Sock-pic-free blog

The socks have slowed a bit, due to the holidays and the fact that my anxiety over the other things I'm neglecting has picked up. I DID finish the sunset-coloured mate to the sock in the last post, and having re-started Adam's next sock AGAIN - I'm now almost done the leg and am trying to find a set of GOOD (as in, comprehensible to me) instructions for an alternate heel.

I've finished one of the two overdue baby quilts, which ended up being an Xmas present for the now 8-months-old neice. The one for my friends now-6-month-old preemie is still frustrating me. I think I chose the wrong mix of fabrics and thread, as I can't seem to get the free-motioning really going - thread keeps breaking despite all the tuning I'm trying to do.

I'm a month past my start date for my AthabascaU correspondence course, and while I've done some reading and the mandatory "say hello on the class chat room" post, that's about it. I printed the exercise sheet for unit 1, I suppose.

Neither my "day" job nor the gym job (occasional aerobics instructor, if you didn't know that)takes a holiday break, so I've been at both of those so far today.

I'd really rather be knitting.

Blog sock at sunset

Here is sock #5. It's mate, #6, as well as #7, are on the needles now, though #7 is giving me no end of trouble getting started and I keep re-starting it.

Things I have learned so far, as a sock newbie:
1. "Cast on Loosely" is very important. Use needles a size or two larger than called for to cast on, or you'll have a perfectly fit sock with an opening too tight for a foot to go through.
2. Rib tightly. Use needles a size or two SMALLER than the pattern to k1, p1 rib stitch the cuff. Unless you want a slouchy sock, which is not always a good thing.
3. If I drop a stitch in the first 3 rows of ribbing, it's not worth the tangling and eyestrain to try and fix it - start over. It seems after the first three rows, me and my crochet hook can usually sort it out.
3. a) A crochet hook or two are vital to knitting - picking up stitches is much easier with them.

Things I still need to figure out:
1. A better heel than the one in the pattern I have. Don't like the flap-and-turn one, it's hard to pick up the right number of stitches exactly evenly or turn with completely neat stitches.

2. How to make a Kitchener graft not look lumpy.

3. Lots more pattern stitch variations.

In non-sock news of late, I'm at the end of my second day off sick. Or, almost two full days - I made it to work yesterday but was on a fast downhill slide so came home mid-morning. Today, I had to teach at the gym in the morning, but came home and took my aches and slight fever back to bed. I'm up again with a mug of neo citran about to go out to an appointment I had (long booked, before I got sick) but after a bout of sweats and chills after taking an Advil, the fever seems down. I'll see how I feel in an hour as to whether or not I go to Yoga.

Blog Sock: The Blues

Well, here we are on pair number 2. These will be Adam's once I'm done. The first one is a near fit - he thinks it is a tiny bit short in the foot. So I'm torn. Do I make the second one a half-inch longer, which offends my sense of symmetry, or keep it the same length and have his toes wear through both of them? Decisions, decisions....

Blog Sock the Finale: My First Socks

So I've learned a bit - namely that I need to learn more, but I have a wearable, if not svelte, pair of socks. The ribbing at the top is useless - waaaay too loose, makes it look like they have scalloped edges instead of cuffs. I suppose I could pretend I meant to do that, but that's kinda silly on a brown-and-blue striped boot sock kind of thing.

I've got the cuff on my next pair started and it's going much better already. They're a blue tiger-stripey pattern and will be for the Spousal Unit.

Blog Sock II: The Left Foot

Yay! I made this.

Now the trick is getting the one for the other foot to match. More to follow....

High Irony in the IT world....

OK, so... I live my daily life based on a PDA. My cel phone knows who my friends are (and even tries to phone all by itself - sorry Sissy if I woke you up). My work environment includes integrated email and calendaring to plan all of my daily tasks down to the minute, and what my company DOES is all about digital knowledge, planning, scheduling and integration.

So today, coincident with very important European diplomats being let loose in our building, the management swag fairies came bouncing by with goodies for everyone.

A very nicely produced 2007 day planner. Yep. The dead tree variety.

This is one of those moments where I look around for the hidden camera.

Blog Sock...

So, long time no blog again.

