You're Doing It Wrong

Pour Some Sugar On Me
I think I already have a post with this title but that’s going to have to do. I’ve been busy loading up all my new friends into my Google Reader so I can spend the next 6 weeks reading blogs 24/7. I’m not complaining.

Last night was the Def Leppard Reunion movie and dinner. And it was fabulous. Jenny made cookies that everyone ate too many of and we had pizza and popcorn and we watched what is probably the best cheesy movie ever made. It was cheesy in a way that made you love it. Meredith’s review of the evening is here.

Just in case you’ve never heard of it, Hysteria! The Def Leppard Story is a movie about the band with actors, not a documentary. Anthony Michael Hall plays Mutt Lange. It’s set from the time the band gets together through the making of Hysteria. If you’re a fan of the band, you’d have fun watching it.

Incredible sunrise and looks like a gorgeous day for putting in 108 bulbs. Too bad I’m at work all day.

Where Does All The Time Go?

I can’t believe it’s already Noon on Sunday. I haven’t managed my time well this weekend at all. But I did some good reading.

Last night we watched The Wind That Shakes the Barley. It’s a great movie with great performances but it is a very hard movie. It’s set in 1920 and is about Ireland fighting for independence. Cillian Murphy is really good.

But it’s a long movie, it’s brutal and people have to make terrible, heart-breaking decisions. I don’t mind hard movies but I was not up for this last night and by the time it ended I was cranky and mad at the filmmaker. Plus my dinner disagreed with me and sipping ginger tea, my favorite remedy in such situations, wasn’t helping.

We had this red pepper something soup which tasted fabulous. Lick the bowl delicious. We were under the impression that it was vegan but I can’t imagine what you could put in vegan soup that would make it so rich so I’m guessing that “V” stood for vegetarian and it probably had heavy cream and butter in it. We’re not vegan or even vegetarian so that’s not an issue but if I had been paying better attention I wouldn’t have eaten so much.

I had trouble falling asleep and woke up in the night with more rumbly stomach and thrashed around a bit. Bob was dead asleep but I heard him say, “Just go back to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.” Very sweet.

This afternoon is the big Def Leppard Reunion get together for Hysteria! The Def Leppard Story. And I still haven’t had time to check the tape so I hope it’s functional or else we’ll have to fire up the turntable and dance to Pyromania, instead.

Cascading Chores
I’m having one of those days where every time I go into a different room, I see another thing I need to do. For example, I decided to bake some pumpkin scones so I went into the laundry room to the pantry annex to get a new bag of flour and while I was there I realized there was some laundry that needed to be folded and put away but first I needed to make the bed (because I fold and organize into piles on the bed) and on the way back to the bedroom, I remembered that I was starting to sort out some recipes to figure out what I want to cook in the near future and I went to pick those up and when I went into the living room, I saw a pile of magazines that I needed to finish looking at and then the tea kettle went off and I went to pour some tea and saw that I was making scones. Etc. You know how it goes.

My scones came out goofy and I think it was the butter. I didn’t use cold butter, I used butter that had been sitting on the counter for a bit and there’s some bake-ology science about cold v. room temperature butter and how they act in baking which I don’t know enough about to explain but enough to figure this was the problem. Also I used way too much pumpkin because the recipe called for 3/4 cup and I had about 1/2 cup leftover and it seemed stupid to save 1/2 cup of pumpkin so I threw it all in there.

They taste delicious which is the only thing that matters.

My pulled muscle in my back is still bothering me. It’s an icky pain, too. Sometimes it seems to seize up so that I get tears in my eyes. It bothered me so much yesterday I considered whether I should call my doctor’s office. The thing is, it’s limited to a specific area and I know it can’t be catastrophic since I can do a 90 minute intense yoga class and it doesn’t bother me. Pulling, carrying things or any sort of muscular left arm things bother it. What’s the doctor going to say? Keep off of it? Take Tylenol? Other than the possibility of better drugs, I can’t imagine what I would gain from a visit to the doctor.

I took fistfuls of over-the-counter remedies yesterday which didn’t seem to offer much relief. In real life I take about 5 pills a year. I’m not a big pill taker. I got a stomach-ache and finally read the directions and apparently you’re not supposed to take that many. I slept fine and it feels better today and by better I mean, it’s a mild annoyance with moments of eye-watering burning rather than the other way around. I’m going to assume I’m over the hump.

The Definition of Clusterf*#K
This morning I woke up at 5:30a and heard the rain pounding on the roof and knew the commute was going to be a pain in the butt. I left later than I normally would because I was driving to a friend’s. I was parking at his house and then I could go out after work and pick up my car at his house.

