Beast Stew - Sunday 12/14/2008

This year I've been making a real effort to cook ahead most Sundays or Mondays. The beginning of every week seems to be so hectic, and it's great to know there are a few fresh homemade meals to start it out.

It's probably a little silly in this day and age and in a household without kids, but when I cook, I often feel like I'm doing something important. Engaging in an activity that people have pretty much always needed to do, and which I have the luxury of having fun with.

Cooking is the very definition of the sum being greater than the total of the parts. No one would sit down to eat a bowl of flour, a cup of sugar and stick of butter, but offer Scotch shortbread and it's a whole 'nother story.

For this beef stew, I basically followed the recipe from The Joy of Cooking. Next time I might make it more soupy and a little less stewy, just because we like broth.

I used my deep cast iron pan and it came out really well. Used 2 cups of beef broth and 1/2 a cup of red wine, and then added maybe another cup of broth along the way.

It takes a long time. About an hour prep because you have to brown all the stew meat in batches. Then cooking time is about 3 hours beyond that.

I'll do this again, but not as often as our simple chicken soup, just because the soup only takes about an hour and a half.

Decorations and the Economy - Saturday 12/13/2008

The skiing bear makes another appearance, but we are slowly replacing regular lights with LEDs.


Yeah, yeah. It's a manufactured home, as we like to call it.

In just two days, we'll have lived here for eight years. And you know what? When they offered to loan us half again what this house cost, we said no. We wanted to be in a position where either one of us could cover the payment on this house and land if the other should not be able to work.

We could have taken more money and struggled. We could have opted for some kooky balloon payment scheme. But we're not gamblers. I really don't understand how people can have deluded themselves into home loans for houses they just couldn't afford.

So what do you think?

In another 10 years, when we send in the last payment, should we put up a sign that says: "Don't laugh. It's paid for." ?

Old Technology, Meet New Technology - Saturday 12/13/2008

The trusty filing cabinet worked for a long, long time.

Today I set up the new photo printer that I won from Liz over at Los Angelista's Guide to the Pursuit of Happiness. Yeah, won! For free! [She's giving away a Wii Fit now...get over there!]

We met up for lunch last Wednesday and she just. gave it. to me.


Here it is. What a beauty! If I had done the research to pick one out, this would have been the one I would have picked. I didn't realize when I entered her contest that it is not only a fabulous photo printer, but it is also wireless!

Yeah, shout it! Wireless!

So now if I want to print out a couple of pages from my laptop in the other room, I don't have to start up the desktop. I can just print from anywhere in the house. Probably from the back yard!

And yow! The first print, right out of the box was so gorgeous that I was actually able to use it for a birthday card. I was astonished. My Lexmark never printed such vibrant colors.

This is where the trusty filing cabinet gets to take a bow. Part of the ease of setting up the new HP Color Photo C6830 was that I dipped into my file (all the computer tabs are red) for the wireless router we installed a couple of years ago, and was able to type the key into the printer when prompted.

I'm sporadic about being organized. I am way more organized than some people and considerably less than other people. It always makes me so happy when I can actually find something I need when I need it.

[Which leads me to... p.s. Hydra: I was serious when I said that the key locator we saw at Target would make a nice gift.]

Life in the Slow Lane - Friday 12/12/2008

The puppy's loving it. Me too.



After I got on the 14, the sky turned into a light show. I kept wishing I could easily stop and snap photos of the clouds and the mountains and the moon rising. Jumped out on the drive up to our neighborhood and took this one.

Good thing, too, because all the color was gone by the time I picked up the mail.

We started the weekend by going for sushi and picking up a Christmas tree! It's the freshest tree we've ever had. We had to be careful of the sap dripping out of it, and it was so heavy!

When you're living life in the slow lane, you don't feel compelled to decorate the tree as soon as you bring it home. Aaah.

Von's Comes Through - Thursday 12/11/2008

One-L had a death in the family earlier this week. I thought she was coming in today, so I stopped by Von's before work to pick up some simple flowers to put on her desk.