Had a whirlwind week. Last week - er, about this time - we got word that the spousal euphemism's remaining grandparent, Bubbi, had begun a hunger strike, and decided she was done with it all, somewhere past 92 years of age. She passed away on Tuesday evening, with children and grandchildren at her side or nearby.

This has taken it's toll this week, on some folks near and dear and many more who are more distant to me. Not really my place to discuss what pertains to most of those others, but safe to say it's one of those occasions that, no matter how close or not to the actual deceased, gives you cause to see some interesting human interactions. Also safe to say, no matter what your involvement, it's kinda draining.

So, after being off work Thursday, with notice, and Friday, on less notice, I've spent Saturday dealing with a car stereo installation that took about 4 hours instead of one, and part of today catching up on work I didn't do Thursday and Friday.

In between the chores, I've gotten myself to the top of the heel on the very first sock I've ever knit.

For some reason, after buying my latest favourite sweater - twice, in case I wear out the first one - this fall, I decided I wanted to learn to knit again. The motivation for that was being able to reproduce this cool sweater, in a colour I like better, whenever I get around to wearing it (them) out. But I'm not there yet.

So following that, for no reason that I can particularly recall, I decided I wanted to knit socks. Now, I never WAS that skilled a knitter. Stockinette and garter stitch with no embellishments whatsoever were the limit of what I'd ever learned. And I gave up when I realized I really don't like sweaters much, and afghans less. BUT thinketh me, I like socks. I'm constantly buying weird socks and constantly annoyed at how fast they wear out. So, thinketh me, I shall knit socks.

Well, in favour of the idea, a nice sock can be knit with only my two favourite stitches, knit and purl. Generally. NOT in its favour, the idea involves learning to knit "in the round", and small at that. It's generally done using 4 to 5 thin, short little double-pointed needles.

This is a bit more challenging than just two sticks. Imagine trying to tie 100 shoes while holding a hedgehog in both hands. It's not exactly the same because a ball of sock yarn won't pee on you if it's upset, but close.

Anyway, after starting and pulling out my cast-on rows about 10 times and consequently wrecking the first couple metres of a ball of self-patterning sock yarn, the spousal euphemism's mom got me re-started on Friday and we are rolling. I've gotten the knack of keeping my hands working with all the little pokey bits sticking out at all angles rather than sticking in to me. For some reason my ribbing, which should be the tighter part at the top of the sock, is looser than the rest, and I've magically acquired 3 extra stitches by the time I got to the ankle, but I have a tube of yarn and the beginnings of a heel flap.

So, in addition to half a dozen unfinished quilting projects, and I now have the more ambulatory (think portable to boring business meetings, where a sewing machine is not) artsy complement to my textile addiction.

Looking for a 12-step program next... (hello... my name is Johanna and I'm a knitter.. er, quilter... er, knitter...).

Slightly disappointed though generally at peace...

I love this time of year. I like cooler weather, and I like cozy clothes, I even like rain, actually. I like when open windows bring cool, fresh, leafy fall air in but don't freeze the place.

I'm slightly disappointed that I picked up the pager for a sick colleague this weekend. Pager is a mixed blessing. Every time it beeps, I get at least an hour's bonus pay. But, I've just missed a hayride and a corn maze run - it's been beeping through some afternoon birthday plans I would have attended had it been quieter.

But the generally at peace part is overriding the "bummer, no hayride" reaction. In between beeps, I'm puttering around the office cleaning up, and Freecycling stuff. Re-ordering my space when it gets out of hand is kind of a zen exercise, it lowers my stress level immensely (I should do it at work).

I'm talking to a dozing, purring cat, who has just claimed her new "spot" in my re-ordered office. Also good for stress level.

And, since Adam did go to the birthday hay ride, I smoked up the windowsill with a pinch of incense (sorry honey - should be gone by the time you're home). I love my tiny cauldron and real, loose incense - though today's was a bit of an experiment. It was a blend called "Geminii" that I of course had to have a small sample of. Un-burned, it smells like a lovely potpourri, or maybe a seasoning blend - it has lavender and fennel in it, and I think also coriander and a bit of basil. It smells totally different when smoking, though. Oh well. This is why I buy "sample" sizes.

So, now that the beeping HAS wrapped up (for the moment) I'll finish my little tidying-project and maybe go take a walk before joining the birthday party for dinner. You go do the same! Or at least, open a window really wide and take a few deep breaths of Autumn.

