Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Is it universal?

They are re-doing the sidewalks in my neighborhood this spring, and when I went out to get the mail I noticed that the blocks in front of the mailbox were freshly poured. And standing there by myself, no one else in sight, I had this compulsion to stick both my palms in the wet concrete, a la Grauman's Chinese Theatre...

I didn't do it, of course. I'm not a vandal. And I actually wasn't even going to admit wanting to do it, except that when Victor got home, he mentioned the sidewalk replacement. And he said "When I see wet concrete, I always have the urge to write my name in it."

Maybe everybody wants to leave a mark.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

We are unlikely to more forward at work this week, because some layer of bureaucracy is apparently out of town. Did I mention that I have no actual input in this process? That my only decision will be what shoes I happen to wear on the day this finally goes down?

Dunno what's happening on the kitchen scene either. I'm waiting for calls back, and I'm going to give it 24 hours before I freak out again. Mostly I'm waiting 24 hours because I'm exhausted, and I'm afraid if I need to come out swinging, I'll end up sobbing instead. I'd rather be Customer from Hell than the Crazy Lady Who Cried on the Phone.

A guy I work with brought me a giant bag of M&M's today. (He sadly told me they were the Jedi mix, though, because he couldn't find the Sith ones.) And Victor brought me a big bag of dark chocolate Hershey's Kisses. I'm thinking two things: it is really nice to have friends who care when you are a giant freaking stressball and try to cheer you up. And the second thought...wow, I must be a bitch on wheels right now.

CSC Invitational

We did have a little fun this weekend: the CSC Invitational in Clarendon. Because the race is a criterium (a short course, in this case a kilometer, where the riders go around many laps), we could walk around and see the whole course. We actually arrived toward the end of the women's race, missing the two men's amateur races, but catching all of the Pro.

You are nice and close to the action. (A few years ago, when it was the U.S. Postal Clarendon Cup, Victor and I worked as marshals, and our main responsibility was keeping people from crossing the street just as the peloton came around the corner. Now that the race is more popular, fewer clueless locals were trying to become the action.)

I know exactly how to take this picture with an SLR, but I'm not very good with my digital camera. The idea: open the shutter for 1/30 of a second to show how fast these guys are moving, but I couldn't close the aperture any smaller than f/8, so the picture was very overexposed. I Photoshopped it a bit (I'm not skilled with that either), but you sort of get the idea...they were a blur.

Here is Tyler Farrar, in the red, white, and blue jersey of the U23 National Criterium and Time Trial Champion, with more of the Health Net team.

Late in the race, a lead group of four: Kirk O'Bee from Navigators Insurance, Health Net's Ivan Dominguez, Ivan Stevic from Aerospace Engineering-VMG, and CSC's Bobby Julich, the fan favorite.

Same four, different order.

And in the end (which we didn't quite get to see, being on the wrong part of the course, plus there were bleachers in the way), it was Dominguez, O'Bee, Stevic, Jullich.

(Victor has better pictures and more detail, but I just typed this all up and I'm not going to waste the post...)

Memorials

Everyone probably recognizes the first three: the Three Servicemen Statue at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Wall of Names, and the World War II Memorial.

The fourth is the District of Columbia World War Memorial. It is located in West Potomac Park, an easy walk from the rest of the tourist attractions, though when the trees are full it is almost hidden. I have seen people pass it, wonder aloud what it is, and keep walking.

Commissioned in 1924 and completed in 1931, the Doric temple is inscribed with the names of the District residents (including women and African-Americans, a significant inclusion for the time) killed in World War I. The dome is large enough to cover the full Marine Corps band, who played at the dedication under the direction of John Philip Sousa.

Memorial Day

RP mentions the words on the Korean War Memorial. That reminded me that I have a picture:

Another, of one of the statues :

I find the Korean War Memorial to be the most moving of the memorials around the Mall. I think it is because of how spectral the sandblasted images on the wall are, along with the reflections of the statues:

...more later.

Maybe I'll use the bar to smash things

I'm sure there is humor in this.

Me: Hi, I called yesterday about my kitchen installation...a dispute between the contractor and the Corian fabricator over whether I needed perimeter support for the counter.

BBCHS person: Yeah. Hi.

Me: You said you'd talk to both of them and get back to me this morning.

[Time of call: 12:01. Yes, I'm being impatient. But apparently not impatient enough.]

BBCHS person: Right, yeah. Y'know, I forgot to call them. Let me do that now and I'll call you back.

Me: And when should I expect the call?

BBCHS person: Well, it will be before 2:30, because I'm leaving then.

On the happy side, the floor guys are done (it took them maybe 90 minutes), and the tile looks great. And actually, so do the cabinets with the new tile. My mom is coming over after lunch and hopefully we'll get it painted this afternoon.

So I walk into a bar

Because lately I can't pass a bar.

That's actually not true. I've had a few more glasses of wine that usual, but I'm not drinking in an attempt to avoid my problems. I'm just trying to be funny. My sense of humor ain't what it used to be.

If I weren't a freaking mess now, I think I'd find lots of humor in the kitchen thing and in the ant infestation (in case you're curious, I'm not avoiding the chemical assault because of my wacko love for all creatures even ants, it's because I don't want to poison my actual pets.)

I can't hold back any more. The Reader's Digest condensed version of what has been bothering me:

One of my staff is being terminated.

The idea of him being gone is not the stressful part. I need this guy gone. He is unreliable, not particularly good at the work, and his "antics" (what he's appearing to get away with) have trashed morale and productivity in the group.

