Asparagus Soup

I found this recipe on the 'net and of course, modified it a bit to suit... well, in this case, to suit my lack of certain ingredients.

http://lowfatcooking.about.com/od/vegetablesandvegetarian/r/asparagussoup.htm

INGREDIENTS:

    * 2 tsp olive oil

    * 1 1/2 pounds asparagus, cut into 2 inch pieces

    * 1 medium onion, chopped

    * 1 celery stalk, chopped

    * 2 leeks, chopped (white part only)

    * 1 medium potato, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces

    * 3 1/2 cups fat-free reduced sodium chicken or vegetable broth

    * 1/2 cup fat-free sour cream

PREPARATION:

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven. Add asparagus, onion, celery, leeks and potato, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add broth and simmer for 20 minutes, until vegetables are softened.

Transfer soup to a blender and puree until smooth.

You may need to do this in two stages. Return soup to Dutch oven, add sour cream and stir on low heat until blended.

My version:

more than 2 tsp olive oil (enough to coat bottom of Dutch Oven, which to me is a really big pot with a handle on each side)

Two bunches of asparagus with the 2 inch pieces consisting of the top flowery thingies; then I went a bit more than half way down and cut to about 1/4" pieces, discarding the rest 'cause I don't know when the woody part starts

A couple little potatoes

The rest of the chopped onion in the fridge (1/2 c?)

The rest of the College Inn Broth from the fridge (1/2 to 1c?)

1.5 cubes of chicken bouillion

3 cups of water

oregano, rosemary, thyme, basil and some chopped cilantro that was about to wilt dramatically anyway (can't waste cilantro, it's special stuff!)

I stir-fried the onions, spices, and asparagus in the oil for 5 minutes or so, then dumped in the broth, water, and bouillion stuff.  Then I realized I'd forgotten the potato so I quickly peeled and chopped two and threw them in.  This came to a boil, then I turned it down some and let it simmer for 20 minutes, going back out now and again to sniff and stir.

At the end of the simmer, I chopped up the cilantro and dumped it in.  Stirred, put some in bowl, and added about 1/5 cup of heavy cream.

This is quite tasty with a buttered slice of potato bread.

I suspect I'll be making more soup in the near future.  It's becoming as addictive as the rice dishes, and it's often far less work...

~nv

Heating pads

I think I'm going to go out and find myself one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Health-Home-756-500-Arthritic-Controller/dp/B00006IV4N/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_i

(If I don't simply order it online, that is.)

Been researching these things because of a foot issue I've been experiencing for over a month now.  My left foot, which has been sensitive to shoe types ever since I forced myself to wear a particular pair of boots in hopes they'd "break in," began getting annoyed with me when we were in the process of moving early last month.  I chalked it up to the additional moving around at the time but then wondered if perhaps it was my new pair of shoes.  I went back to my old shoes and continued feeling this crushing sensation on the left top side of the foot, accompanied by pain on the right anklebone.  It came and went, but I recall a few days in a row where it was particularly bad.  Those days, I could scarely stand on it for the burning sensation that radiated all over the bottom.

That hasn't happened since, but the pain continues off and on.  Yesterday it annoyed me to the point where I got ticked off and walked /con gusto/ in an attempt to will it into submission.  It seemed to help for a time, as did loosening my shoelaces to avoid feeling the ever-so-soft ankle support ram gently but annoyingly into my anklebone, thus exerting undesired pressure on the bone again.  But it soon returned full-force.

This prompted me to research further potential causes.  I still don't know what it could be exactly, but I did learn a few things.  First, it's likely related to the extra load it was under while we were in the process of moving.  Simply carrying heavier-than-usual loads has been known to irritate the tendons, ligaments, and/or bones of a foot because of the extra sudden weight.  I /certainly/ carried a lot of extra weight around for a while there.  Forsooth, I recall my back was unhappy with me several times for this reason.  I never fancied my feet as being similarly irritable, but that particular foot is.

Second, foot injuries can take a particularly long time to heal because it's hard to stay the heck off them.

Third, heat can help speed up healing because it improves blood flow (and thus healing nutrients) to the area.  It seemed to me that my foot was more irritable when cold, whether hurt or not.  Any time I hike in the winter, my feet are sooooo prone to hurting afterwards as though injured.  Wouldn't it stand to reason that cold would irritate an injury, then?

So, I sat here reading, occasionally flexing my foot, and listening to it snap and crack.  Each time, the tension in it lessened a bit.  It didn't hurt today, but it felt as thought something in it was "caught."  You know the feeling, right?  You're walking along, and suddenly feel that overwhelming urge to stretch your legs or feet, and when you do, you feel something crack and snap, seemingly back into place.  That tension can cause pain, too, if it doesn't snap right off.  But my foot still felt sensitive, and very cold.  So I dragged out my heating pad and turned it on under my feet.  OMG the difference... warmth is so nice!!  It didn't seem to eradicate the tension still there, but I figured perhaps it would help heal it faster.

Then it dawned on me that the stiffness in my fingers when they're cold probably isn't good for them, either.  I don't really want arthritis when I'm older.  So, I tried moving the pad under my arm as I moused.  That was nice, too.  Now I want a few of these suckers, preferably withOUT the auto-shutoff, to see if my feet and hands will benefit from the warmth on colder days.

Anywho, 'nuff 'bout my minor stupid health concerns.  I'm going to go find out how to cook asparagus.  Last time I brought home groceries, two bundles of the stuff somehow ended up coming with me.  I wasn't about to go 20 minutes back to return them, and figured the one who bought them would probably return and get more, so the store that packed them in the wrong bag would simply have to eat the cost this time around.  I've not been in the mood to fix someone else's mistakes lately...