They had these, which really seemed perfect. The person who passed was like a brother to her; they'd grown up together.



This is the back of the arrangement. It's great that early risers like myself can find decent flowers at all hours of the morning.

They wouldn't, however, sell me the rum for the rum balls. It was before six in the morning and the registers won't allow them to sell alcohol until after 8 a.m. I told the cashier that although I understood completely, I was going to cook with it, not drink it.

"Do people still make rum balls?" she asked when I told her my plan. "My sister used to make rum balls. I haven't had those in years."

I told her I'm going to use a recipe I found online. Emerile Lagasse's.

As I left she said, "I'd like to be your friend!"

It's odd. Since I started feeling like my writer-self, I seem to be having even better interactions with people on all levels.

Lookin' a Lot Like Christmas - Wednesday 12/10/2008

They've decorated the little pot plants-- er, potted plants at the coffee house downstairs from my office. All around town, there are signs of the season.

I like all the lights and extra doo-dads. I like the Christmas music on the radio at Andrew's. I like planning surprises for my friends and family.

Ooh, and today I met with Los Angelista for lunch and she gave me the printer I won on her blog! Remember to go there and enter to win the Wii Fit she's giving away! And then read her blog. She's doing cool things and she writes about them well.

Ready to Rum-ball ! - Tuesday 12/9/2008

It's common knowledge around our office that Mommalisa is well-versed in mixology. She's also a good cook. So of course, I asked her advice in choosing rum to make rum balls with. I may as well get something that will be useable in a mixed drink because there will be leftovers.

Well! Advice was not enough! She brought in three rums for a taste testing. We did it in the front office. The one on the left is a sipping rum...nice, but probaby too nice to pour into a bowl full of flour and sugar.

Peachy, our boss, came into the office as I was testing about a teaspoonful of the Captain Morgan's. "I see the stress is taking it's toll," she laughed.

She went past into the next room to get a reference book. "Thanks for not firing us!" I called after her. I turned to Mommalisa, "If she comes back with a camera, we'll know she's been looking for an opportunity to downsize."

Later, I was talking to Peachy and mixed around a couple of simple consonents. "I'm perfectly able to drink before noom," I assured her.

I'm going to remind myself of days like this one when I am frustrated with this job.

Everything is Beautiful - Monday 12/8/2008

In it's own way.

Come on, sing it!

I was feeling upbeat when I parked my car at Trader Joe's and went in to pick up supplies for tonight's writing group.

Had a nice conversation with a guy behind me in the cashier's line. He had a couple of boxes of frozen mini-tacos. I had a mushroom-filled version of spanikopita, some little Thai chicken egg rolls, chicken chili verde, Thai jasmine rice and a couple of cheeses.

He said the mini-tacos are great. He loves them, his partner loves them, and his 90-year-old father who is living with them now loves them. "If he likes them, anyone will!"

I told him that I'm auditioning appetizers for Christmas Day and that I have a captive audience tonight.

He asked what I do, and I told him I'm a researcher for television and movies. Then realized, he meant in the context of the captive audience.

"It's for my writing group. We're all novelists." I told him.

"Well, good luck," he said, when I wheeled my cart away.

I told Braveheart about the exchange later. I've been feeling a bit depressed about my prospects for publishing for a long time, and it was amazing to claim my writing persona again. Not just verbally. I really felt it.

Braveheart raised a glass to me in her kitchen, "You are a f***ing novelist."

"You're a f***ing novelist!" I said, clinking glasses.

"We're f***ing novelists!"

I'm back at work on a project that came so close that it broke my heart when it didn't sell. I always thought that if I just had a shot, I could make it happen. It didn't work the first time, but that's okay.

Braveheart gave me an assignment about six months ago, and she and Tomasina were so supportive of the work, that it helped get me back on my feet.