He should have been fired long ago, jobs ago, but the documentation was insufficient. When he was transferred to my department my boss gave me this reassuring advice: "If anything happens...document it."

Here's what's bothering me:

Technically, I'm still not 100% sure that he's being fired. The lawyer needs to see if my year of documentation is sufficient. It has to be...we actually had two signed written warnings including "further violation will lead to disciplinary action up to and including termination"...and coincidentally, his most recent violation occurred on the day that the high-ups met to decide his fate.

That's another thing. It's my department and I who bear the brunt of this guy's problem causing, yet I have no actual decision-making power. That's stressful.

(My readings in Buddhism about lack of control have not been helping me with this.)

Everybody thinks the lawyer's on board, though. But I don't know when it's gonna happen, or how. I've never fired anyone. Well, not that I'm really doing it now, but I'm assuming I'll need to at least be around to see it. I am the manager. I'm dreading this day with every fiber of my being. The dread was made worse by a couple off-hand comments:

"Do you think we'll have a security issue?"

"I don't see him as the type to come back with a gun. He's more likely to jump off a bridge."

I needed both those images in my already overactive brain. Should I be nervous? This guy knows where I live. A couple of people have joked about this guy being like the stereotypical psycho killer: quiet, a bit weird, kind of a loner. But I'd have to say the second depressing idea does seem more likely. This guy is about to be cut lose from a company where he's worked for his entire adult life. When you get away with something for that long, of course you get complacent. I don't think he sees this coming at all.

He has chronic medical issues (which he freely shares in gruesome detail...I learned to let calls from his number go to my voicemail first thing in the morning, lest it ruin my appetite for the day). His mother is in a nursing home with advanced Alzheimer's. When you hear him talk about his life, you get the sense he sees a vast conspiracy against him. I don't think he has a good safety net.

Which leaves me feeling horrible. I shouldn't feel guilty. This guy got away with too much for too long. I know why it happened...previous supervisors felt bad for the guy. I feel bad for the guy. It was easier for them to just shuffle him off to a different job rather than to face ugly scenes. Hell, everyone involved hoped he'd find a niche where he could hide and provide some useful work. It's just my bad luck to be the last place in the company to try to hide him, and he didn't stay hidden.

So I say I don't feel guilty, but I feel like I'm sharpening an axe, and I'm really uncomfortable with that.

A string walks into a bar

...and orders a beer. The bartender says, "I'm sorry, but we don't serve strings here."

The string slumps away. A few minutes later he goes back to the bar and orders a beer. The bartender, looking a little exasperated, says, "I told you, we don't serve strings here."

So the string goes outside, completely dejected. Then he gets an idea. He ties himself in a loop and unravels his top. Then he walks back into to the bar and orders a beer.

The bartender squints at him and says, "Hey, aren't you that string?"

And the string says, "Nope, I'm a frayed knot."

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

I love that one.

So, have you heard the one about the dog?

Today I'm all, like, waa, waa, waa

Gimmie a crisis, I can handle it. Bucket of blood, fine. Toxic chemical spill, I'm on it.

Whole lotta little stupid things, I'm on the floor in a weeping ball.

Work continues to be a problem remotely.

The contractor didn't quite finish the kitchen job, but doesn't want to come back to do so.

The rat room is full of ants.

The network connection died. (Work is more of a problem remotely.)

One funny thing happened: when I first saw the ants, I didn't realize the invasion had spread through all the cages. I saw them in the frat boys' cage first, so I took the boys into my bedroom so I could clean their cage. Unsupervised, the boys like to gnaw on my cherry Queen Anne dresser, the only nice piece of furniture I own. So I grabbed a bottle of Fooey and gave the dresser a coating of denotonium benzoate, the most bitter substance in the known universe. Then I washed my hands three times, because this stuff is pervasive.

To my rats, denotonium benzoate must taste like pumpkin pie. They went right for the dresser.

Later, as I was freaking out over the ants and the computer and the contractor, it struck me that I oughta eat something...that maybe my lack of coping mechanism was blood sugar-related. I had a piece of fruit.

It tasted like denotonium benzoate.

Update:

The contractor saga isn't an epic horor story like most contractor sagas. It's another small thing. The guy from the Corian fabricator came today to make the template for the counter. He said we needed a wood frame all around the perimeter of the cabinets. All it's going to take to do this is some 1x2s and some screws; if I borrowed a saw, I could do it. But the whole reason I'm shelling out the bucks for contractors is that I don't like doing work like this.

Anyway, when I called the contractor this morning, I was really expecting them to say "Oh, we'll have someone come by and take care of that this afternoon," or maybe, "We're jammed today, but we can do it tomorrow," or something accomodating like that. Now, I didn't talk to the owner today, I talked to the guy I'm thinking is his XO, and I learned something important when my ex was in the Navy: the XO's job is to be the asshole. So maybe he was just doing his job, and if I talk to the boss tomorrow everything will turn out fine. But I'm not going to set myself up by hoping for that.

XO wouldn't actually call the boss about this, he only said he'd give him the message. This was at 9:45. When I called back in the afternoon, I tried to explain why I'm being the Customer from Hell: I need to know when they can come fix this, because I can't take off work at the drop of a hat right now. I need advance planning. I wasn't demanding they finish the stuff today, I just wanted to schedule it, not leave it up in the air. XO did not understand my position at all.