In other news, it's raining today.  No garden time for me!

~nv

Wow, and some say /I'm/ smart!!

I'm not /nearly/ as smart as this gal:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/24273418/?GT1=43001

Alia Sabur is one cool bean. She was already earning a bachelor's by
age 14. It's not just her intelligence that's impressing me, however
- a lot of smart people are egocentric, intellectual snobs. I like
what I'm reading about her views on what she should be doing in life.
Already she knows what she loves and what she wants most to do - and
she's doing it, not just doing it, but doing it in ways that benefit
others and not just serving her own desires.

She's not just a prodigy. She's also a humanitarian who knows how to
best help both herself and others. THAT is the true gift. The other
gift she has is that her abilities are not only accepted, but embraced
and nurtured.

There are times in my life when I feel so small compared to others I
perceive as giants, but for some reason, her story is inspiring me
rather than crippling my ego. I see places where I fit in, and places
where I don't fit in quite so much, and others where I don't fit in at
all. I've never felt like I truly fit anywhere, even as a "geek" who
found a foothold on her niche. I have no vision when it comes to
knowing where I belong. I only learn from experience. Tried
networking, found it interesting but not for me. Tried hardware,
that's fine, too, but not for me. The only place I keep returning to
is design in some form or another. It's the only place where my
technical skills combine with my creativity to do something that might
be useful to others. In other words, designing applications, that
sort of thing. Making data entry look perty. Putting fields in just
the right flow. I'm good at that it seems.

Anywho, I've gotta jet back to work, but had to spill some of these
thoughts... later laters.

~nv

Garden, part 1.

I've been attempting to plant a garden in our back yard. I got
tomatoes planted yesterday but I highly doubt they'll do well 'cause
I didn't exactly follow directions (how surprising). Then I was
going to plant potatoes but no one had any seed potatoes yet so I ate
a baked potato for breakfast this morning and cursed silently under
my breath about it. Then again it'll be a bit longer before I can
plant them anyway. I've been hoeing for two days now (okay, like,
six hours total) and have more marble debris than I need for the
edging on the garden. The only reason I figured out that I NEED
edging on the garden is due to the abundance of marble fragments in
the soil. There were some pretty big pieces in there, let me tell
you! Still are. I'm not even halfway done from the looks of it. As
I dug in my hoe the first few times, I'd expected some little stones
here and there. Instead, I discovered marble fill. Exciting on the
one hand 'cause some pieces are kinda cool and I feel like an
excavator or a little kid in a sandbox or something, but egads, I
wanted to just plant the garden and be done with it!! There's more
to be said, I think, for playing with the water hose... still,
finding old matchbox cars, figurines, and weird things like very
unhappy wax is pretty fun. I can see, however, why marble is kinda
taken for granted around here.

Anywho, I'm hoping to raise tomatoes, potatoes, green onions,
carrots, peppers, and spinach. I don't have high hopes, mind you,
but that's because I've never gardened before and didn't feel like
figuring out how to test the soil and stuff. I just used my
fundamental knowledge of gardening from various reads: pick a sunny
spot, dig it all up with a hoe, remove big stones (or in my case,
slabs of marble), and then put it all back sans the stones. Then the
soil's all aeratedish and the earthworms can go poop in it easier so
the plants we like to eat have something they like to eat. (Yeah,
ew, but that's nature for ya. Humans ultimately eat worm poo. In
fact, some humans eat the whole worm. Good for them, but I'm not one
of them. I prefer spaghetti.)

The only other stuff about gardening that I know is that you should
fertilize and make sure the soil is properly pH balanced. I don't
mind the fertilizing part but I don't want to put underarm deodorant
on there 'cause I'm trying to grow organically. So, tough cookies on
the pH thing, I say. I'm guessing the sandy marbly poo that's
streaked throughout our yard is adding calcium and/or lime to the
soil, thus alkaline pH. That's enough info for me. I'll just hoe in
some potting soil and call it good. Doubtful I get to grow
blueberries, however.

I saw somewhere that marble chip is $120 per cubic yard down in
Florida... *wonders if anyone wants ours*

~nv

Rude Awakening

I was rudely awakened this morning by my mind. As I lay there, swept
peacefully away in some far off dream with a smile on my lips, I came
to the sudden realization that I was waking up. I fought it,
desperate for just a few more minutes of sleepy reverie. Additional
sleep was being deftly capsized by the swirling sensation of pending
thoughts, however. My eyes opened, spluttering the murky depths of
consciousness, and I saw for the first time the time: 6:01am.

6:01am!!!!!

There was a lot of light sneaking into the room for six o'clock in
the morning. Still, Summer draws near, and thus, so does the longest
day of the year. Still hazy with dreamlife, I figured the clock was
right. So I squeezed tightly my eyes and willed my mind to take a
hike. My body relaxed slightly, appreciating the gesture, and I
sensed that sleep was pending once again. Could it be? Could I have
thwarted my mind this morning, awarding myself additional sleep of
which I am only too thirsty to drink?

