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!