed the day. Bo's birthday is today and already I'd mailed him a card that included an iTunes gift card, but on Sunday I had another gift - it was a black canvas satchel that had "Support Our Troops" written on it, with dozens of Stormtroopers behind the words. Heh.

Yesterday and today were just the usual - work, home, dinner, bath and bed.

2010-08-22T08:56:00.006-05:00

Friday, my brother got a bill from Verizon for $2,700.00. No, that's not the bad part - the bad part is, his cell phone service is with AT&T.

He's called all the credit reporting services and his credit card companies, and thus far (fingers crossed) the cell phone appears to be the only breach. What a hassle, though!

Yesterday, we took Finnovar and Mister Fusspot to the vet for their annual checkups. I was a little worried about Finnovar's weight loss. At first, I was glad he was losing weight because he was a bit...er, fluffy, let's say, but it was going beyond a point that I felt comfortable. Fortunately, there's nothing wrong with him that's causing the weight loss, like kitty diabetes or kidney failure; he's just getting older. Dr. Smith recommended feeding him white-meat chicken for mega-protein so we got a package and I'm cooking some now. I added some rough-chopped carrots and celery, because who would want to eat just plain boiled chicken? Erm, and if I'm honest, some herbs de Provence and dry white wine too. It's my kitty; I'm allowed to spoil him. (Remember that massive pet-food recall of a few years ago? Here is how Mister Finnovar dealt with that.)

Mister Fusspot was less than pleased about his veterinary excursion.

"See, now, the stabbings - that's one thing. I'm a tough guy...kind of a badass. I can take a stabbing."

"But the turd-burgling?!? That just wasn't called for."

"Tell you what...you lot are so interested in what-all's up my butt, I'll put a nice smelly ol' poo in your shoe later, and you can have a look at that. I'mma rest up first - this is going to be a BIG poo."

2010-08-19T21:09:00.006-05:00

It's been so hot lately that I don't want to eat anything. I mean, that hasn't actually stopped me; I eat fruit or a sammich for lunch and some of whatever we cook for dinner, but I don't want most of our dinners, even when something I quite like is on the menu. It's so darned hot the last thing I feel like doing is forking steaming hot food into my body and consequently, nothing appeals to me. Except for the last few days, I've been thinking about gazpacho. Lovely, cold, spicy, tomato-y goodness - that sounds like something I'd actually enjoy. So tonight at the grocery store, we bought gazpacho supplies: tomatoes on the vine, red and green bell peppers, a red onion, an English cucumber - and tonight I made gazpacho.

We ate other things for dinner (deli chicken, potato wedges) because the grocery expedition put us home later than usual, but after shopping, putting groceries away, dinner and Jeopardy!, I made the gazpacho. I used Ina Garten's recipe; I use more of her recipes than anyone else on Food Network. I do recipes from Rachael Ray and Giada di Laurentiis as well, but I tend to like Ina's most of all - she has more of a classical touch, her methods are very French which appeals to me, and generally she uses more foods that I like. Ina almost never does something weird at the end like put mango-radish chutney over her beef bourguignon. Not that I've seen Rachael or Giada commit that particular atrocity, either, but many of the chefs have me hooked until the last step, when something unspeakably awful happens. Like punkins, Rachael - punkins; I just don't think they belong in soup. On the doorstep in late October, yes - soup, no. And grated chocolate on the beef shortribs, G.

So I made gazpacho and if you live in the greater Atlanta area, do you like gazpacho? Because it turned out quite delish, but the thing is - Ina's recipe said it served 4 to 6. Well, I don't know what kind of gazpacho pigs Ina be hangin' out with up in the Hamptons, but I have managed to produce a smallish vat of it.

Beer bottle is included in picture for perspective. The container is quite large and deep.

<--- 5 inches or so of gazpacho

<-- in a large container

My husband Alan, a former professional chef with a hoopty degree in Culinary Arts, pronounced my gazpacho, "Quite tasty. Bursting with freshness. Zesty and full of flavor." Take THAT, you down-home Neelys. And take a pint or two of gazpacho with you, while you're at it.