I had. My mind was not impervious to the fact that I was still
supine and rather blissfully carefree to the things I could be doing
outside of the comforter's embrace. It rebelled after only a few
moments, but I'd somehow placed it into a rattly cage. The sound of
its complaining cup against the bars kept waking me up further, but
the extra sleep was not lost to me. So, I humoured it slightly and
reflected upon a movie that Dale and I watched last night. It was
called "From Hell" and starred Johnny Depp and some red-haired
woman. Also, Iam Holm, of LOTR-scary-ring-want-it-backer lore. (He
has a knack for looking scary, which scares me. Ha.) Then I tackled
the details of a colleague whom I worked with yesterday. I noted
with immense satisfaction that her eyes had transformed into a
brilliant shade of pale gray as she indulged my questions about her
puppies. I'd seen this shade before when she was amused, and am
always eager to see it again because I know she's feeling happy
rather than stressed. While it was not my intent to affect her mood,
I was still pleased that I had. Her face slowly fading from my
immediate thoughts, I then turned to Dale's image. In real life he
slept peacefully, but in my heart I watched him working on Dante's
new stereo. He was hooking up wires for the harness; sweaty, dirty,
and exhausted in his own right from the lawn work he'd accomplished
beforehand, he was fully willing to assist me with my overdue
project. I smiled and internally hugged him for his efforts. This
felt as though it could be just enough to satiate the caged beast.
Mind having been partially silenced, I teetered on the edge of total
oblivion and braced myself for the pleasant fall. Then my stomach
growled.

My stomach is my mind's starving counterpart. I may very well have
succeeded in my trek towards full sleep immersion were it not for the
rumbling protests of my belly. But now I'll never know for sure.
Understanding the futility of forcing sleep upon the growly beast
when I'm not quite sick or excessively exhausted, I decided to give
in and wake up. My eye cracked open. 6:30am.

Sleep may have been effectively ripped from my body, but the bed's
warmth did not give in so easily. I yawned and permitted a luxurious
stretch, then turned and hugged Dale - this time for real. He made
an unintelligible gutteral sound that sounded vaguely like "thank
you" and promptly resumed his snoring. My breathing was clogged in
my nose, however, and I began feeling claustrophobic, so I pulled
away and focused on pushing air through my nose. This went on for
several minutes as my mind applied salve to its self-inflicted
bruises and began asking questions about all the things I might do
with RapidWeaver and dirt today. The thought of RapidWeaver piqued
my interest, but it wasn't enough. "Perhaps you should go write
about me," quoth my mind, attempting to selfishly feed the fire of
awareness. "I think not," I replied, rather peeved at its inability
to demonstrate tact and patience. "How rude," it murmured. And
then, I was out of bed and this entry was thus born.

Dale is now awake, and has just unceremoniously thrown today's
clothing into a rolling heap upon the stairs. The kitties will
proceed to chase us around the house until they get their breakfast,
Peaches will fall asleep with the day's dawn, and I shall yawn
vigorously in protest of my internal alarm clock despite my
increasingly intriguing interest in RapidWeaver website design and
planting potatoes.

Thus begins my day off.

~nv

Soup

Okay, this one I'm gonna try to jot down. For one bowl of soup (yes,
one serving):

1/4 cup chopped onions
2 TBS olive oil
1 tsp chicken rub seasoning (or thereabouts)
1 TBS lemon grass
2 pressed cloves of garlic (or finely chopped if you don't have a
presseratormajiggy)
1 cup chicken or beef broth
1 tsp lemon juice
half a steak-umm if desired, broken into bite-sized bits
1 tsp soy sauce
1/3 cup chopped scallions
1/3 cup cilantro
1/4 cup dulse

Get a little pot and dump in the onions, olive oil and chicken rub.
Cook at half-way heat, stirring occasionally, until onions are
translucent (this might be what the real cooks call "carmelized" but
I gave up figuring that one out a ways back).

Once translucent onions exist, dump in the lemon grass and garlic.
Usually I press the garlic right into the pot, stir, then go rinse
off the press while it sautees or whatever it does.

Pour in enough broth to barely cover existing mess. Let it come to a
boil. Add a little more broth and let it come to a boil. Add the
rest of the broth and the lemon juice, and let it come to a boil.
This sounds longer than it really is. It actually takes a minute or
two. Once boiling, splash in the soy sauce and put in the steak-
umms. Let it go until steakumms are brown, then you can shut off the
heat and let it sit while you do other stuff.

Arrange cilantro, scallions, and dulse on big ol' plate and put a
little glass bowl in center of it all. Dump in the soup. Have some
birch beer with it if you wish, take a picture, and write a blog.
Don't forget to put the garnishings on the plate into the soup as you
so desire!! :)

Rat names!

They have been named.

Clockwise from top:
Philomenamya (Mya)
Rickitikkitina (Ricki)
Monalisa (Lisa)

Aren't they cuuuuuuuuuuute??

~nv

Something old, something new

Several events this past weekend.

First, Dale's mom spent Saturday night with us.  We'd gone to a show about an hour or so from here and wanted her to hike with us the next day, so she simple came home with us and stayed.

Yesterday being our first anniversary, we had Stan and his wife Michelle over, too, on Sunday.  We showed off the house, went for a hike up West Mountain which is where we got married last year, and served a very late lunch.  I guess it was really dinner.  We had pumpkin bisque (soup) and I made my infamous rice stuff which was at least as good as usual.  (I found the chicken to be dry but the seasonings were pretty good.)  The soup was spectacular.  It was made in the crock pot.  Crock pots are beginning to grow on me more and more.

Anywho, Dale then served us pudding, and everyone went home after resting and digesting a while.  We then made "scotchies" and chocolate chip cookies (LOTS of them) and called it a night.  My feet were killing me.  I really need to figure out what's up with my feet lately.