I'm going to let myself feel a little proud that through many months of feeling utterly hopeless about my ability to achieve anything with my writing, I kept at it. I wrote this blog, I wrote another novel, and a couple of things that were published, and pages and pages on the assignment Braveheart gave me.

It's all we can ask of ourselves and others: to keep going. It's probably the best medicine this side of laughter.

You Probably Had to Be There - Sunday 11/7/2008

This is the before shot.

This is supposed to be an astounding example of how well the environmentally safe method of cleaning silver with a damp cloth and some toothpaste works.



Trust me, it works really really well, even though it's not as obvious in these before and after photos as it was in real life.

The tarnish starts coming off as soon as you start rubbing it on the metal. Use a white tooth paste, not a gel.

I discovered that the souvenir spoon on the right--which is from Hydra's family--wasn't as badly tarnished as I thought. It actually was gold--or maybe copper?--plate over silver. The underlying silver shined up pretty well.

Cool Thing: Borax. This is another environmentally friendly thing to use to boost your laundry (brighten it) and to soften your water. It can also be used to gently clean china and porcelain, deodorize things, and preserve dried flowers, and to make candle wicks! Check it out on the website.

Publish Post

I also like it because it's the famous 20 Mule Team Borax, and it's dug out of the ground about 60 miles from us, in Boron, CA.

Blind Monkey - Saturday 12/6/2008

From a lowly pair of Rockford Red Heel socks will rise a monkey.

When I was little I had a sock monkey named Zippy. He was the younger, more slender sibling of Zippy, so technically Zippy Two. But we were really good buds, so I called him Zippy. Or just Zip if we were really in sync.

I made sock monkeys for a couple of friends' babies a few years ago. Now I'm making one for my grand-nephew!


I was going to take lots of photos along the way, but I got all involved and forgot.

I think Zippy was made for me by my Grandma W., but I'm not sure that's right.

I'm not sure what happened to Zip in the end. I do remember my big brother, Texaco, tying Zippy's tail to one of the arms of the multi-headed floor lamp and making him whine pathetically, "Help me! Hellllp me!"

No one should be denied the joy of having an older brother.




It took about six hours to get to this stage because I am hand sewing this monkey.

I actually dug my sewing machine out of the closet, but I haven't used it since we moved to Acton eight years ago. After looking up the instructions online for threading the dang thing and realizing that I probably should have oiled it a couple of times along the way, I decided that hand sewing is the best option for me. It's also nice to be able to say about the finished product.

The only thing left is to embroider on the eyes and mouth. I felt weird leaving him like this, but I wanted to get the right color of floss.

Oatmeal and Peanut Butter - Friday 11/5/2008

Does anyone else have peanut butter with their oatmeal? In my family, we used to have it on bread with oatmeal, and then realized we were kind of maxing out on the grains.

Braveheart tried it with me, but she didn't like it. She's more into dried fruit and honey and stuff.

How about you? Any odd food combinations?

The Corporate Card - Thursday 12/4/2008

I have a corporate card!

Well, anyway, a corporate generic holiday seasons greeting card that everyone in the office signs, which gets mailed to our clients. It reminds me how important I am in the grand scheme of things.

When, in my dewy youth, I envisioned signing this many autographs in a row there was a bookstore involved, and a small but eager line of people with eyes aglow.

And a title page, dammit.

If the universe grants the realization of this vision, I vow that all my autographs will be legible.

Unlike Jens, the office manager, whose signatures on the last few cards imply that a person named Gerbil Horvanian works here.

Happy HouseDay! - Tuesday 12/3/2008

I took this two years ago. It's the stairs leading to the back deck at my Mom's house. This is where I grew up. (Though admittedly, it was a concrete patio when I lived there.)

Today is the house's 48th birthday! It's the day my family moved in, about six weeks before I was born. (Did I make the math easy enough for you?)

My parents designed and built it themselves. I really like the way Mom laid out the kitchen, with a built in oven and a stove top built into the counter that divides the working kitchen from the dining area.