When XO called back a couple of hours later, he said he'd talked to the boss, and the boss doesn't think I even need this extra perimeter support. I read XO exactly what the Corian guy wrote on the papers he left (i.e., "needs full support around perimeter") and gave XO the name and number of the Corian fabricators. When XO called back, he said that they and the Corian people would resolve it and he'd let me know, but that he wasn't back in the office until next Wednesday.

At that point, I was really getting pissed that the contractor seems to be trying the weasle out of finishing the work. And the more people I moaned to about this this afternoon, the more they started saying things like "Make sure they don't do anything that violates your warranty for the counter" and "Wasn't meeting the fabricator's specs part of the contract?"

My contract is with a Big Box Chain Hardware Store. I'm paying a Big Box Chain Hardware Store. In fact, BBCHS called me this morning (about five minutes after I'd left the first message with XO) to find out when I'd be paying for the cabinet install, and at least I had the foresight to say "When they finish the job."

So I called BBCHS late this afternoon, got a person with an actual name and title, and explained the situation. She said she'd be in touch with the contractor and the fabricator and let me know tomorrow what is going on. I've been somewhat underwhelmed by the BBCHS's customer service so far, though.

I think the thing that bums me out the most is that when the job started, I really liked the contractor. He seemed efficient, he was friendly; on Monday the workers got farther along than they expected and were even sweeping up the hallway before they left. I asked for an extra business card for someone my mom knows who needs some remodeling work. Now I'm afraid that I am, in their eyes, Customer from Hell, and I still need not only this job, but the reconnects after the counter is installed. Can I trust them to finish the job right if I've had to bitch?

Plus, of course, it destroys my faith in humanity that the contractor I thought was so good turns out to be as slackass as everyone else I've had to deal with lately. And as I sat in the half-finished kitchen crying this afternoon, I know it's stupid, but I'm crushed that something that I was counting on to make me happy, a bright spot, is turning into the same huge stress and disappointment that the rest of life is right now.

I'm, like, yeah, whatever

It is not done when 'tis done, because the lawyer is on vacation for the rest of the week. I like long weekends, but not weekends that are long because I am awaiting resolution.

This stuff (cryptic though it is here) has put a pall over everything else I'm doing. New kitchen? Great. The cabinet doors aren't even (because the walls aren't square) and now that the oven is in, it ain't ever coming out, because the unsquare walls lead to unsquare cabinets, and I don't know what else. It looks fine. It's my dream kitchen. Whatever.

Some friends of mine had a baby today. I'm actually concerned about this, because she's a month early and they had to put her in intensive care because she's breathing too fast. The dad said it was okay; that's normal with preterm babies...this is another reason I could never have children. I'd be freaking out that no combination of "my kid" and "intensive care" is normal. But I'm just worried, not delighted, which is the actual appropriate response here. Baby. Yay. Whatever.

So. Worried about the baby, glad about the kitchen, in knots about work. Dogs are going on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
is scratching its innocent behind on a tree. Whatever.

100% filler

I really want to write. If I just let go and started typing right now, I'd probably have 1500 words before dinner, and it would probably be cathartic. But putting those words here would be ill-advised, because it's about the crap at work.

I don't have any more flower pictures, and the kitchen pretty much looks like it did last night. In short: no filler, and and if I can't write anything nice, I'd better not write anything at all.

Aurgh.

Here's what's going through my head right now:

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly

I promise I'm not out to kill a king.

The transformation- day 1

The kitchen last night:

The kitchen tonight:

Right now, the new subfloor is the nicest floor in the house. The plywood appears to me to be red oak. When I saw it, my first thought was "Can't we just shellac this?"

Through the doorway there you can see the refrigerator, which is sharing the dining room with the oven. The dishwasher is in the living room. The dog is confused.

Uh-oh

Watch your tongue in Rockville: Cursing is punishable by a fine or 90 days in jail, or both.

(You Might Be An Outlaw and Not Know It)

I work in Rockville.

I do a lot of cursing in Rockville.

On the other hand, 90 days might be a nice break.

Can anybody get me up to speed on the Star Wars thing?

I'm not kidding.

I kind of want to see Episode III, because the theme of how a man becomes evil (or lets the evil virtually obliterate the good) intrigues me. But I pretty much missed the Star Wars bus, and I don't want to blow...what's a movie cost now, nine buck?...if I'm just going to be confused.

I saw Star Wars, of course. In 1977. Once. I remember the main characters and the trash compactor scene.

I missed the Empire Strikes Back, and when I saw Return of the Jedi, I was chaperoning a kid's birthday party, so I spent a lot of the movie in line at the bathroom or helping a scared kid hide in the lobby. I remember those little Ewoks on scooter-like things, but I have absolutely no recollection of Darth Vader dying.

So, do I need to head to the video store and rent I and II before I see III? How about the original three? Is recognizing Boba Fett neccessary?

Tonight's dinner: Red red wine, and some more chocolate

I can finish off the rest of the M&M's for dinner: Zenchick told me where I can get 'em by the case. And don't for a moment think that having to buy them in bulk will be a deterrent.

You know what's funny? Usually, I don't even like chocolate all that much.

Dark chocolate goes well with red wine, though. Really well.

For some real food, head over to the Carnival of the Recipes.

Strawberries go well with wine

Or you can make them into wine, right? Like Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill?

Go on, make the picture huge, and notice how the yellow part in the center does look like a strawberry...

I know, I know: I sound like a dork or like I'm tripping. Look, with the way this week has gone, I need the little things, like nascent strawberries, pretty pictures, and Dark Side M&M's.