Yesterday was our actual anniversary so we planned to have dinner at the Sirloin.  Dale went off to work and I went off to Petco to prepare for another adoption:  Two baby rats.  This woman, Kathy, had her rat die months ago and searched high and low for another one.  She ended up with a blue mink hooded variety quite similar to her last one and for some reason decided to breed her with a friend's male, expecting as she'd once had with other rats before, oh, about 5 babies.  She had 18.  EIGHTEEN!!  They were born on March 15th and halfway through the births, Tazer Two (momma rat) decided to walk away.  She'd had enough of that, Kathy told me.  But she finished birthing da pups and then Kathy had to sit there for two weeks making sure they were all nursed because Tazer Two only had so many places for them to sit.  Kathy was tired, I'm sure, but... poor Tazer, that's all I can say!!  I mean, I can respect Kathy for ensuring the little ones' health and survival, but to be mother to 18 little munchkins must have seemed daunting!!  Two babies went with someone on friday and I stopped in yesterday morning to make my picks.

I ended up with /three/ rats and a bag of oranges.  Kathy's very nice, obviously an animal lover, and is interesting to talk to because she knows a little to a lot about everything whether critter-related or not.  Ours is an interesting relationship because I know more about her from talking to her in one day than I do many of my lengthier friendships.  (This could be true for her, too, given that I tend to open up to anyone who will listen, and also have a variety of interests.)  Anywho, the little buggers are cuties for sure.  I've definitively named one "Mya" and think I have two other names picked out for the other two:  Pixie and Trinity.  Not sure yet.  Probably some variations will occur but they *almost* fit so I'm on the right track at least.  I got them home and let them meet the cats... don't worry, they're still with us... and they looked at them like, "Uh... big rats?"  The cats, well... Kitty was appreciatingly appraising the three little tidbits while the younger Sinclair sat there going, "Uh... new playmates?  Or are they gonna be another tease running around in litte balls where I can snag them and get a closer sniff?"  At which point he put an inquiring paw out and got his answer as I swept away the cage lest his claws extend too deeply into a tidbit's side.  Drat, his eyes told me with a hint of strong disappointment, and Kitty just squinted that "I hate you" squint that she's so good at whenever I ruin all her fun.  I'm sure he'll develop that eventually, too.  Sigh.

So I set the ratties down on my desk, walked out to the kitchen to fill their water supply and was smart enough to bring a spray bottle with me.  I saw a flash of tail leap off my desk as soon as I came back in and got two squirts into his fur before he disappeared around the corner.  This warned me that he's finally learned how to sneak around behind my back, so extra caution in the cage setup is warranted because Kitty's stubborn, but is wary enough of me where I wouldn't worry as much about the new critters.  He's still playful enough to not care one iota.  And, I chided myself, Kitty's still a cat who DOES get up on the desk from time to time - you've seen the footprints, after all.  So, yeah, extra caution is definitely warranted.  So for the evening, I left them in their carry cage inside their future tank.  That way the cats would have to get through TWO cages to get to them.  Far less likely.

Before this, however, I let the rats rest a bit from their ordeal, and finally took (Trinity?) out and plopped her on my shoulder.  She seemed well-balanced up there, so she stayed put for about an hour as I sat at the computer keeping watch over her sleepy sisters.  This established, I decided to walk around with her, so I checked on Lancelot once or twice, did some stuff in the kitchen, and talked to my shoulder in hopes of earning both trust and bonding without scaring her too much.  She seemed to take it well.  Dale got home and said, "Uh... oh!  Cute."  LOL

But shortly after I put her back with her sisters, I found that Lancelot, my green anole, had died.  I had an inkling something was seriously wrong a few days ago, but I didn't expect him to go so fast.  He was still eating but he started looking like he wasn't, he was brown a lot of the time since we moved and I thought maybe he was colder since we've kept it cooler in here sans the drafts.  But if that was it, he would have drifted upward toward the heat lamp, and he didn't.  Just last week I took him outside for some sun and he brightened up some, but was still so sluggish despite the interest.  Thought maybe he was homesick or bored or something.  But that was short-lived, too.  I don't know how old he really was, only that he was an adult when I got him and I had him 3.5 years.  (August of 2004.)  Anywho, he died happy.  Saturday, he was so weak that he allowed me to pick him up; he sat on my chest for a while and then suddenly turned bright green and dove into my shirt and ran over my feminine aspect.  Talk about an odd feeling - cold clammy lizard feet on one's chest is one thing but for them to poke into one's bra... that was different.  Dale then mentioned the cold thing again, and I took it more seriously; he thought to put my desk lamp near the tank, shining right into it.  That thing runs pretty hot and has a 60 watter in it so the cage heated up nicely.  Lancie turned bright green, stayed green, ate a bit more, seemed thirstier than usual, and yesterday afternoon sat at the bottom of the cage near the heat for a while sleeping and watching me walk around with the rat on my shoulder.  So, when I discovered that he'd stopped breathing just before we went out to dinner last night, I was a bit surprised but figured if he was green, he was happy, and he was still green when I found him so he must have died happy.  (I won't remind myself that Guin was brown when I found her, otherwise I might draw related conclusions about her last moments and I prefer not to dwell on that.  Selective reasoning, you see.)

Anywho, maybe my boobie made him have a heart attack?  He did make some attempts to mate with me back when I first got him, maybe he thought his dreams had finally come true.  To a human, I've got little in the front, but to a lizard those things could have been mountains...