2010-08-18T19:22:00.006-05:00

Somethin' have happened, and something have GOT to be did!*

In the common areas of my office building are various groupings of chairs and tables. Some are cafeteria style and people eat lunch or work on their laptops there. Others are more formal, overstuffed chairs with coffee tables or more modern, various styles. Today when I ventured out to the deli to get myself a chicken salad sammich, I noticed that one of the straight-backed, black lacquer chairs near my office was missing, and had been replaced by a cafeteria-type chair.

This puzzles me.

If building management had noticed a damaged chair, they would have replaced it with one that matched. But why would someone pilfer a single chair? Wouldn't you at least want a matched pair? And why purloin what looks to be a rather uncomfortable chair? In any event, I can't imagine the rather tight building security letting someone march off with one of the official building chairs.

Further, it seems that someone rearranged the chairs to draw attention away from the missing one, because for about 3 years now, instead of there being one chair on each of four sides of that table like in the photo, there has been a pair sitting on either side (left and right as you look at the photo).

I can only conclude that there is some sort of Helly Chair Karma at work here, like Newton's Third Law of Motion (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) and that, because years ago I cast forth a chair into the universe, now from the universe another chair has been subtracted.

* This saying courtesy of a dear friend of mine, whose ex-husband had a co-worker actually come up and say this to him one day - very popular for us to observe to one another.

2010-08-15T12:21:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was lovely. Nancy came up from Athens and we had a nice mimosa-laden lunch here, then on to the spa! We were going to eat here - Nancy likes their fish and chips, but when we got there, a handwritten sign on the door said they were closed and would reopen at 11:45. While we were digging for cell phones to check the time, the owner came out and asked if we were there to eat lunch.

"Well, we wanted to," said Nancy. The owner profusely apologized but explained that her cook, due in an hour ago, simply hadn't shown up for work. We told her it was fine and that we'd see her another time. I felt sorry for the poor lady but it worked out fine for us; both places have great food and good mimosas, so we persevered.

The spa was great; I love going there. Over the last months, I have purchased a couple of the products they typically use on me, but giving myself a face treatment just isn't the same as someone else doing it while I relax on a soft bed, in soothingly dim lights with a scented candle nearby while relaxing music full of nature sounds plays softly. I have a naturally miserly tendency that makes it hard for me to part with money for no purpose other than self-indulgence, but when I do, I thoroughly and completely enjoy it. Mmmm.

Nancy got a massage, a detoxifying back treatment, some sauna time and a spa manicure complete with warm paraffin treatment, finished with a French manicure. It looked really nice. I had a custom facial and a Caribbean body wrap, which is a heated body masque that they apply, cocoon you in blankets for 30 minutes and then wash off the clay under a Vichy shower, wherein a bar equipped with 5 pulsing shower heads is positioned over you while you relax on a twin-bed-sized platform. After that, an intense moisturizer is applied all over the body.

Last time I went, it was to celebrate Nancy's birthday and this time, we were celebrating her job being unexpectedly renewed for the upcoming school year. How about the rest of you? Who has something to celebrate that would compel me to visit the spa? C'mon, don't let me down, now!

2010-08-12T19:12:00.012-05:00

There's some backstory to this, as it came up as conversation flowed and not totally out of left field, but I don't think it's particularly germane to the funny bit, so - on our commute home today, Anne was telling me about some people she knows who most emphatically did not enjoy their viewing of the movie Mamma Mia! - but wait, it's probably not for the reasons you think.

"That music! It was just awful! Pound pound pound, banging away, it gave us both a headache!"

Anne attempted to continue with her story but I interrupted.

"Wait a minute. ABBA was too much for them and pounded so hard they got headaches?!? Give me a moment to visualize [these two people] headbanging to Abba..." at which point I made the Secret Satanic Devil Rock Sign™ (see Fig. 1)...

Figure 1
...and started headbanging as I sang, "WAAAA-TER-LOO! WAAAA-TER-LOO!"

Not to be outdone, Anne made the Secret Satanic Devil Rock Sign™ and started headbanging as she sang, "Can you HEAR the DRUMS Fer-NAN-DOH!"

So if you saw two incredibly cute girls driving a Mercedes convertible along Turner Hill Road today and totally rocking out, now you know why: ABBA.