Also very cool: There's a secret passageway! One pair of closets was never sealed off in between, so you can crawl through over the shoes and under the hanging clothes.

You're not supposed to. But you can. Trust me, this will win you major points with young friends.

Today's the day we start celebrating Christmas. Used to be with an ornament or a special favorite food next to your plate at dinner on December 3rd. My favorite was my own jar of maraschino cherries and the little glass bird ornaments that clipped onto the branches and had a little spray of stiff plastic threads for tails. (Cooler than I am describing, honestly.)

Happy Birthday, House!

I Am Already a Winner! - Tuesday 12/2/2008

First off, so you don't miss it: You could be a winner (soon), too. Just get yourself over to Los Angelista's Guide to the Pursuit of Happiness and see what she says about winning your own Wii Console and WiiFit!

And then read more of her blog. It's really, really worth it.

So as I was saying, Los Angelista gave away an HP photo printer on her blog today and (drumroll please!).... I won!

Not on my merits, but by the luck of the draw. Anyway it comes, it's wonderful.

I am humming Mary Chapin Carpenter's "I Feel Lucky" right now. Yes, I am.

I have been pining for my own photo printer, so I can make reproductions without having to run over to the drug store. And I'll be able to control the color balance, etc.

Oh frabjous day!

She made my Chinese food fortune come true : "You will receive an unexpected gift from an acquaintance."

Yes! Now we can work on the others that I have taped to my monitor at work:

1) Fortune will smile upon you.

2) You deserve respect and will get it.

3) You can expect a change for the better in job or status in the future.

4) You will soon get something special because of your charm.
Hmmm...that last one's a little scary in a The Monkey's Paw kind of way.

Now get over to Los Angelista's blog and be entertained and engaged.

Boom! - Sunday 11/30/2008

It came out of a clear blue sky, as they say.

I was on the cell with Kitty and had just pulled into the garage when BOOM! The garage shook, the car shook, and Kitty asked what happened because she heard it too.

Forgive me, I've read too many episodes of CSI : Miami (more than 130, oh my gosh) but I thought it sounded like not one but TWO bodies landing on the roof.

I got out and tried to look over the eaves. Rationally, it was probably not even one body. And it wasn't any kind of earthquake I'd ever felt. I said to Kitty that it might have been a sonic boom from one of the planes they test over the Mojave desert, just over the Sierra Pelona mountains.

Hydra, woozy from his under-the-weather napping, came out to the driveway to find out what was the matter. (No laying of a thumb upside of his nose, though.)

Our downslope neighbor came out with the news. He'd been watching CNN. The space shuttle Endeavor was landing at Edwards Air Force Base. Aha! Now that made sense. It makes a big impression when it reenters the atmosphere.

You can see in the photo that it was, indeed, not Florida in which the Endeavor landed.

Wish we'd known they'd be doing that. It would be worth the half hour drive to see it come down!

A Perfect Saturday Morning - 11/29/2008

Ah, yes. This is why I drove down to O.C. last night instead of this morning. So I could start a fire, make a pot of tea and read the last chapters of The Thirteenth Tale.

Perfect!

No, wait.

Something's missing!



There now.

Perfection.

There and Back Again, Again - Friday 11/28/2008

So... after a nice day of reading at home, I thought I'd go get the mail. Went to retrieve the mailbox key from the hook and...

Oh. No.

I instantly flashed on my keys in my jacket on the bed in the Cuz's spare room.

Called them. Yes, they found the jacket right after we'd left, but didn't know the keys were in there.

So on the day upon which I planned to buy nothing and drive nowhere, I ended up driving 220 miles round trip and buying gas in Orange County.

But I had my iPod, so I sang along to favorite tunes all the way there, and listened to stockpiled episodes of This American Life on the way back. Accomplished the whole thing, including a short conversation with the Cuzzes, in four hours. Traffic was moving.

Sigh.

Thanksgiving - Thursday 11/27/2008

While we had Thanksgiving dinner, a bird of a different feather watched us from Cuz-M and Cuz-P's back yard.