Mind the Gap - Aaargh!!!

So, if you know enough to read my blog, you probably know I'm an ersatz aerobics instructor. You may not know that for a year or so now, I've been using an iPod to play my workout music at class, rather than drag around 20 very expensive CDs.

There's a minor problem with this - yes, it really is minor - that's gotten my back up now thanks to some merciless teasing from Apple. You see, an Aerobics CD is mixed to have each song blend seamlessly into the next, with no pauses and exact 32-count phrasing. The minor problem is that if you just digitize the CDs, iTunes (or probably any other software), can't help but put a small gap in each track. This RUINS aerobics music. I'm not kidding. Toss a little hitch into otherwise evenly phrased music, and an entire class of spandex-clad workout maniacs will fall like dominoes. It ain't pretty.

So the solution, which has been satisfying until two days ago, is to rip the entire CD as one long track. That works fine, as long as your CD is exactly as long as your class. This option keeps music seamless, and the limit is just that you can't jump to the next track, go back, skip one, or re-order the tracks. I've been OK with this so far and I've actually gotten pretty good at fast forwarding the exact right amount of seconds if I need to.

So what happened two days ago? Apple Inc's advertising machine ran up, bit me on the ass, and ran away giggling, knowing I had been infected. How? Well, when I loaded iTunes to get my latest podcast episodes, iTunes offered to update itself to the latest new version.

The new version featuring GAPLESS PLAYBACK. Yes, that shiny white one-mouse-button-only interface informed me that the latest step in iEvolution had happened. I could now play my continuous CDs continuously, without sacrificing my track-by-track control!!!!

Well, this seemed to good to be true, but I tried it. I re-ripped one of my workout CDs and gave it a try - YES!!!! iTunes does indeed play the CD with the lovely smooth mixed-in transitions between tracks. No one-extra-beat in the last phrase. (No lawsuits agains aerobics instructors for injuring a whole class).

A few hours later I had most of my Aerobics CDs re-encoded.

Then the bomb dropped. When I moved them to the iPOD, as opposed to iTunes, the GAPS are BACK. Oh, yes... "the gap came back, the very next day, yes the gap came back.....".

It turns out, iTunes, being the "first one's free" gateway product to the ever-addictive iPod, gets new features but they can only be used with the NEW iPod. Er, that would be the NEWEST new iPod, the one Apple released 2 days ago. It's kind of an iPod 5G-and-a-half. iPod video with bigger battery, brightness control, and GAPLESS PLAYBACK.

I only have an iPod photo (4G). Now, it does a great job. It does the same great job it did 3 days ago, and I still have 45 of its 60 GB capacity free. But just like you feel disappointed when the option package for your new car gets 3 improvements the month after you bought it - well, there ya are. Now that I know the holy grail of digitized aerobics music CAN be had, I am both covetous of the new innovation, and quite resentful because really, Apple should be able to release an update for the older iPod to do this.

If I ever meet Steve Jobs, I may hug him but I'll kick him in the shins, too. Just not sure what I'll do first.

Me, Dr. Who, and Arthur Dent...

What do the three people in the title have in common?

Well, OK, YOU may have thought of something weirder, but what I was going for was the not-infrequent cravings for a lovely cup of tea. I've been a tea-fancier in general since I was kid, starting my coffee habit much later.

Lately, I've been aided and abetted shamelessly in feeding my tea addiction by the most adorable little shop down the block from me, Distinctly Tea. Their URL is http://www.distinctlytea.com, share it around, I want their upcoming online launch to succeed so I can get more cool tea stuff close to home.

Distinctly Tea carries several hundred varieties of teas, all of which can be purchased loose in varying quantities. They can stock you up on all kinds of tea brewing paraphernalia, and the staff are walking encyclopediae of tea lore.

In the past year or so I've learned:

That you should never boil water for green, white, or oolong teas - use hot water but below the boil (80-90 degrees C).

That one of my favourite teas, Lapsang Souchong, comes from ONE mountain in China.

"Chai" means "tea" in Hindi and other middle-eastern languages. "Masala Chai" is the proper term for the spiced teas marketed as "chai" in North America

Rooibos is not a tea, per se - it is its own thing, the leaf of a bush from South Africa (as "tea" is the leaf of a bush from the orient).