Rats are sleeping again, and I'll be into work here shortly, gotta catch up on some stuff for a meeting tomorrow.  But then I'm paying taxes and a sewer bill and coming home to bond with the rat trio.  Heh, I sent pictures of them to Dale at work yesterday... I'd told him I was thinking one or two would be good, probably two.  He never noticed that the pictures showed three.  So he gets home, and I have that one on my shoulder.  After his response to this, he asks, "Can I see the other one?"  I'm laughing internally, knowing he hasn't figured out yet that I have THREE, not two, and say "Sure."  So he peers in the cage and his face turns into a state of confused surprise moments before one of feigned perplexity.  "Uh..." he says.  "Wait a minute.  One... two... but, you still have one on your shoulder... one... two...?"  LOL  Good thing I have a cage topper.  LOL

Aight, off to showers I go.  At least I don't have to worry about the heat anymore.  At least, not once the rest of the crickets have died of old age, assuming they're not still reproducing too much in there.  Peaches can stay warm in her shavings and rats live everywhere and cats have fur and warm couches to cuddle into.  We'll be fine now.  Plus, of course, NOW it's warmer outside.  GAH!  Stupid weather.

Loss of Lancelot, but I've got Dale and the kitties and Peachie, and just gained three whimsical little ratties, so life doesn't suck too much.  I will miss him, though.

Wonderful Warmth,

~nv

Huggies and Pampers

My mother used to tell me to "pamper" myself whenever I was in a bad
mood. Well, tonight I was in an awesome mood, but felt like
"pampering" myself anyways.

I got home and met Dale in our new house. Score one! Then I
announced that I was planning a trip to the store up the street to
see if they had any meat for sale. He said he'd come, too. So we
went together. Score two! They had meat!! I selected a strip steak
and we picked up a few other things, too. Score THREE!! I cooked
the food, Dale found some exciting information on creemee machines,
shared it with the store owner, and we sat down to dinner together.
Score four!! Then I realized I should have been having wine with my
steak, as well, you know, red wine and steak are one of the bestest
pairings of any foodstuffs known to (wo)man. So I poured myself a
little glass and enjoyed swishing the stuff around in my mouth in
between bytes of meat and rice. Score FIVE!! This night was really
going good! We then neatened up the kitchen some more, unpacking and
such. The House is really starting to look nice and neat again.
Score SIX!! And finally, I sat down to listen to Carl Doy, write
this, and enjoy a cup of white tea with some chocolate cookies.
Score... seven.

I'm contemplating all these little things that do tend to make me
feel so content in life. I've begun to appreciate the spacious
nature of this House and the well-hidden nature of its contents; the
sparcity of visible items; the many modern amenities it has offered
us such as a dishwasher and ice crusher. Then I looked around my den
and noted with immense satisfaction the little things that are
contributing small effects to the character of the room: the small
writing desk with ink well and dipping pen; the simplicity of the
iMac upon my main desk; the brass bookends on either side of a small
selection of books; the white cabinet with its critters and many
storage areas; the reminiscence of Native American items and the
Medieval touches of others.

The room is most definitely "mine" yet has a classy warmth that even
I can appreciate with great fondness. It's simple, edged with
memorable dreams, stark technical realizations, artsy fartsy
elegance, intellectual intensity, and a subtle sense of homey style.
I've never found myself analyzing one of my own rooms before, but
this one just has such a voice that it cannot go unnoticed!! I've
always had a surreptitious understanding for my most suitable form of
expression, but refused to admit it even to myself until now: I need
a LOT of space!! Okay, maybe it's not always been so difficult to
discern this, but the utter lack of disarray in this one room
demonstrates that yes, I am surely capable of tidiness.

Anywho... off to sleepyland I go...

~nv

Breakfast At Weirditys

Okay, so I admit that I've eaten some weird things for breakfast ever
since I was a child. Still, you have to admit that stir-fried food
is awesome ANY time of the day.

Here we have remnants of the boiled dinner I made last week -
potatoes, cabbage, carrots, onions, and brisket broth - fried to the
point of a sloppy gloppy pile of yum. To its right are two eggs,
scrambled lightly in a pan lightly seasoned with olive oil and
chicken rub. Finally, the easiest masterpiece of them all: Cooked
Jasmine rice, lovingly and quickly pan-fried in more olive oil
seasoned VERY lightly with soy sauce and chili powder, and topped
atop the plate with jarred duck sauce.

Hm. The Irish meets China and a pair of Japanese-themed chopsticks.
Weird. Why can't the rest of the world get along? I should have
made some french toast, dumped some mozzarella in there, threw some
loch on cream cheese and crackers, added a cup of tea, and whipped up
a batch of fry bread whilst pulling the Taco Bell from the fridge.
Talk about multinational... problem is, my stomach isn't quite as big
as the WHOLE world. (Close, but not quite.)

Anywho, on the side I've got some Odwalla green stuff with all the
micronutrients. When I first got into this stuff, Dale thought it
smelled and tasted like grass and he's right to some degree.
Apparently I like grass. Maybe I was a bunny AND a cat in my other
life.

Off to devour my latest.

~nv

dishwasher

To my good friend, who told me how wonderful dishwashers are.

You put the dishes in, she says. It fills up, she says. You turn it
on, she says. Dishes get clean, she says. Easy, she says. Neat,
she says. Out of sight, she says. Love it, she says.

You don't use Dawn, she didn't say. You idiot, don't you read? she's
now saying. No, I don't, I say. I figured a small amount just to
loosen stuff up was a GOOD idea, I say. I was WRONG I say. Shoulda
used Jet Dri, I say. A bit late, we both say. Is that even the
right stuff? I think that's for drying, I say. WTF do you use for
washing then? I ask. Memory seems to say "cascade" or somesuch, I
think.

Thankfully the suds started filling the kitchen just as Whitney
walked in to see them oozing all over the floor and attempting to
make their way underneath the washer, counter, and floorboards.
Thankfully, Whitney trusts NO machine, let alone unfamiliar ones.
Thankfully, Whitney happened to be putting stuff away all over the
house to make sure she'd be checking IN on said new machines (washer,
dryer, dishwasher). Thankfully, Whitney keeps LOTS of towels just
around the corner in the bathroom. Thankfully, all the dishes were
in the dishwasher, not the sink, so Whitney had a place to PUT the
sudsy dripping wet towels while she finished mopping up said great
mess!!