(I'm having trouble finding Dark Side M&M's. If you see them, buy them all and let me know; I'll pay you back.)

So, as I was saying: Big Tattoo Red

I first had Big Tattoo Red at a wine tasting (a fundraiser for my niece's school, in fact). I'm still learning the language of wine (who am I kidding; I'm not even trying to learn the language of wine; I'm just drinking more of it), so I'll pass on the review from the Wine Lover's Page:

This hearty red wine from Chile, a 50-50 blend of Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, shows a very dark blackish garnet in the glass with a bright violet edge. Ripe black and red-fruit aromas add a whiff of anise. Full, warm black-cherry and plum flavors follow the nose, juicy fruit and tart acidity backed by hints of oak and perhaps just a touch of residual sweetness that softens the wine's light tannins. Straightforward, not overly complex, a good food wine; fruit, tannins and good balance suggest that a little cellar time would do it no harm.

Yeah, that's exactly what I would have said if I knew what the hell I was talking about.

I like it, it runs about nine bucks a bottle (I could probably get it cheaper elsewhere, but I like the service at the little store near my house, and I'm willing to pay the price to keep them open), but what really made me a fan was the story behind the wine...two brothers, a wine importer and a tattoo artist, combining their talents to honor their late mother and raise money for cancer research and hospice.

So, when I stopped tonight to pick up a few bottles (I just gave the last one in the wine rack away as a birthday present), I could feel good about the fact that work is driving me to drink. I probably shouldn't say much about work. What can I say about work without exposing myself to trouble...ah, I'm probably going to be moving from my window office to a cubicle in the basement. And that was the good news.

Purple flowers

You know what this means, right?

Not that I'm having fun playing with the macro lens again (though I do love the macro lens...and high resolution. Click the pictures to see them much larger than life. Isn't it cool what you really can't notice with the naked eye?).

No, it means I'm too busy and stressed to write real posts. I have a meeting at work today; hopefully it will resolve some things and I can get back normal. And if not...next post will be about Big Tattoo Red.

Zoom in

Know what it is? (Click for a bigger image; the zoom-out is in the extended entry.)

Rats in the White House

I happened to notice this book review in the Sunday Kids Post. What caught my eye, of course, was

This book tells how the Roosevelts got used to the White House -- and how the White House got used to them. ("Shall I remove the rodent from the table?" the butler asks about one of the children's pet rats.)

The Roosevelts (Theodore, that is) had pet rats! How cool is that?

My favorite periods of American history have always been pre-Revolution through Federalism (while trustbusting put me to sleep), but I think I may need to read up on Teddy. Pet rats!

I found this is a quick Google search, from one of Roosevelt's letters:

All of the younger children are at present absorbed in various pets, perhaps the foremost of which is a puppy of the most orthodox puppy type. Then there is Jack, the terrier, and Sailor Boy, the Chesapeake Bay dog; and Eli, the most gorgeous macaw, with a bill that I think could bite through boiler plate, who crawls all over Ted, and whom I view with dark suspicion; and Jonathan, the piebald rat, of most friendly and affectionate nature, who also crawls all over everybody; and the flying squirrel, and two kangaroo rats; not to speak of Archie's pony, Algonquin, who is the most absolute pet of them all.

The story

After my grandmother died, it fell to my father to clean out and sell her house. This had been the family home for some fifty years, and the family, to put it mildly, were pack rats.

My grandfather had been one of those guys who couldn't stand to see something interesting thrown away, regardless of whether or not it worked. He could always fix it. We attributed my grandmother's need to save with her having lived through the Depression. They never got rid of a book or magazine, because you might want to read it again. And you couldn't throw away a shopping bag, someday you might need to carry something.

The cleanup took nine months. We filled dumpsters, Goodwill vans, and our own basements with stuff from the house. It was an emotional job, too...selling the house was depressing. Everything was laden with memories. The trouble was the volume.

The day before settlement my father and I were still trying to get the house emptied. It was like a Stephen King story...we'd think we were done, and the house would somehow generate more stuff in an evil plot to hold us there forever. We were into the evening when my dad, on his way out of the basement, noticed another box under the stairs.

I should mention that my dad is a pretty mellow guy most of the time, and he has a very good sense of humor. But at this point he was losing his patience. He needed both hands to drag this box out into the utility room, and we looked inside.

Like most of the boxes we'd unearthed, it wasn't labeled, and the contents were completely random. We were afraid to throw anything away without examination, because who knew...we might have stumbled across old stock certificates that held a forgotten fortune. Or it might have been a box of sales flyers from 1956, but we needed to look.

My father groaned. "What the hell are we supposed to do with all this?" He picked up two framed pictures that were near the top, a black and white photograph of some men and a print of the Sacred Heart. "I mean...I don't even know who these people are!"

Looking over his shoulder, I pointed to the photograph and said "Well, I dunno about those guys, but..." I pointed to the Sacred Heart..."I'm pretty sure that's Jesus."

He looked at me.

He said "Nic. I. Need. Your. Help."

(His lips said "Nic, I need your help." His eyes said "Would you like to go meet Jesus?")

I can't remember what we did with the box. I remember talking to my brother (who was living in Chicago at the time, and missed the whole housecleaning experience). I told him about the exchange. "Dad didn't laugh?" he asked, amazed.

Dad laughs about it now, but it's been six years.

I was chatting with my mother the other day. She was bemoaning the fact that she has trouble with setting up the drying rack in the laundry room because there is so much crap in the basement. "Your father," she said, "has filled up all the space under the stairs with God knows what."