Longer brewing is not the right way to make stronger tea. Use more tea, infuse for a short time.

That tea in a tea bag from a store shelf is almost intolerably poor quality.

Yes, that's it - I'll admit it, I'm now a tea snob, and I'd probably give the Doctor or Arthur Dent a good run in brewing the perfect cup nowadays.

Check out Distinctly Tea, though. If you'd like any, let me know.

A little bit of "glad"ness in the rain...

I did something yesterday that I used to do frequently in Guelph (when I lived across the road from the Farmer's Market there) but don't have as much opportunity for here.

I bought myself flowers. Gladiolas, to be specific.

I love gladiolas. I have thought they were the brightest, happiest flowers ever, even when I didn't know WHAT they were. For the longest time I couldn't find them, then in Guelph, there was a vendor who always had truckloads of them, mid-July to mid-September. When I could spare the $5, I'd buy a dozen a week, and they'd usually last for two, so I'd rotate them all summer.

I had no idea where I'd picked up this affinity for these flowering bulbs, until a few years ago, a couple years after my grandmother died. I was visiting the ole' family cottage and noted that my aunt who is now its custodian always had them on the table. "They were your grandmother's favourite", she told me. They were often planted around the cottage. Without ever having taken note of that memory consciously, I realized that was where I had often seen them. Childhood summer weekends at Grandma and Grandpa's summer place. Even though many of those days have now faded from memory, I can't help but feel sunshine and a fresh breeze off Lake Erie when there's a bucket of Gladiolas around.

Happy day, yesterday, when I wandered up to St. Jacobs Market, crowded despite the rain, even before 10 am. I picked up some cheese and nice bread, blackberries and a coffee, and on the way out passed a soggy flower vendor's tent - with the gladiolas in those plastic buckets, tucked in the back, $6/dozen.

I don't care if it's rained all weekend, the plumbing in the building is shut down, and we can't wash or cook. I've got two vases full of the happiest flowers ever.

Pluto no more!

My daily dose of learning in recent months has come from Wikipedia, an ersatz attempt to document the entirety of human knowledge and evolve the WWW into some crazy hive-minded meta-brain. It's my off-site storage for all my Trivial Pursuit answers. I love it.

For the last week or so I've been eagerly awaiting the outcome of the proposed redefinition of what comprises a "planet" in the astronomical sense.

I must admit I am quite disappointed with the result. Perhaps this is illogical, out of a need to cling to what "facts" I "know" about the universe, or a gut-level emotional reaction that we have somehow shut some new friends out in the cold. But having it confirmed that Pluto is no longer considered a true planet is giving me an odd pang of grief.

Pluto is still out there, and I'm sure its fans and many researchers will find their admiration and their work undiminished. But I must admit, I am one of the faction who was cheering for the INclusion of not only Pluto but the three to twelve additional far-out objects which might have been defined to be new "planets" in our eccentric rotational system. Somehow the result of having the family reduced to an official Eight is even worse than the more harmonious status-quo of Nine, and an immense letdown when I thought I'd have an even dozen. I'd already memorized all the names and re-framed my recitation of their order, progressing outward from the Sun! Alas, where's the challenge in now having to forget one of the names I've known by memory since I was a wee thing reading Owl magazine and watching "astronomy for tots" on PBS?

Go hit Wikipedia, or even Google, if you want the details and exact reasoning for the decision. Me, I'm off to raise an icy cold, deep, dark drink in toast to Pluto's continuing, plodding, eccentric orbit out there in the icy cold, deep, dark reaches of of our neighborhood of the galaxy.

Reverse, for Dummies

Well, the first day of my 9th year without a pancreas did not start well.

So, it's no secret that I am not firing on all cylinders first thing in the morning. And I'm worse when my sleep has been disturbed, which it has been several nights recently.

Today, unfortunately, my poor little car wound up suffering for it, and Adam and I consequently had an Amazing-race like chase around town to a body shop first thing today. And all because I was off by probably less than a centimeter.