2010-08-08T20:01:00.004-05:00

I hate - HATE HATE HATE - having something wrong with my appearance, like a chip in my nail polish, a run in my hose or a spot on my blouse/dress. Not just hate but obsess about it, and I hate it in a way that probably suggests therapy, in that I fixate upon it, make it worse by constantly trying to correct/clean it, mashing paper towels into it - if I spill a bit of Diet Coke on myself in the morning it bugs the ever-lovin' eternal CRAP out of me until I can get home and change clothes (which are wet by this time thanks to eleventy-billion trips to the ladies' room to scrub my shirt in an attempt to rid myself of the soilage), even if no one else would even notice the minute, barely beige stain.

Tonight we went out to dinner and I had petite lobster tails (sluuuuurrrrrrp, yum!) with lemon and drawn butter. Somewhere about halfway through lobster tail #2, I realized that I had a butter drop/stain on my shirt. This disturbed me. I wiped and I scrubbed. Then I ate, and wiped and scrubbed some more. All of which I tell you as background so you will understand how funny Alan's comment was.

As he watched me grinding my moistened napkin into my blouse, attempting to alleviate the butter spot, he said, "Okay, enough, Lady MacBeth! That's not coming out no matter how much you rub it."

Have I mentioned lately how much I love The Husband????

2010-08-08T13:31:00.002-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I opened a bottle of wine (my first, I hadn't already had two or three, okay) and then carefully placed the cork in the kitchen utensil drawer and had the cabinet door open to throw the corkscrew in the trash when I realized that something wasn't quite right with that scenario.

2010-08-07T16:01:00.003-05:00

This may be funny only in the "you had to be there" way but it made me laugh, so...last night we went to dinner at Frontera, our favorite Mexican restaurant. In the booth behind Alan (so I was facing them) were three woman and a little girl of, I guess, about three. Tiny, old enough not to wear a diaper, brown curly hair with a yellow bow. I didn't see what it was that the little girl did, but it was something undesirable because suddenly her mother said to her, quite sternly and harshly, "Did you learn that from your daddy?!?" Little girl nods vigorously and happily, curls bouncing.

Some mini book reviews:

Where The Dead Lay by David Levien: okay, maybe it's me - I don't think this was a bad book, particularly, certainly not badly written, but for whatever reason I simply couldn't bring myself to care. At all. About any of it. About any of them. At one point, I thought that maybe it was because the reader doesn't really get to know the murder victim at all - he's just a stiff - but then I thought about how many captivating mysteries I read where one meets the victim(s) only in death, in the first few pages...so I don't know. But I just didn't care who did it, or why, or if they were caught, or about any of the players in the couple of subplots. I just didn't.

Chasing The Dime, by Michael Connelly: I quite like his 'Detective Harry Bosch' novels so I thought I'd give this one a read. The plot is kinda interesting as an idea and I did wonder what happened and why, but ye gods! An entrepreneur who owns a groundbreaking technology company who doesn't "do" cell phones? Yeah, that could happen. The same guy, who is supposedly quite brilliant and a savvy businessman makes such stupid, boneheaded, idiotic, asanine, BONEHEADED (ahem) decisions on any given page that I just want to cock-punch him. His supposed motivation for these decisions is just too freakin' lame to be believable. Why he didn't call AT&T and get a new phone number on page five (like any sane and rational human being would have done) is beyond me. Bleccch.

9 Dragons, by Michael Connelly: see, I didn't let the above get to me and gave Michael another chance, since this one was a Harry Bosch novel. This one was interesting at first but the plot "twists" were visible a mile away, certain people might as well have had name badges reading "Hello! My name is: Sacrificial Lamb" and the plot was at once too contrived and too trite. I long for the days of The Black Echo and The Black Ice and City of Bones.

Maybe the books are fine and I'm just getting old and grumpy. Definitely old, as I had an optometrist's appointment Thursday and was told that bifocals lie in my future - not in the way that they lie in pretty much everyone's future eventually, but as in, the time is only a handful of years away. Sigh. I don't want bifocals, not because I don't want bifocals in and of themselves (I've been wearing corrective eyewear since third grade, I'm used to it) but I don't want to be old enough to need bifocals. Bloody hell. No since denying the obvious, I suppose; I'll just go now and yell at those wretched urchins to get the hell off my lawn.