And it hit me. He's filling their basement with revenge.

Saturday in the Park

Last night was my first opportunity to meet some bloggers in real life, courtesy of Ted's invitation to the Potomac Nationals game down in Woodbridge. You know how little kids get excited about something and want to leave four hours early, as if leaving early would make the anticipated event occur more quickly? That's sort of how I was yesterday. I was ready to leave mid-afternoon. Victor expected it would take us an hour to get down there and wanted to leave more like 5. We compromised on 4:30.

At 4:29, we left the house. Victor locked the door, then turned to me wide-eyed, holding up his housekey...with the core of the lock attached.

Our house has a lot of...idiosyncrasies. Over the years, one tends to forget about them. I had forgotten that at some point one of the screws had fallen out of the lock and disappeared. I had failed to notice that the other screw was loose. I lock and unlock that door several times a day, it doesn't fall apart, why would it ever fall apart?

After a stunned moment, Victor tried opening the door and confirmed that while the lock was no longer in the door, the bolt was firmly in the frame. Removing the key from the lock caused a small cascade of little pieces of brass all over the front porch.

Victor is a mechanical genius. I was going to call a locksmith (wondering if Saturdays were triple time the way the are for plumbers), but he put all the little pieces of brass back together and, with some cursing, managed to get the door unlocked. Removing the key, we had a cascade of little pieces of brass all over the foyer floor.

We don't live in Hell's Kitchen or anything, but leaving the door unlocked for the evening still didn't seem like an acceptable solution. Our 13-year-old arthritic timid beagle is not much of a theft deterrent, and the big hole where the lock should be looked rather like a neon sign. Victor tried putting the brass pieces together again, but the one remaining screw wasn't holding it in place.

Luckily, we have a mom & pop hardware store in the neighborhood. It's the place to go if you run over your tv cable with the lawnmower and need a connector to patch it, or if you need to buy a single washer for a leaking showerhead, or if you need a pair of screws "this diameter but 1/4" longer" in a hurry on a Saturday afternoon. By 5:15, Victor had the lock back in place and securing the door. Only trouble is, you can't get from Gaithersburg to Woodbridge in 45 minutes, particulary on a Saturday afternoon, particularly in a freak thunderstorm.

I called Mookie's cell phone from the road, trying to shout over the pounding rain, and feeling very self-conscious about being so late: "Hi, this is Nic...um, Nic the blogger? We're meeting you guys for the baseball game?" Meanwhile trees are blowing by the windshield. We arranged to get our tickets at will call, and continued the crawl down 95.

(Yes, I do have a habit of making short stories long.)

Anyway, we arrived at the stadium about ten seconds before the first pitch. Ted, Mookie, Robyn, Dawn, and the Buckethead family were all waving to us as we climbed the bleacher stairs, and it was like meeting a group of old friends…which I guess we actually are, we just hadn’t seen each other in person before.

It was a lovely evening, but not so lovely for baseball…rain (and lightning) halted the game, and the G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium concourse was not designed to hold quite as many fans as the bleachers. It was a bit cramped, and after Ted’s wife called to tell us the weather radar still showed a rainbow of colors moving our way, we retired to a Mexican restaurant for chips and drinks and more talking. (And not that we needed a conversation starter, but Dawn had a little drama on the way over.)

I can’t wait to do it again, rain or no rain. (And we have a beautiful new sturdy lock in the front door now, so hopefully we’ll be on time.)

Oh, and I’m flattered my family stories made everybody laugh. This post is already just a wee bit long, though, so I’ll save that one for later.

Scatterbrained Friday

I'm unusually scatterbrained lately. Part of it, I think, is a subconscious attempt to block out crap from work (I'm nervous; normally May and early June are the calm before the summer storm, and this spring ain't been calm). Part of it might be the kitchen, but so far that really hasn't been stressful, just a little inconvenient. We do have sick rats, but that's hardly new...maybe my brain is just full.

My gas tank wasn't full. I've had my car for over five years; today, as I was driving home from the compounding pharmacy where I had to get Misto's exotic prescription filled, I noticed an amber light on the dash. I didn't even know I had a "you need fuel" idiot light.

Now I'd like to add an "eat breakfast" idiot light. The other day at work I couldn't figure out why I was so damn hungry. I finally gave in and decided to eat half an hour early (who said noon is a magic hour anyway?). I opened my little cooler, and there was breakfast, right on top.

Speaking of food, I forgot to submit my brunch to the Carnival of the Recipes. I don't think they missed me...lots of good stuff, including some vegetarian dishes I will try as soon as the kitchen is put back together.

Speaking of lacking transitions, I'm taking yoga now, which has nothing to do with my kitchen or cooking, or even being scatterbrained. (I don't think it's connected, anyway...maybe it's made me more at peace with the idea of being a dingbat.) Anyway, I've noticed that there's a new Star Wars movie coming out...even in my oblivious state, I heard the news about the devoted fans already camped out at the theater, I noticed that the M&Ms were a little funny looking (but not bad: I kinda hope they keep the dark chocolate thing going), and I love what they did to Mr. Potatohead. But I wasn't expecting to go to yoga class and learn the "Darth Vader breath."

For MK

"Have Gun, Will Travel" reads the card of a man
A knight without armor in a savage land

His fast gun for hire heeds the calling wind
A soldier of fortune is the man called Paladin.