Yep - bumped the garage door frame trying to back out of the garage. Turned the car just a smidge too soon (I was trying to do the car-shuffle manoeuver and was looking behind me at where I'd parked Adam's car). It wasn't even enough of a bump that I really felt the bump. What I FELT was the bumper cover popping bouncily off the front of my car as I nicked it right at the corner on the weatherstripping of the garage door.

The damage seems like it should be inconsequential. The tiniest of paint chips on the edge of the body panel, and the only breakage of the bumper were two of the loops that hold it to the frame. BUT - car bumpers are a single molded piece of plastic. So, you can't "repair" the clips. Rather, the body shop said they COULD, but the labour to do so would far outstrip the cost of replacing the bumper cover. Add to that, the paint chip, also tiny, nonetheless took the paint off down below the primer and the shop says that means the panel should be repainted or it will corrode - surface touch up would only be a temporary fix.

So began my Wednesday. That was a pretty expensive trip to my first cup of coffee. Bleah.

Pancreas? We don't need no steeenkin' pancreas!

I believe, if I check blog archives, I had a post this day last year. But, I never read my old journals, I bore me.

I am quietly celebrating my 8th "I'm not dead" day today, as follows:

1. One eye exam, passed with flying colours but with a prudent warning about how quickly diabetic retinas go awry with poor glucose control.
2. Some slightly deliberate but mostly impulsive shopping: I got the bottom half of an outfit to wear to the next wedding I must attend, a stunning, flouncy metallic copper skirt (any suggestions for what to look for in a top are welcome). While I was in the market for the wedding outfit, the funky sweater from France was just something I fell over and HAD to have, and the little-black-dress-that-crumples-for-travel was a long-sought lucky find and on sale, so that came home too.
3. My hybrid Macadamia Rooibos and Yogi Chai Spice infusion, in my little spherical steel teapot that makes me happy.
4. An unfortunate bit of on-call work to start in a couple of hours, but for which I will bill my time (and hopefully thereby fund the impulse shopping).

Happy Not-Dead Day! Yay!

Public Service Announcement from Snopes.com

Most folks know I generally resist passing on those "danger in your everyday environment" emails and do my best to debunk alot of them. Snopes.com is one of my favourite web sites, run by determined volunteer "mythbusters" who work hard to reassure us that floor mops do not kill dogs and there is no psychotic perfume salesman actually macing women at the shopping mall.

Snopes current list, however, includes a CONFIRMATION of a recently circulated email warning of the danger of household paper shredders. There are numerous, valid reports of children and pets being maimed, and in the case of pets, killed, as a result of these very common home office tools.

The article is here at Snopes. WARNING!!! The reports are graphic, and disturbing. You don't need to read it if you're feeling overly sensitive, here's the key point:

TURN OFF, DISCONNECT, UNPLUG, OR REMOVE THE BATTERIES from household paper shredders unless you, an ADULT person, are directly making use of such a tool. NEVER leave a paper shredder set in an "auto" mode, which causes it to turn on if something contacts the blades. NEVER leave a paper shredder unattended anywhere a child or pet might possibly gain access to it.

These are common and useful tools in any home office - but because they were designed with office/industrial environments in mind, they have no safety features aimed at preventing small fingers or curious snouts from getting to the blades.

Finally Furnishing!

Well, it's going to be 6-8 weeks to deliver, but Adam and I finally dove in and committed to the sofa! We spent most of an afternoon at Schreiter's in Kitchener, a mid-range to deluxe, contemporary furniture showplace. It's not a bargain shop, but the lines they carry are extensive, and both the service and the free cookies are top-notch. We had a very friendly and accomodating salesperson who spent a couple hours touring us through all 3 floors to flop-test every sectional they carry.

I'm guessing we made the day worth his time. It sure as heck wasn't the cheapest sofa on the market - and it's a multi-piece sectional - but it could have been worse. Let's just leave it at it's a good thing we can spread the total cost over a couple of months' credit card bills before it goes onto the mortgage/credit account.

It's an all-wood-frame, handmade-in-Canada, Stylus custom sectional sofa. Look at the Lyric model on the site - ours is actually the Chorus, which they don't have on-line, but the form factor is almost identical to the Lyric. The Chorus has topstitching on all seams rather than piping, so it's the tiniest bit smoother in its lines.