I wandered around taking photos of the paving stones Cuz-P makes, and the flowers in their yard.


I love the way their white washed fence sets off the roses!


The person who gave them the cutting that these shamrocks grew from says he brought it over from Ireland himself. I didn't realize that it had blossoms.


One of many blooms on this shrub.


Yellow!


After a long day of making us feel at home, Le Roi is bushed. Fuzzy photo because I didn't want to use the flash.


Hydra naps. As it turns out he was at the beginning of a weekend long illness. Let's just say he didn't keep his Thanksgiving dinner very long.

Now We're Cookin' - Wednesday 11/26/2008

I worked from home today to avoid the pre-holiday drive time traffic. I love getting up, making a pot of tea, and going to work on the other end of the house.

Clients were typically demanding as the people they work with put pressure upon them to tie things up before the long holiday. But I was mentally prepared for it, and I didn't have a commute behind me or ahead of me.

On my lunch break I made hot artichoke dip and tried a new recipe for cranberry sauce. It sounds unbelievable, but here it is:

Brandied Cranberry Sauce

16 oz. cranberries
2 cups sugar (I might do a half cup less next time, I adjusted for 12 oz. of berries)
1/3 cup brandy (I forgot to reduce the amount)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Rinse cranberries. Place them in a cooking vessel. Add the sugar. Cover, and put in the oven for an hour. (No additional liquid, just the water from rinsing.)

When you take the cranberries out of the oven, pour the brandy over the top. Stir or don't...I saw recipes that advised both methods. I poured them from Pyrex to this serving dish and then added the brandy, which mostly evaporated.

Me Too, Lulu - Monday 11/24/2008

Lulu relaxes on the couch after monitoring the writing group--she's a herder by nature and she keeps us in line--and a late night toddle around the block.

Whew. It was a good night and I'm glad to stay the night in Braveheart's artsy home, but I feel like I've been on the road for a month at this point.

26 Miles (Santa Catalina) - Sunday 11/23/2008

It was admittedly a bit gloomy as we set off "26 miles across the sea" as the song goes, aboard the Catalina Flyer. That's the Harborside Restaurant to the right. We pull out around 9:00 a.m.


A glimmer of sunshine along the way.

I spent about half an hour standing on the deck next to the--what do they call it?--the place where the captain hangs out. When we hit waves, I hung onto the railing and let my knees take the shock.

I felt like Slim Pickens riding the rocket at the end of Dr. Strangelove. Whoo hoo!


We passed an outgoing vessel on our way into port. The man next to us explained to his infant son that the jet engines put a lot of bubbles in the water and turned it this color. Thanks, daddy.



The Catalina Flyer safe in the harbor. That's the Avalon Casino in the background, from the Italian word for "gathering place." It's a movie theater and museum that never was a gambling place.


After poking around in some shops and having lunch with the gaggle of cousins, we hopped the trolley to the Wrigley Memorial and Botanical Gardens, where we saw such Dr. Suess-esque plants as this one. (It has island in the name of it, appropriately. Why oh why don't I take notes?)


Along the way we pass this bum. I sneak up to leave a dollar on his chest, only to discover it's our very own Hydra grabbing a nap while the rest of us coo over the succulents and cacti.


From beneath the monument. That's Cuz-M pointing something out.



I love all the details and shoot at least fifty pix in and around the monument.



Inside looking out. What a glorious day.



Hydra and I split from the pack and head for the casino. One of our number has a stress fracture in her foot and is not up for more walking, which is so reasonable. We feel like we need to move.


It only takes us about ten minutes to get there, and we buzz through the museum, which includes a great little exhibit about the May 2007 fire that burned more than 4,000 acres on the island. That's about 10% of it. 2700 people were evacuated by vessels like the one we came over on.



We head back to the mainland at 4:30.


By 6:00, we're back and the lights are on at the pavilion/Harborside Restaurant.



Our welcoming crew. Anyone know what this guy is?