Paladin, Paladin
Where do you roam?
Paladin, Paladin
Far, far from home.

Maybe some Schoolhouse Rock videos...

I'm home from work today, waiting for a guy to come measure the kitchen floor. Since that should take...what, ten minutes?...I brought about 12 hours of work home with me last night. For good measure, I made myself a to-do list of about eight hours of neglected house and garden chores. Clearly I've set myself up for failure.

That's not my reason for taking a blog break, though. Actually, I'm not working because I can't stand it anymore. I'm trying to edit some material written by a 50 year old with more degrees that I have who always puts a comma before "and" regardless of the rest of the sentence.

Joe, and I went to the store.
We bought milk, and eggs.

That's just one of his grammatical issues, though. He must have slept through third grade English (along with junior high), and I guess he got into college on the strength of his math SAT score. Perhaps a gift of Strunk & White is in order. I'm not usually the grammar police (living in a glass house and all, I don't like to throw stones), but this guy is out of control, and I'm running out of ink in my red pen.

And I'm a wee bit frustrated. So, as I'm editing, I keeping hearing a line from Pulp Fiction in my mind:

English, mother******, do you speak it?

Anterograde amnesia?

Maryland's largest airport will be renamed in honor of the late Thurgood Marshall, the nation's first black Supreme Court justice, under legislation signed into law this afternoon by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R).

The law calls for the airport to be rechristened as the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. A three-member state panel on which Ehrlich sits must give final approval to the change, which is expected later this year.

Wow, that's a long name...why not just drop the "Baltimore-Washington International" part? In time people will stop calling it BWI, but not if BWI is still part of the name.

Except for me.

Not out of stubbornness or disrespect...I'm just bad at remembering changes. My brain must lack a certain elasticity.

For example: the Washington basketball team (currently playing the Heat in the playoffs). I know they are the Wizards; I thought the name change was a good idea; it isn't unusual for me to slip up and say the Bullets.

Fifteen years ago a chain of Washington-area drug stores, Peoples, was bought out by CVS. Guess where I pick up my prescriptions?

I still cross to Potomac over the Cabin John Bridge.

Mother's Day Burrito Brunch

Mother's Day brunch was a success. I had seen a recipe in the May Vegetarian Times for "breakfast burritos" from Inn Serendipity Bed & Breakfast, so I gave it a try. (I found a variation on the VT recipe here; scroll down toward the bottom of the page. Then scroll back up; all of these look very good. Bookmark!)

Here is how I made it:

Coarsely chop:
1 small onion
one red bell pepper
1/2 green bell pepper (using up leftovers)
about 6 oz. of while mushrooms (using up more leftovers)
and saute in olive oil.
Add 1 t of minced garlic (jarred...I think that's about 3 cloves fresh.)

Stir in
10 oz. box of frozen chopped spinach, thawed
2 T fresh dill
Hot sauce (I used about a teaspoon of Iguana Mean Green, which is a jalapeno base.)

Cover and cook until heated through.

Remove from heat and stir in 3/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese.

Spoon about 1/3 c of the mixture into 8" flour tortilla, roll tightly, and place in greased 9x13" baking dish. (I got seven tortillas in the dish. Six might have been better; I'll explain later.)

Whisk together:
4 eggs
2 c milk
1 T flour
1 t dry mustard

Pour over tortillas, cover dish with foil, refrigerate overnight.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until eggs are set. Sprinkle with 1 c shredded cheese and bake 15 minutes more.

(Because I stuffed the pan with seven rolled tortillas, they stuck up over the egg. Next time I'll either leave it at six tortillas or increase the eggs and milk. It wasn't a problem, but I think the presentation would have been a bit nicer.)

Serve with salsa and guacamole. (The original recipe said sour cream, but why use sour cream when guacamole is available?)

Mom liked it, which was the important thing. And she also liked her present: tickets to see that Nats play the Marlins on June 4. (I heard a commercial that said moms like diamonds...)

Happy Mother's Day!

Carnival of Recipes

The Carnival of Recipes is up at Technogypsy. Good food, pretty pictures (especially the Ukrainian Easter egg...those have always amazed me), and interesting stories about Russian Orthodox Lent and Easter.

Once again, you don't need to cook to enjoy the post!

Friday Rat Blogging*

This is Mistoffolees. See how creepy rats are? And dirty? And vicious?

*Yes, I stole Victor's idea. Hey, it's after lunch and he hasn't done it yet. If I'd had more time, though, I'd have looked for a Zombie...

When live gives you lemons avocados, make guacamole

The radio thing really did bum me out last night, but I had a happy discovery, too. There's a new Mexican restaurant near us, and they have fabulous guacamole. Incredible guacamole. I could have happily made the entire meal out of guacamole (using a spoon so as not to fill up on chips).

The rest of dinner was nice, too, but oh that guacamole.

Of course, it ought to be hard to make bad guacamole. Even if all you do is mash up some avocados, the result should be good, because avocados are the world's perfect food.

But I dunno, maybe you can make a bad guacamole, if you follow this recipe from a 1965 Better Homes & Gardens cookbook:

Combine 1 cup mashed ripe avocado (2 avocados), 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 tablespoon grated onion, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon chili powder.

Now if you stop right there, it sounds fine. Here's where it goes wrong:

Spread top with 1/3 cup of mayonnaise or salad dressing

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!

(I have also seen recipes from old cookbooks with avocado and french dressing. I'm hoping "french dressing" was something besides that orange crap I'm imagining.)