There was humongous gridlock trying to get on the freeway and I had a honker behind me. Dude, there are a million cars who all want to get on the freeway. What are you honking at?

It took 40 mins to get on freeway — it’s about 2 miles. Plus another 15 minutes to get over the bridge and through the bottleneck at Delta Park for a total of 1 hr 10 minutes to get to my friend’s about 8 miles away. I listened to How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb in its entirety.

I’m not good at gridlock. It makes my heart race. Especially when people are honking. I can feel years of my life shucking off as I sit there clutching the steering wheel. It’s not like I’m in a hurry to go. It’s like I’m absorbing the frustration of every car around me. That’s my super power.

There’s local radio show doing a “vote for the band you’d most like to see do a reunion.” The only catch is: you can only pick a band where everyone is alive. My choice is The Replacements. They lost Bob Stinson but played awhile with Slim Dunlap so I think I’m good.

But the #2 choice this morning was Oingo Boingo and they played “Only A Lad” which I cranked and it got me through a few miles in a happy buzz.

I saw Oingo one time at Westlake High School in 1980. Danny Elfman had them turn on house lights because kids were spitting on him. Suburban high school kids trying to be punks. We thought we were so cool doing the pogo. This was around the time Suburban Lawns, Romeo Void, and Missing Persons were playing the clubs. Ah, the good old days.

I see online that that show, the Westlake H.S. show is a bootleg and I have got to get my hands on that.

My 108 bulbs arrived and we’re scheduled for cold and rain all weekend. Hm. Wonder what I’ll do?

Too Much Stuff On My Hands

Even though it isn’t November yet, I am all NaBlo all the time. I’m trying to get my page set up and read the blogs in the groups I’ve joined and started to leave comments and bookmark places I want to return to. Look at me all join-y and everything. Last year when I signed up for NaBlo I’d never left a comment in my life.

Last night we finally saw Orhan Pamuk at Arts & Lectures. For those of you that haven’t been following along, I spent most of last month trying to read one of his books and ended up reading a lot of other books about vampires instead. He won the Nobel Prize. The vampires just fell in love and experienced angst.

He was a fabulous speaker – very funny with great stories. He answered a question about the book I was trying to read, Snow that made me want to try to finish it. I should have asked him if he planned to write a book about vampires.

Long day. I’ve fired up a presto-log and have soup heating on the stove and I’m looking forward to a couple of hours of mindless television.

Update on the government agency complaint: both people I contacted got back to me with what I needed. Again, I believe this blog has magical qualities so I will point out once again, that I’ve never won a bazillion dollars in the lottery.

Time Suck
I signed up for NaBloPoMo yesterday (Orhan Pamuk for our first Arts and Lectures. I never did manage to finish his book (see book 29.5) but I did read most of an interview with him in last Sunday’s paper. I don’t know why but he seems to inspire major Short Attention Span Theater in me.

Finally as an aside: why would a government agency bother with having a website with email contact addresses if they have no intention whatsoever of ever responding to your inquiries?

Have You Got A Bad Back?
Most weekends have the same rhythm but it surprises me anyway. At first I’m regrouping from the work week and tend to waste a lot of time noodling around, reading, catching up on shows, napping, inventorying the contents of the fridge and making lists of things I should be doing. Then at the end of the weekend I’m doing 150 things at once and can barely finish any of them.

On Saturday morning I did a quick trip to the Farmer’s Market to buy apples and pears. I walked away with two giant canvas bags stuffed with Jonagolds, Honey Crips, Asian Pears, Bartletts, some other giant pears and one giant apple that’s almost as big as my head. I think it’s called a Hamer. I also got some turnips and salad stuff.

I did a move almost identical to one I did two years ago. I carried a bag in each hand and when I got to the car I transferred both into my left hand so I could open the car door and the weight surprised me and dragged my arm down and I pulled a muscle in my back under my shoulder blade. Weirdly, it only hurts when I stand or sit.

It doesn’t bother me when I do yoga and believe me I checked out a wide range of postures including backbends and nary a twinge.

It also didn’t bother me during gardening. And I’m glad I got out there because the forecast shows nothing but grey and wet on the way. I’m going to have to do the big bulb installation in the mud. I don’t mind digging outside if its cool and misty but I hate the mud.

Yesterday one of my main projects was trying to make more shelf space in my room so I can leave my writing projects out in individual easy-to-access piles with all related books and notes together. I cleaned some junk out of my closet and rearranged it and made some progress but still need to paw through some more crap. Technology sure creates a lot of junk. I have all kinds of cables and adapters and plastic widgets and cds that say READ ME FIRST and booklets in 10 different languages. And I’m afraid to throw any of it way.