Now to figure out how to get all those suds out of the dishwasher...
A few rinses, perhaps? ::helpless look::

In other news, Dale and I fixed the bad outlet in the upstairs
bathroom without electrocuting ourselves, made a pretty but
unacceptable job of the shower drain (i.e., it still leaks but now it
looks like someone worked on it), and still haven't finished moving
crap from apartment to house. Our landlords refunded our deposit
already (talk about trust), tomorrow I'm plowing through the rest of
the apartment except the walls because I plan to steam-clean the
whole place, and oh yeah, the new tenants want to move in on the
28th, so now I REALLY have to do this tomorrow even though we're told
we shouldn't feel pressured... because, I say, I love these people
and if it helps their new tenant somehow, it helps them, and they've
been good to us so I might as well get my arseky in gear and clean
FAST. Besides, then it'll be over that much quicker. I wish I had
Wednesday off. LOL

Ah, the stresses of moving. But it's been pretty good, really. The
downstairs (aside from suds on the kitchen floor) is very nice
already. We've both made an effort to neaten the upstairs and it's
coming along nicely. Really cannot complain. For new home-moaners,
we've got it awesomely good.

And so it is, that I'm going to go figure out the dishwasher mess
now, and finish putting stuff away.

~nv

Bonnie Tyler vs Elijah Wood

I got curious about this singer named Bonnie Tyler so I went looking for her history and stumbled across pictures of her, too.  I kept thinking, dang, she looks familiar, but not in a "oh yeah I've seen Bonnie before" way.  (You know I know her voice, though!)

Finally, this picture hit me:

http://www.bonnietyler.com/scans/bowtie.jpg

OMG, I thought.  Elijah Wood.  Something about the eyes, the almost babyish face when she smiles, reminds me of him.  Or vice-versa, lol.

So I looked up photos of Elijah, and sure enough, found some that would convince me they're related should I not know better.  Here's one:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/upload/2007/05/C57732~Elijah-Wood-Posters.jpg

Weird, huh?

~whit

Prolife argument

They say that words are mightier than swords.

Well, these words will cut like swords for some folks out there.

Tonight I got into a rather strong debate regarding abortion. Yes,
debatable subject anyways, but in my eyes there is one thing that to
me is not debatable: The right to choose.

This especially holds true for any woman who becomes pregnant because
of rape. Having been once mortally terrified of childbirth myself,
or even carrying a child, I cannot even fathom the concept of being
raped, learning you're pregnant, and being told you must carry the
rapist's child to term and give birth to it.

Arguments I've heard tonight state such things as "The woman can
report it and take the morning after pill so she doesn't get
pregnant, thus it's her own fault if she's pregnant." I've heard
"The baby shouldn't be killed, it's not its fault." There's "She can
give it up for adoption if she doesn't want it."

Bullshit. The first is just assinine. Even if that pill can be
successfully used, the "law" would not hold up if, hm, the woman was
kidnapped and raped a few times before she COULD report it. There
are many women who are so ashamed of what happened, so confused, so
embarrassed that they do NOT report it for a while, if ever. There
are women worried about not being believed, and ridiculed instead
(what, it does happen).

The second is based on faith and faith alone. There is no logic.
The reasoning is that the baby is life and can feel. This is not
known because the baby cannot speak. I don't advocate abortion as
birth control for the exact same reason - we don't KNOW the baby can
NOT feel, either. But in the case of rape, I see a woman under
stress, not wanting a child, without any fault of her own being
forced into being pregnant. What of HER feelings? What of HER pain,
which will go on for nine months (or however long she knows of the
pregnancy), then childbirth? And even if she gives it up for
adoption, do you think she won't think about that child? Wouldn't
she potentially regret having given it up later on?

Maybe I'm too simplistic (ha) but to me, a killed foetus means end of
suffering. There is no chance of it being mistreated by its adopted
parents, no chance of it, too, being raped down the road and
suffering, no chance of it ever hurting again. The woman is scarred
for life already without having to worry about a bunch of hard-assed
prolifers (many of which kill OTHER forms of life, mind you) telling
her what she can or cannot do based on their beliefs. SHE knows what
she's going through. She's feeling NOW.

I've been turning this over and over in my mind ever since the
discussion ended and even looking at it logically, without my innate
feelings about the matter, it still makes no sense to me, these
thoughts these people have. People controlling other people has
always pissed me off anyway, and this is one of those examples in my
mind.

One of these folks made the feeble argument that if abortion was
allowed for rape victims, then who's to stop he and his girlfriend
from saying she was raped just so she could have an abortion.
Hello? Who said it would? Are you going to penalize a true rape
victim just because two youngsters are stupid? Should those two
youngsters be having children anyway? I think they might be good
examples to their peers. If they do this thing, they'll have gained
valuable experience. The girl might feel the pangs of loss over the
chemical nature of the abortion for one. She'll never be the same
and might be able to better advise other girls to be more careful
than she was about allowing herself to get pregnant in the first
place. The guy might witness this change in her and feel bad himself
somehow and be of help to fellow guys so they don't allow their
girlfriends to get pregnant.