It goes on to have you stir in the mayonnaise and add bacon, so I'm just stopping right here.

Interestingly, things were more civilized in 1930, when the Boston Cooking School recommended this for how to serve "Alligator Pears":

Cut in two, remove stones, and sprinkle with salt and lemon juice.

Another one bites the dust*

Most of the time when I have the radio on, I listen to news (more importantly around here: traffic) or, lately, baseball. But when I do listen to music, I prefer oldies. I think it's because there are few oldies that I don't like, whereas in the later classic rock and mix formats, I'm bound to hear a song that will have me lunging for the controls trying to turn something off before it gets stuck in my brain.

When I say oldies, I mean mid-1950's to early '70's. AM music.

The Washington area oldies station dropped the "oldies" name several months ago, and bumped their timeframe. They quit playing anything from the '50's, and occasionally I'd hear a song that came out when I was in high school, a good 10 to 15 years beyond anything I want to consider an oldie. But I could deal with that, until the giant media company that owned them sacked a bunch of the disc jockeys, including two I particularly liked.

So I vowed never to listen to them again. I found an oldies station up in Frederick that was a bit staticy in Rockville, but they played some great stuff.

A month or two ago the middle-sized media company that owns them switched formats, and now they sound like a K-Tel collection of Monster Rock Hits. (If you need to hear some Supertramp, they play Breakfast in America at least once a day.) Which is fine, but not what I wanted to listen to.

My favorite fired DJ's ended up at the oldies station in Bawl'mer. It hurt me to do it, especially when they were hyping opening day at Camden Yards, but I sucked it up and started listening to them. The music was ok and I could hear Goldy and Johnny Dark.

Tonight we went out to run some errands. It really didn't strike me as odd when the music coming out of Victor's car radio was some '80's-pop-syth-crap, because Victor actually listens to that garbage, until he said "ABC is pretty modern for the oldies station." He pushed the button set for the oldies station...the frequency was right, the music was wrong.

Sure enough, the bastards at the giant media company switched the formats (and canned the talent...my DJ's are out of jobs again. Radio must be one hell of a business.)

Kinda funny, really, that in 1956 there were people who didn't want Chuck Berry and Bill Haley on the radio. It looks like they're getting their wish...fifty years later.

I don't really want to subscribe to satellite radio, but it may be the only way I can hear Elvis.

*Queen should never be played on an Oldies station, not even Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Frau

Have you ever wasted hours looking for something that you don't really need, but you know it's in the house somewhere (because no way would you have thrown it away), so you start randomly rooting through boxes in the basement, inhaling dust, disturbing spiders, until instead of finding the missing thing you find something else that sends you into an emotional tailspin?

The thing I was looking for was a picture from my senior prom; rather, a picture of me in my softball uniform posing with friends who actually went to the prom, which I did not. I was looking for the picture to illustrate a funny story.

I didn't find the picture. I did stumble across a graduation card from my high school German teacher.

I took German from seventh grade on; by my senior year, our class had dwindled to about ten students and we very nearly didn't get to have it. (It really wasn't fair; the only AP physics class was offered the same period, and about half the kids in physics would have taken German.)

Senior German was a good class, though. By then we had a pretty good grasp of grammar (like the dative case...I don't remember what that is, but I remember knowing it then), and our class was a lot of us sitting around talking in German. Frau talked about her husband and her pre-school son, we kids talked about SAT's and college visits and weekend parties. We read Bertolt Brecht and Günter Grass and Rainer Maria Rilke. We watched German tv shows that Frau's aunt in Munich taped. We played team Trivial Pursuit against the French class next door (the questions and answers in the respective language)...you can guess who won, I'm sure.

Frau was taking computer classes (this was the mid-80's; computers in school were a novelty) and we tested programs she wrote for teaching German. We actually hosted a competition for junior high classes who came in and took quizzes using Frau's program; the highlight there was the award dinner catered by a local German restaurant.

Food, yeah. Frau loved food. Our class was right before the lunch period, and whenever we could justify it, we had food in class: authentic German pizza, authentic German 6-foot-subs, authentic German Kentucky fried chicken. (In seriousness, we also did eat real German food, including field trips to the Bavarian Inn in West Virginia and Cafe Berlin downtown.)

I don't remember the dative case, but I sure do remember that class, and my teacher. I was lucky; the school system I grew up in was one of the best in the country, so I had a lot of good teachers. Even among the good ones, she was exceptional.

When we graduated, Frau gave each of us a coffee mug from a pottery in the town in Germany where her grandmother had lived. The note in my graduation card says "Vielleicht beim Lernen kannst Du Kaffee, Tee, oder Milch trinken - aber keine Wein Coolers!" (We had talked very openly in class about those weekend parties.) My mug was the only thing out of all my possessions that broke when I moved to Pensacola, but somewhere I have the pieces.

Three years after I graduated, Frau was killed in a car accident. It was a snowy day, she'd dropped her little boy off at daycare and was on her way to school. The road where she died is near my parents' house; it's been regraded and widened and it's much safer now. I occasionally take that route, and think of her when I go through the intersection.

Sometimes at work I get documentation in German; I think of her then, too. I imagine her shaking her head ruefully when I resort to Babelfish to translate. (,,Doch, Nic, Du kannst es lesen!")

Mostly I don't think of her, though. And when I do and I wasn't expecting it, it is a bit of a tailspin, even after all these years.

Punchy? I swear, I've had not a drop of punch.