The slightly muted blue Ultrasuade we chose is a bit more intense a colour than I had imagined, but is still pretty easy to get along with. I'm going through an "avoid beige at all costs" phase, but I didn't want a piece as big as a sofa being the furniture drama queen of the house. I'm still hoping for an eventual raspberry-red accent chair to do that and will be otherwise content with muted non-browns, I think.

Adam was an absolute dear today spending a whole afternoon on the kind of shopping he hates, so I am going to do my best to keep a lid on the mania of design ideas running through my head when it comes to our loft for a couple of months. Practically speaking, this is the only BIG purchase for this year anyway. I'm hoping a couple hundred $$ here-and-there will add accent tables and lighting and such, or maybe I'll get to paint my office, but we'll be harboring my old futon armchair and the $25 IKEA cube ottoman for a little while, I guess. I'm pondering asking Schreiters if they can get Stylus to send me a couple extra metres of the upholstery so I can slipcover an existing thing or two to match.

Back home. Ugh...

Back home, 3 days into penicillin for the strep throat that began flaring as we travelled on Thursday (hence the lack of posting). I felt it hit, so got to the doc for the antibiotics right away Friday and STILL spent 2 days in bed with a 39 degree fever. Now that the outside temperature is about that high, I can't tell the difference between me and not me and I think I'm diffusing. At least I'm dizzy.

Always good to keep me distracted, my buddy Steve's alter-ego cat blog made me spit-take. Check out the post entitled "Some of my Retarded Cousins" by Puddy.

One last day by The Bay

Wednesday was our last full day, as we fly out mid-afternoon tomorrow. Today we decided to stay in the city, but I wanted to get to The Other Side and make sure I could at least claim that I'd dipped my toes in the Pacific (as technically, when I was in Vancouver, I only got to the strait).

I've often heard it said if you want to see the real city, ride a bus. Yep. Sadly, very true. We took the Muni out to the Great Highway and saw a few sad (but harmless) examples of real life here. Like the ever-present homeless panhandling, it does dampen the glamour some and make you think. In contrast, we were shortly out to Cliff House, another glitzy and somewhat tacky tourist destination, albeit one where the food is quite good. One of my intentions was to see the Giant Camera, a large, room-sized camera obscura that, when operating, reflects a rotating panorama of the coast. Sadly, we had to take a miss on that. The gift shop proprietors described that as a separate concession, and one whose operator "keeps his own schedule" which seems to be a mystery to anyone else. Ah, well. Brunch was quite good and Cliff House serves the table not with bread, but with fresh, warm popovers. Our waitress was quite generous when I asked for more. Adam quite enjoyed the french toast, and I had what must be a California creation - crab and avocado omelette. Yummy.

After brunch we wandered the beach, I DID get my toes, and my Crocs, into the Pacific and managed to avoid getting stuck with the floating jellyfish remains littering the surf. A good few miles of urban hiking took us to, and through, Golden Gate Park to the DeYoung museum. This was one of my citypass destinations, one which I might have passed up except for the current exhibit of the Quilts of Gee's Bend. As a quilter, this is a really neat exhibit. The quilts are very true to the nature of quilting - made out of desperate necessity - but also a testament to a human craving for art. Many of these quilters may never have seen a painting, much less a gallery in their lives, and grew up in newspaper-lined shacks on river mudflats in rural Alabama. Their quilts, rustic and 'unschooled' though they appear, have some fantastic appeal.

We only took a brief look at the rest of the gallery, as it was getting a bit annoying that Adam was constantly told to carry his camera pack in hand rather than on his shoulder or back, and it was a bit of a drag. We left from there, skipped the tea garden which appeared crowded beyond my comfort and charged an admission - it wasn't clear if that included tea or not. From there, a hike to the south edge of the park got us on another Muni ride to the Exploratorium. This is a hands-on arts-meets-science centre, again very kid-focused and rather kid-full today, though much of the exhibits were still fascinating for geeks like us. We sadly had less than an hour, but because it was my last CityPass destination, Adam joined me and we made the best of what we could. While many of the exhibits were things we found familiar, in principle, they were very nicely executed and installed.