In all honesty, I think each case is different and unique, and no one
possesses a right to tell anyone that they can or cannot decide for
themselves. Just because I feel a rape victim should have this right
doesn't mean I'd tell them they had to have an abortion. Some might
be healed by the experience, those who love children. Me, I don't
know how I would feel, but I suspect that I'd be torn in a million
different directions. If I got the abortion I might feel relieved
but guilty. If I had the child I'd feel like shit for nine months,
go through childbirth and get ripped apart against my will... then if
I kept the child, I'd have a constant reminder of that day/night. If
I gave it up, I'd constantly feel horrible and wonder if the poor
thing was getting raped somewhere itself.

And then, I'd wonder if that child was going to turn out like its
father and inflict a similar pain upon someone else. Like its mother.

I would be interested to know if pro-life women who think that rape
victims have no right to abort their rape-babies would feel
differently if a rape-baby grew up and raped them. Poetic justice,
maybe, but what a horrible eye-opener that might be. Not to mention
whatever that child might have had to fight its whole life if we're
all wrong about complete free will and it really had no choice but to
follow its genes, even though it may have been raised better than to
give into ill will.

Aight. I've got most of THAT out of my system. Now that I've
completed my view of the bigger picture, I find food. Wait. Food
has found me. Thanks, Dale!

~nv

Blue Toiletries

I had a weird dream last night that a bunch of people and myself were at a coworker's place for something.  My mom was there and I started joking around a bit trying to be funny and my coworker told me this was "grownup" talk and to be more serious.  So I excused myself and went to the restroom down the hall.  It was a beautiful room done in deep blues with fica plants everywhere but I saw no toilet to speak of.  I then realized there was an EZ chair there instead of a toilet.  I shrugged and prepared to figure it out and discovered that the seat was a latched door and it swung downward when sat upon to allow for... uh...

Anywho, I won't explain what you're supposed to do then with a "toilet" like that but suffice it to say I questioned her choice of toilet fixtures for that room, I mean, an EZ chair?  If you dare to be different at least make it something easier to get in and out of!

Right now I'm questioning my own mind... although it is dawning on me that my mother being in the dream explains the toilet that doesn't look like a toilet.  She's always wanted to turn a bathroom into a living room complete with thunder and lightning.  Perhaps the EZ chair fits after all.

I'm gonna have to have a talk with her... LOL

~nv

You know you're a geek when...

...you pack up your computers in their original boxes, and end up
with a chassis box, mobo box, cpu box, ram box, psu box, cdrom box,
sound card box, video card box...

Okay, so I didn't go /that/ far. I just used the original chassis
boxes, I figure that's good enough and there's no mistaking what's IN
them. Even if the picture didn't explain it, the weight would.

But I did find the original CPU box for Selene today, as well as her
original keyboard box. :)

~nv

How to fold an underwear

Okay, I never thought I'd see this anywhere... and wouldn't have
known to think I'd see it until I'd seen it:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2183757_fold-an-underwear.html

It explains how to fold underwear. It states that it can be
addictive. Great, another thing for me to fight becoming addicted to!!

I can see this now:
Moderator: "Mrs. C, please stand if you will and introduce yourself
and why you're here with us at UFA."
Me: "Oh, yes, of course." (Stands up.) "Hi, I'm Mrs. C, and I'm
addicted to folding underwear."
Group: "Hi, Mrs. C. Welcome to Underwear Folders Anonymous."

Yeah, great. Thanks, eHow. And all I wanted to know was why I'm
full of static cling and Dale is not. I suspect my liquid intake
could have something to do with it, but... it seems just as bad even
when I drink a lot of water in hopes of fixing the problem. So that
theory isn't quite right...

~nv

Amazing Grace and Tomato Soup

Our rather multitalented boss moved on to new endeavours today. I
knew this was coming for the past two weeks, but last night I sat
here after a gruellingly long day at work and cried as I wrote him a
letter. Knowing how unbeloved my long emails are to my coworkers, I
wanted to keep it short. After rewriting it a few times, though, I
decided to grant myself the rare luxury of the whole page. It was,
after all, to be a parting farewell to an awesome person who will be
sorely missed in our department. In addition to being fair-minded,
proactive, and a visionary, he's got an entertaining sense of humour,
deep brown eyes, and a wonderful singing voice. I still remember
when I was going through a bit of a spiritual revamp a few years
back, and without telling him why, suggested that he sing Amazing
Grace. He was behind a server, but the next thing I knew, I was
frozen in place with tears rolling down my face, as if God Himself
was speaking to me through that voice, which resonated around the
server to flow around me in a gorgeous embrace of acoustic
perfection. Yes, in a fan-infested server room, God touched me
through song.

I don't think he ever saw me, and I never told him about the
experience brought on by his willingness to sing that song. But I
will never forget it as long as I live, because that moment
reaffirmed my faith. There are precious few moments in my life where
I hear God's tune resonating within me like that.

Memory aside, I finally penned the letter to my satisfaction and
folded it carefully into a plain envelope, on which I enscribed his
name. Yesterday morning at 6am, I went in to work and placed this
letter on his fast-emptying desk. Then I sat down to work. He came
in later and saw it, began to read, and turned to ask me if it were
mushy and whether he might get all teary-eyed reading it. I told him
he ought to read it later, and so he said he would and tucked it
away. Later we had a going away party for him. I ate at the front
of the room away from the crowd, avoiding him for fear of clinging to
him and blubbering all over his shirt. (I am known to be this way
when someone leaves, and this one is a particularly difficult event
for me. I wasn't taking chances this time, especially since it's my
boss.)