Karen tossed me a meme (and stole my title, because when she told me about it, before she posted, it was I who started singing Monty Python. A window washer me! With a scrub-a-dub-dub and a scrub-a-dub-dub and a scrub-a-dub all day long... I'll forgive her, because memes are good. It's like the posts write themselves.)

Anyway, this is the meme:

The deal is this: choose at least five of the following sentences starters, and finish them. Add items to the end if you wish to.

If I could be a scientist...
If I could be a farmer...
If I could be a musician...
If I could be a doctor...
If I could be a painter...
If I could be a gardener...
If I could be a missionary...
If I could be a chef...
If I could be an architect...
If I could be a linguist...
If I could be a psychologist...
If I could be a librarian...
If I could be an athlete...
If I could be a lawyer...
If I could be an innkeeper...
If I could be a professor...
If I could be a writer...
If I could be a backup dancer...
If I could be an actor...
If I could be a judge...
If I could be a Jedi...
If I could be a mob boss...
If I could be a llama-rider...(by Ogre)
If I could be a bonnie pirate...(By Teach)
If I could be a servicemember...(By Jeremy)
If I could be a business owner...(By Blue 944)
If I could be an actor... (By Blue 944)
If I could be an agent...(By KelBel)
If I could be video game designer...(By KelBel)
If I could be a comic book artist...(By Stoli)
If I could be a hooker...(By Pollo Loco)
If I could be a crack addict... (by Elizabeth)
If I could be a porn star... (by Elizabeth)
If I could be a mime... (by Garrison)
If I could be a cartoonist... (by Wenchy)
If I could be the pope... (by Karmajenn)
If I could be a filmmaker... (by Kalisah)
If I could be a spy...(by MamaKaren)
If I could be a kid again...(by MamaKaren)
If I could be an astronaut...(by Nic)
If I could be a baseball play-by-play announcer...(by Nic)

If I were a carpenter
And you were a lady
Would you marry me anyway...

Oh. That one isn't on there.

Welcome to short attention span blogging, ladies and gentleman.

Ok, yeah, let's see, blog post writes itself. Huh. Ok, If I could be the pope...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oooh, if I could be a mime

(That was me walking into the wind.)

If I could be a spy...I actually wanted to be a spy when I was a kid. Not an Emma Peel type...even young, I knew that wasn't gonna happen...more like a female Harry Palmer. Hey, speaking of which, was Bernard Samson essentially an older Harry Palmer? I've always suspected that.

(I'm really not doing very well here, am I?)

Ok, I'll settle down and do this for real:

If I could be a farmer...I'd want an organic farm, growing crops that are traditional (or even indigenous) to this area.

If I could be a chef...I would specialize in sandwiches.

If I could be a painter...I'd paint light. I wouldn't want to be Edward Hopper, because there already was an Edward Hopper, but I love the way he painted light. Sun in an Empty Room is one of my favorite paintings.

If I could be video game designer...I'd quit and become a mime. Video games are definitely something I just don't get.

If I could be a writer...I'd write in-depth nonfiction after years of painstaking research on things that fascinate me, like Canada geese and phytonutrients and bricklaying patterns. (Actually, that would be "If I had an attention span.")

Wow, that was harder than I thought. Anybody else want to play?

Sunday dinner - Chicken paprikas

Not my Sunday dinner, mind you...my Sunday dinner will be a bag of frozen something hurriedly reheated between Sunday night chores. (I'm busier than usual this weekend, and I'm trying to clear out the refrigerator/freezer/pantry before the kitchen work starts.)

This would be my great-grandmother's Sunday dinner. My great aunt says this is verbatim "as Mama had written it down."

1 medium onion
1 teaspoon oil
Cut up chicken
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon flour
1 cup sour cream

Saute onion in oil, add paprika and salt. Cook slowly til tender. Blend flour in sour cream, cook 5 minutes more.

Now, I'm thinking there are some steps missing here, possibly because my great-grandmother wrote this down for someone who was basically familar with the process. "Cook the chicken" was a given, maybe. I'm also suspicious of the "teaspoon" measure, because ain't no way one teaspoon of paprika is sufficient.

My great-aunt's notes on the recipe are

The onion of course is chopped. I use enough paprika to make it look quite pink. And I use one tablespoon of flour in the sour cream and I usually add a little water to start the chicken cooking, and to keep it pretty moist during cooking.

So here is how I would make it:

I'd saute the onion in the oil, then add paprika (a couple of tablespoons at least, but I'm accused of being heavy-handed with paprika), some water or broth, and two split boneless chicken breasts (i.e. four pieces of chicken). When the chicken was done, I'd set it aside, reduce the heat to very low, and add the sour cream to the pan (I've been lazy about the flour, but I think adding it first keeps your sour cream from curdling. I've not had that happen wth this or stroganoff, but maybe I've been lucky. I understand that if you use yogurt instead of sour cream adding flour is even more important.) I'd whisk this into a nice smooth sauce, adding more paprika if necessary.

Then I'd serve the chicken over egg noodles with the sauce poured on top.

I haven't made this in quite awhile, what with not eating meat, but I pulled the recipe out today because I'm thinking the paprikas sauce might be a good way to use a big bag of frozen mixed vegetables in the freezer.

Oh, and regarding paprika: not this. You want at least this, which I've had no trouble finding in regular grocery stores (sweet or hot...I prefer hot, but that's just me. The rest of my family likes sweet.) If you're able to find it, the good stuff is Kalocsai. A Hungarian co-worker gave me a kilo of it after I gave her beigli at Christmas.