You're Doing It Wrong

I finally tried a bánh mì. I think I heard about it in the NYT but then I asked Matt (the guy in the photo – for some reason I don’t have very many classic Matt photos on my page) and he made it sound like this sandwich would change my life. I had it in mind except nowhere I go to eat has them. The food cart page said I could get one at Huongs so I ran over there at lunch today to check it out.

That sandwich peeled my face off. I don’t even know if it’s a “good one” as judged by those in the know but it was tough not to hoover it in three bites. And it was only $3. How do they make money?

Madison

Apparently I’m never going to manage to do a good blogpost or finish another book ever again.

Pumpkins, ready to live outside.

Technology and me – why can’t we just get along? I had all these great photos on my desktop that I was going to write a post about but then my computer tricked me into restarting it and they all folded up and returned to the magical land where they live before I click on them. I’m not in the mood to dig around for them again right now. I have another technology situation that I’m too embarrassed to write about but it’s hard not understanding how to do things.

I spent a huge part of my weekend trying to wrangle this story that just can’t figure out what it’s going to be. I discard 500 words for every 1000 I write. I thought I knew exactly what I was doing today and I wrote about 1000 words that barely introduce the scene I thought I was going to zip through.

I’m going to keep flogging on it. I think if I could just get to the end I’d know how to do the middle better. Maybe next weekend I’ll run off to a secret bunker with no Internet and see if that speeds up the process.

We got our furnace replaced last fall and for the last couple of days we’ve used the air conditioner with the new fan (or whatever, I don’t know how it works). I like having a cool house but that thing will blow your hair back if you stand too close. I guess we did good with our purchase. Walker makes fun of me because I’m always cold but I had to put sweat pants on just so I could sit at my desk.

I love it with reservations.

Stand In The Place Where You Live

I wanted to do side-by-side photos last winter but I couldn’t find my sunny photo. Yesterday I got my sunny photo.

Also yesterday I noticed the wasps are building a nest right next to the front door. Why do they do that? I realize wasps serve a purpose even though I don’t like them. But they’re always building something right by a door. Front door, back door, shed door. Bug spray is coming out.

Finally: NYT — I thought you were hurting for subscribers. At this point, we’ve had four telephone conversations and you’re still DOING IT WRONG.

Photo courtesy of atul666. Thank you for CC licensed photos.

Over the weekend I mentioned the Portland tram and the group was having trouble with a visual so here is a photo.

One of our neighbors has a yipey dog. I am especially aware of this now that we can keep the windows open and I can lounge around outside. That dog yipes constantly without rest. I bet it yipes in its sleep.

Purely from an evolutionary perspective: how have these dogs managed to stay alive this long? Why would anyone want to keep something around that makes that much noise? After about 30 minutes I want to kill it and eat it. And I’m sure there are people with less patience than I have.

Garden Update

A moment of silence please, for the Early Girl that fled the building. I don’t think this was my fault. I think Home Despot sells a faulty product. The tomatoes from the farmer’s market look fantastic. I told Bob to pick up another one this weekend.

I checked my peas on Sunday and they showed signs of extensive snacking so I cursed the slugs and then sprinkled about a half a box of slug bait in the garden. Later, as I stood in my kitchen drying dishes I noticed a little bird perched on the cage picked at the leaves. Bad birds.

I’m sprouting my pumpkins on the windowsill right now. My favorite of all my crops.

In a side note, in 06 I read a book by Susanna Clarke called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Book #2) that I loved. Later she had a book of short stories called The Ladies of Grace Adieu come out and after eyeing it for awhile I bought it. And I thought the stories were super boring.

I left it on the nightstand with the bookmark in the middle and never touched it again. Every time I was clearing out books to give away, I’d look at it and then think, well, I might give it one more try.

This has been going on at least a year. Last night I randomly picked it up and since I’d quit in the middle of a story I had to go back and start again. And I could barely put it down. I eventually had to because I didn’t want to stay up too late. But I finished it this morning.

I’m trying to be okay with quitting reading things that aren’t working for me and this little episode is not helping.

I’m off to Wisconsin tomorrow. I’ll check in if I can.

Tip of the Day
Today’s FoodDay has a tip for when you run out of baking powder. You mix baking soda, cream of tartar and cornstarch. Great! Now I know what I can do with all that cream of tartar. Whatever that is.

Bob and I live in a two person household with two of just about everything. We’re not good at sharing. Well, since he can’t defend himself, I’ll say that he’s not good at sharing. I would share just fine if I could be in charge of everything.