So, the party dissipated and I pretended nothing amiss was about to
occur. I went back to work and proceeded to discover a laptop with
spyware on it toward the end of my day. Had to reimage it pronto, so
I gathered it up and began the process. Since no image existed for
it, I had to reinstall XP from scratch. My state of mind was a bit
of a goner so I forgot to gather the drivers before doing this.
Sigh! So I spent about 7 hours on installs, updates, and drivers.
6pm came and went. 7. 8. 9. 10. Finally at 10:30pm, I gave up on
the last two drivers and made an image of my new creation. Then I
tweaked it for its user, deposited it gingerly on her desk, and
booted it from the docking station - just to make sure the wireless
keyboard and mouse would work. It did.

I ambled off about 11pm or so, quite moody but relieved to have that
mess out of my hair.

This morning I came in late - 10am - and saw that our boss was still
wandering around cleaning and organizing his work for whomever may
take his place. Good, I thought, I'll still have my chance to say
goodbye in person. At some point he took notice of me and leaned
over to indicate he'd read the letter. He said he planned to frame
it. I don't know if that's true or not but I was touched and glad he
appreciated my words, for I felt they were totally lacking in the
depth of feeling I had experienced over the past several years. I
felt a slight smile touch my face in acknowledgement and he went
away, leaving me to my work. Of course, for the past two weeks I've
been calling him a traitor, so I saw no reason to desist. Each time
I saw him pass by, I'd raise my voice at him: "Traitor!!" A
coworker talked me out of that word so I began saying "Defector!"
instead as the afternoon slowly drew to a close.

That was the last thing I said to him. I got called away for a
while, and when I returned, I found an order slip on my desk. I
wrote a code on it and turned to get up, to place it on his desk as
the last thing he might sign for me. Suddenly a hollow chasm filled
my heart as I noticed that his desk was just too empty. "He...
didn't leave already, did he?" I croaked. My coworkers told me that
yes, he had.

I know - consciously - that this is OK. I know that he'll be happy
moving on, learning new things, overcoming new challenges. It's not
like he's upped and died or anything, and it's not like he and I were
best buds, either. I mean, it's totally illogical to feel such a
deep-seated attachment to him, right? Yet I felt my shoulders slump
as if they'd hit the floor. I melted into my chair, dumbfounded,
fighting the tears that started rolling down my cheeks anyway.
Finally I had to leave, so I found a restroom and just stayed there
for a good portion of an hour, unable to make myself presentable.
Despite my disappointment towards not getting to say goodbye, I
believe that God knows best, and that my being called away before
such a thing could occur was a blessing. Perhaps the blubbering
would have hit me harder if I'd hugged him in an appreciative
goodbye, shook his hand in sad congratulations and watched him
leave. I think he's gotten the jist of all this without the drama,
you know? Thank goodness for pen and paper!

Well, the blubbering hit me hard, and I've had a headache ever
since. This happens. The headache got worse throughout this evening
and peaked about an hour ago. You know - nausea coming in to keep it
company. I popped an Advil and...

got a terrible hankering for tomato soup.

So, I did a brief perusal of tomato soup recipes and decided to do this:

1 boullion cube
2 cups boiling water
1 can (6oz) tomato paste
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Basil
1 cup of milk
1 cup cooked rice
French's fried onions

Dissolve the boullion cube in the boiling water. Add the tomato
paste and blend with spoon until it's all dissolved-like. Add
oregano and basil and stir in. Stir in the milk. Stir in the rice.
Get some of that into a bowl and add some of the fried onions for
added texture and taste.

It came out far better than I'd expected.

So, I'm sitting here writing this, eating tomato and rice soup,
sipping on meade, and listening to one of my favourite songs:
Amazing Grace. As soon as this entry has been posted, I shall retire
to bed and await a whole new day.

~nv

smoothie

Made a smoothie, too. I almost forgot about that. I shouldn't do
that, though, because I'll inevitably put fruit in there and for some
reason blended fruit hits me faster than normal fruit. I don't get
this fruit thing. All I did was put a small can of "fruit cocktail"
in with a small amount of grape juice. The rest was carrot, celery,
yogurt and ... well, that was it. Now I've got one heck of a
headache and I'm super tired and my throat feels funny, like I'm
catching cold again, but not bad like a cold so I know it's the fruit.

Why am I plagued with a fruit intolerance?? I LIKE fruit... ::growl::

Anywho, the smoothie was very tasty. Next time I'll just add less
fruit... and in all honesty, I'm not that crazy about yogurt in my
smoothies. It's too acidic. Maybe I should get a juicer and just
make carrot juice. Carrot juice is good and doesn't give me
headaches...

~nv

soup's on!

Just made some tasty soup. I came up with this:
one good-sized potato, peeled and cubed into bite-sized pieces
a handful of baby carrots, chopped up
three stalks of celery, sliced into bite-sized pieces
One orange pepper, chopped
One small onion, chopped
Green beans, frozen
Chicken bouillon cube, dissolved in about 1/4 cup water
Olive Oil
Oregano, pepper, other seasonings to taste

The potato, celery and most of the carrots go into a pot of boiling
water. The water should just cover the veggies. While that boils,
chop up and sautee the onion, orange pepper, and some of the carrots
in olive oil. At the spices as desired. Do this over medium-high
heat. When the onions look translucent, dump in some green beans and
stir-fry until the beans are warmed up. Stir in the bouillion/water
mixture (if there are heavy particles at the bottom of the dish, add
more water and dump the rest in the pot of water). Stir-fry 30
seconds longer. Add the pot of boiling veggies and water. Yes, all
of it, provided only enough was used to cover the veggies in the
first place. This serves as the water base for the bouillion AND
captures any nutrients that leeched out of the veggies. Boil about
two minutes and then reduce heat to low or remove completely (I set
it on low because I wasn't ready to eat yet).

And whammo, food!

~nv

v-day poem

For Dale on our first "married" v-day.