After a ride home to freshen up, we took the recommendation of both a tour book and the hotel concierge and walked to Sam's Grill for dinner. As a last dinner in the city - this was a darned good choice. We found it because I took Adam at his word when he said steak would be nice and went looking for steak. Turns out there are very few "steak house" restaurants in San Francisco, but many "seafood grill" places include a piece of beef or two on their menu. This one did it justice. Adam's New York Strip was at least 1.5" thick and perfectly done, and my shellfish sautee was the best I can recall having. The waiters only added to the meal. All dressed in slightly shabby tuxes, they seemed to be the sort of world-weary men who were not gangsters. They were the sort of men who were head butlers in a gangster's household, who maybe "took care of" a thing or two for the boss if needed. And judging by the food, the chef was obviously used to cooking for "the family" too. As Adam put it, it's the kind of place where the food had to be good or someone was gettin' hurt. Luckily no one had to get hurt.

So, here we are back at the Triton, packing up and trying to cool off the rest of yesterday's sunburn. I expect the next entry will be back in Waterloo, as we'll be on the run most of tomorrow.

Tuesday around the Bay, and over the Bridge

It was actually around noon Tuesday before we got to the bike rental depot. Out of interest in trying something new, we rented a tandem hybrid bike. It is something worth trying, but perhaps San Francisco was not the place for an experiment. If there's ever a next time, I think I prefer to be solely controlling the vehicle I'm powering. Adam had the front as I figured his frustration if not steering would be more severe than mine. It was a little disorienting as I couldn't see what was in front and we had to learn to call out moves to each other. You have to peddle in sync or both coast, there's no disengage between the front and back.

We took an easy meander along the waterfront part of the trail, and detoured a bit at the marina to see the Wave Organ, an art installation now built into the shoreline. Pipes extending into the Bay play "music" as the waves and tide roll in and out. The pier it is built into is constructed of material recovered from the cemeteries that were removed from the city years ago. There are no graves in San Francisco, and out on that lonely point one could fancy that the souls of those dug up might be haunting the rubble of their monuments along with the lonely breezes and seashore noise.

From there we decided we should get a move on if we were to get over the bridge much less around any part of the Bay perimeter. In the end, we didn't get too far. The ride over the Bridge was quite taxing on the strange and unfamiliar wheels, dodging pedestrians and motoring through the high winds almost 300 feet over the water. The views over the bay were spectacular, though. We made it over, me with what turned out to be a 2nd degree sunburn as the helmet didn't shade as much of my neck as my hat did, and my scant base tan was not up to it. At the end of the vertigo-inducing span, we concluded that we weren't going to get too much farther than Sausalito, but at least it was all downhill from there. We stopped at the Gaylord India restaurant and had an exceptional Tandoori lunch in an open dining room overlooking the Bay, and then walked the bike the rest of the way into town. Sausalito was a little bit slower paced than The City, though still quite busy by mid-afternoon.

Meandering up and down the main strip was a strange contrast of art galleries priced beyond reach and tourist kitsch of the sort that just gets re-printed with a different city name in every port. Other than some fun salt-water taffy we picked up as I'd finished the rest of my emergency sugar rations, we were empty-handed (except for the bike) waiting for our ferry back. The ferry ride was fun. Mainly because I didn't have to pedal it, but the views of Sausalito and Tiburon climbing their mountains, the Golden Gate, and the Bay Bridge were really fun as the fog rolled in. We wound up back at the Ferry port, having missed getting on the over-crowded earlier ferry that went back to Fisherman's Wharf. So we finished the day with an extra 20 minutes of riding to get the bike back to a drop-off. One more long hike home was interruped by a stop at Walgreens for Solarcaine. We got home just at the end of the hotel Cookie Hour, and Adam was just ready to crash so I took myself out for a quick, light dinner, and then did the same.

"Anything else you get is a priviledge"

Prisoner rule #5 at Alcatraz Island read something like "You are entitled to food. clothing, shelter, and medical care. Anything else you get is a priviledge".

Yesterday began with my aforementioned summer haircut, and then a meander down to Fisherman's Wharf (including a few pretty steep inclines!) to take in some of the more touristy sites on what we hoped (hah!) would be a less touristy day. Well, it could have been worse. We went to the Aquarium of the Bay, which though it cannot hold a candle to the Monterey facility, has the very fun feature of acrylic tunnels through the bottoms of the 700,000+ gallon tanks. Not too often you see the bottom-side of a fish swimming overhead.