We do share kitchen and laundry facilities. We share a netflix queue (239 + 31 saved) and I keep my movies (23 at present) clumped together in the middle. We’re on the 5 movie plan and since he watches way more movies than I do, he gets 4 and I get 1. I watch way more shows than he does which uses up most of my TV time.

I always feel weird that we hardly ever watch movies together. But we’re rarely on the same schedule. If I’m going to watch a movie it’s usually in the late afternoon on weekend day. Or I watch it in pieces over a few nights. Bob likes to watch movies at any time of day, often when he’s doing other things: grading, reading, napping, internet-surfing, listening to music. Also if he’s awake he goes downstairs and watches movies in the middle of the night.

A couple of weeks ago he had Frozen River and I had Let the Right One In. We watched them separately and then in an unusual move, traded.

All that long warm up was to say that I finally watched Frozen River last night and it was really good. It’s about a woman in desperate financial straits who finds herself in the smuggling business on the Mohawk Indian Reservation. It’s a knuckle-biter. Recommended for people who like independent movies.

Update: I wanted to make sure I had the reservation name right since I don’t know much about Indians in that part of the country. I think the movie takes place on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation and Akwesasne Reserve.

Weekend Wrap-Up

All weekend I kept thinking I’d have time later to write an excellent epic post. But that time never came.

So this is going to be a slap dash thematically unlinked post.

I went out to check the garden on Thursday night, excited to see how things were progressing.

These are my cucumbers. The book says not to rush out with your cucumbers. They don’t like it when it’s too cold.

Well, I guess there’s a good argument for reading the book before putting the cucumbers into the garden. I’m going to buy some more seeds and try again.

One of the walls of water collapsed a little bit so I peeked in to see how the tomatoes were doing and they looked like they were desperate to join the cucumbers. I took two of walls down. The third looked fine so I left it alone.

I suck at gardening.

I’d like to get my hands on the guy who decided it was a good idea to make cars honk when the alarm is armed.

I thought the horn was invented as a warning device. When I’m driving through a parking lot and a car honks, I think something is wrong. Or else I’m startled because I’m tightly wound and get nervous when people honk at me.

One of our neighbor’s cars beeps when it’s locked and unlocked. I’d like to punch that inventor, too.

I’ve probably already written about this but I hate the sound of my doorbell. I can’t believe I haven’t pried it off the wall and drop-kicked it into the highway already.

On Saturday morning around 11am the doorbell went off and I was in the middle of something and not feeling like buying something, donating money or talking about Jesus so I ignored it.

Then it rang again.

I thought it might be a neighbor or friend or other person who knows I ignore my doorbell so I got up and pulled the door open. Two ladies with Bibles. Does anyone ever open their front door and say, “Oh goody, ladies with Bibles?”

I need to buy a new purse. I’m not one of those women with a million purses. I have one main purse and I have a couple tiny bags for when I just want to carry keys and money.

It usually takes me six to ten months of looking at every purse under creation before I choose one and then I use it until it disintegrates. I can’t remember how long I’ve had my current one. At least four years. Probably longer.

My requirements are very strict. It has to be either backpack style or slung across the body so I can have both hands free when I wear it. It has to be big enough for my stuff but not too big. And it can’t look too weird or trendy or be a weird color. My current bag has a big worn spot so the search begins.

I have some other topics but I think I’m going to clean off my desk. I’ve been meaning to do that for about six weeks. Who knows what’s buried there?

Stingey Jello

Yesterday for Mother’s Day we had tacos with crispy shells and Stingey Jello for dessert. It was really yummy.

This summer I’m going to be experimenting with molded foods.

I got the idea from this 1961 party cookbook I got at a book swap. I’m going to make some scans one of these days because this cookbook is all kinds of awesome.

There’s a recipe in there for some sort of fish loaf that you mold and when I saw that, I couldn’t wait to get into molding things to eat. I’m also going to come up with something else to call it because mold makes me thing of the blue hairy stuff that grows on bread. I’d rather find a spider in my kitchen than mold.

My mother-in-law gave me a ton of molds awhile back and most of them were sitting in a giant bag in the shop. I brought them all in and scrubbed and inventoried them and we are going to be eating things in all kinds of shapes.

For my first effort I used Blackberry Fusion Jello, a can of fruit cocktail and a can of Sprite. As you can see, it turned out a tad liquidy. My mother-in-law gave me my first tip: use a little less liquid than the recipe calls for.

This Just In: Drop everything you’re doing and go to the Jello website right this second. I wanted to link to Blackberry Fusion to prove it’s an actual flavor and I don’t see it, but: you search the flavor finder by color. I’d like to kiss the genius who came up with that.