You're Doing It Wrong

Email is starting to fill me with despair. It seems like it takes half the weekend to get through my home mailbox and half the weekdays to get through the work mailbox.

And I’m pretty good about keeping up and discarding or archiving as I go along. But there’s always something that needs attention.

My poor husband has had some sort of horrible disease this week. Every time he gets the tiniest bit rundown or stressed he complains that he has threshcold. I’m so used to hearing whining about threshcold, I barely listen. I say things like, Oh, did you drink some tea?

This week threshcold turned into fever and aches. And whining. I will resist the urge to make too much fun of him because if I go down with the horrible disease I can’t whine. But I will link to For God’s sake, woman, he’s a man, he’s got a man cold! for your entertainment.

This morning co-worker asked me about a popular holiday movie.

“You know the one I’m talking about? It’s called Something Something Something.”

It’s funnier if you could hear his inflection. It came out like: something … something … SOMETHING.

Argh, if you have to explain it that much, it’s not working. Only four more days!

It’s interesting to see how businesses do in our neighborhood.

There was a family run mini-market down the street from us. I only went in there a couple of times. I think 99% of its business was beer and cigarettes. I was getting beer. I think the lady was trying to make conversation, asking why she never saw me in there, but it sounded like she was berating me.

It eventually sold and then there was a series of people who tried to make a run of it but failed.

Then this friendly earth-mama type started selling coffee and muffins in the space. She began tearing down walls and expanding her business, selling hot food and having live music. She expanded the kitchen and opened up a great patio space. That place was hopping all the time.

Then there was a fire and she decided not to bring it back. Someone else tried to do a coffee house but it never worked out. The space is still empty.

Meanwhile there’s a different location near us that started a coffee house and wine bar. They have some hot food and are welcoming to knitting groups and 12-step meetings. They won a small grant and built a community bulletin board. That place is hopping now.

It seems like there’s always room for a good place.

I love our new refrigerator more than I’ve ever loved another appliance. (Sorry washer and dryer!)

It seems huge although it isn’t so much bigger than our old one. I’m still getting used to the idea that we can store our condiments, that used to take up a half shelf, in the door.

However, our old fridge was warm on top. I’m sure this means it was inefficient but it was handy for me. We have a cool kitchen and I usually put bread that was rising up there. I made rolls and felt the top of the fridge and: not even a tiny bit warm. Not the end of the world but I need to revise my habits.

Bob and I went to see Life of Pi this afternoon. I would never have guessed you could make a successful movie of that. We loved it. I did read the book and if you’ve read it and are wondering: yes, it is faithful to the book.

Last night traffic was a nightmare. (Apparently it’s a nightmare now, too, but I’m not out in it.) I ended up getting home late and by then Bob was already wrangling dinner so I decided not to do any prepatory cooking projects.

Then I woke up at 3am and was seized with the idea that the Brussels sprouts were ruined because I didn’t prep them. For a minute I considered getting up and doing it then, but I figured if they were ruined they were ruined and if they were fine, they would be fine 12 hours later and I fell back to sleep. (This is the recipe I’m making).

I managed to get home by 1:30 this afternoon and made my chocolate haupia and pumpkin pies. It made me a little bit grumpy because that pumpkin pie recipe had some hidden steps that I did not notice because I did not read the entire recipe in advance. Cool the pie crust completely? Define “completely.” “Cooled” melted butter? Isn’t that just butter? They’re finally done and look pretty.

I thought I’d just make one pie to keep things simple but then I decided that it’s Thanksgiving weekend and I want to be able to eat a piece of pie when I wake up and I want to eat a piece of pie before I go to bed and I don’t want to eat the same pie twice in one day. I think I might skip the rolls (I’ve decided yes/no several times over the past few days) but we’ll see how frisky I feel tomorrow.

We don’t eat too early and I’ve got a small turkey so cooking shouldn’t be too epic tomorrow.

Guess I just jinxed it.