Bugs
Yesterday we had one final visit from the furnace folks to finish up the clean-up. That’s 5 of my days off in the last month that I’ve had to sit around the house and wait for someone to come to something do the furnace.

He ended up arriving much later than originally expected so once again, things that I planned to do went haywire. He finally left around 4:45p and I wanted to take a walk because it was so gorgeous out. I made it a quick walk and took photos of spiders all around the neighborhood and they mostly came out poorly. I might throw some up on Flickr later. This is the first praying mantis I have ever seen in my yard.

Then I had some food I wanted to cook up with lentils and chard because Bob wasn’t going to be home for dinner and he doesn’t not share my love of greens and legumes and of course it all took longer than expected and I was starving so I ate some chips as a snack, then I made a salad and ate a slice of fresh baked bread. When my chard masterpieces were finally done around 8pm I wasn’t very hungry.

On the bright side: I have delicious lentil chard soup for breakfast. I also have an ambitious list of things to do today so I’ll not linger here.

I have one more quick note. I have these recipes out and I always like it when a recipe says something like : Serve with sour cream if desired.

If desired.

Isn’t the whole cooking exercise because you desire? Would you serve with sour cream if you didn’t desire? Why not say “try with sour cream” or “sour cream is a great garnish”?

“If desired,” sounds funny.

Huge Family

For my three loyal readers who don’t know this, my husband and I don’t have the same last name. His last name is Hughes.

Bob went to a workshop out of town yesterday and he told me he’d call when he arrived and got settled.

The phone rang at about the right time and I assumed it was him and said a very friendly, “Hello.”

An equally friendly English-as-a-second-language voice asked for Mrs. Huge.

I couldn’t resist.

“I’m Mrs. Huge,” I said.

It was a telemarketer.

More Pumpkin

I’ve been having a hard time remembering which way is up this week. Between the insomnia and shuttling back and forth to the inlaws for overnight due to the oil overflow incident plus the extra time involved with taking the bus, I’m off my game. I slept about 9 hours last night so I’m feeling human again today. I also did errands and my centering ritual which involves checking the refrigerator for bad dairy and scrubbing my bathroom sink.

We switched oil companies this winter and signed up for autofill. They use some sort of scientific quadratic equation that factors in daily temperatures and how much oil you’ve used in the past and who knows what else and then they bring you oil when you need it.

Historically this has worked perfectly for us and we normally get two deliveries a year. The problem started a year ago with the company we used to use because first I asked them to fill us up in the Fall and they said we weren’t ready yet. I said we’d prefer to fill the tank then because the autofill *always* comes in the middle of Christmas when it would be nice to avoid an extra expense. They talked me out of it and then delivered our fuel in the middle of Christmas. By April we were very low on fuel and we kept expecting a delivery but one never came so finally we called and they told us we weren’t ready yet.

Like they would know better than us.

So we ordered 100 gallons and vowed never to do business with them again. Now we have this new company and I knew they planned to fill us up in October but I thought it would be more toward the end of the month.

That’s why when I smelled oil, I assumed our tank was busted and not that it was related to a delivery. After some sleuthing (full disclosure: our neighbor St. Joe of 44th Street came over and looked at it because we’re not very bright) we figured out that it wasn’t a leak it was an overflow. This is a photo of the moved pumpkin.

We spent the night at my mother-in-law’s again last night and now the house smells about 90% back to normal. We’ve got another service call this afternoon to replace the broken part and check on the clean up. They’ve also noted the size of our tank so this won’t happen next time. And hopefully this means that we’ve worked out all our bad furnace karma before the dead of winter.

On to pumpkin talk because there hasn’t been enough pumpkin around here lately.

I’ve brought all my pumpkins in except the oil spill pumpkin and this patch here. These are my best ones and I’m worried that someone might come by and play kick ball with them. The big ones are ready but there’s this little yellow one that started late and is growing like mad and I want to give it a chance. I don’t understand pumpkinology and why some vines wither and you just bring the pumpkin in and other vines keep going and going. The way these vines are connected, I can’t cut off the big one without cutting off the little one, too.

This patch in the front of the house was my joke patch. I just threw them in there to see what happened. It ended up being my heartiest plant.

This vine looks like it could keep going. There are even flowers on the vine.

The weather is supposed to be decent this weekend so my goal (we’ll see how ambitious I am) is to get everything ready for the bulbs which should be arriving next week.