I think we were both a little kidded-out by the time we got out though, between other families that seemed to have 6 of them and a summer camp tour of 50 or so. In an abstract sense, I want places like that to be filled with curious children discovering the ecosystems of our planet. Personally I just wish all kids were like the smaller Hu two - quiet, polite and articulate while being immensely curious, social little people. I've seen way too many ill-behaved pre-adolescents screaming, slamming off walls, or people, and sitting or walking on the explanatory placards this week. Its a sad reality that much of the art and science of such facilities is wasted on the majority of visitors.

At the end of the aquarium walk we encountered a touch pool where I got to touch a few rays and skates and starfish (they had that at Monterey but I missed much of it). One ray was determined to escape the small rock pool and was actually "flapping" up the wall in front of me. I really couldn't figure if that was a normal behaviour that it might attempt to flop overland if "trapped", or if that was a stressed-out animal exhibiting something neurotic. Sadly, the teenagers managing the area were just trying to keep up with the hordes of kids and some simlilarly ignorant adults and couldn't really attend to the animals.

We had a leisurely and for me tipsy late lunch/early dinner at a mercifully quiet Pier 39 restaurant (had a coupon for a free bottle of wine) and then meandered our way to the boarding pass lineup for the night cruise to Alcatraz.

Alcatraz was stark, beautiful, sad, eerie, noisy, smelly, spooky and fascinating all at once. There was so much more history there in addition to what most of the public knows of a few high-profile inmates. It operated for a relatively brief time as a notorious prison, but the history of human settlement goes back to the 1850's and is still evolving in a strange and unique way today.

We got to go through the cellhouse audio tour, narrated by guards and inmates, telling stories of the 29 years of the federal prison. It was a little disappointing that much of the island is closed off this time of year, but that is due to the bird rookeries now present through much of the place. It may need to be renamed Seagull Island, as the Western Gulls obviously own it now!

I picked up a couple of souvenier "Rocks from the Rock" - excavation rubble from the restoration effort being sold to tourists. I acknowledge I've fallen for a gimmick, but the background of this one is in keeping with things I support. Selling the rubble funds the archaeology and restoration effort, prevents tourists from trying to chip off a piece for themselves, AND has the neat side effect of removing a disposal problem the parks service might have. Traditionally rubble and garbage was just tossed in the Bay, but that is obviously no longer acceptable.

We were there at twilight and had the eerie experience of being in and around the cellhouse as the fog blew in. Seeing it billowing through doors and openings, one can half imagine how hopeless a place this must have been for inmates. At the top of the island outside the cell house, we were walled in by the fog. It creates a strange vertigo, you can see no horizon, no clear line between sea and air, nothing. In contrast, historic reports say the families and children who lived here (families of guards and wardens) found it an idyllic little enclave. Gardens were abundant and today, 60+ years since being abandoned to grow wild, tons of exotic species are flourishing among ruins and birds.

Our cruise home was short and uneventful, and another hearty hike got us back to the Triton. Today we're off to bike across the Golden Gate and see what we can see of the northern towns.

Monday Rush Hour

Rush hour is more interesting when I'm not the one rushing. Just popped outside the hotel with my complimentary morning coffee to see if Elevation Salon could fit me in for a haircut. I'm heading back at 10.

So the last few days have been un-blogged due to sheer activity. Friday took some wandering down at the Wharf, Ghirardelli square, and a Bay Cruise I got with my Citypass. I must admit, the cruise was the highlight. I love being out on the water and SF Bay is interesting water.

I found much of the rest of the area way too touristy. Even Ghirardelli square, partially under construction so I couldn't follow the historical tour, seemed overrun with generic handicrafts and cookie-cutter buskers. The walk along the Fisherman's Wharf did lead to a laugh when I encountered the Bush Man, though. I saw him before he got me, and got a smile and a wink for my vigilance, followed by a laugh when he leapt out and scared the crowd behind me.

Saturday was a marathon trip to San Jose and then Monterey with the Hu crew. Even though we were late and it was a long drive in traffic, I'm so thrilled I got to see even part of that aquarium. There's something hypnotic, and humbling, about seeing creatures so alien yet still sharing this blue sphere with us. Monterey Bay alone is so vast, the mind boggles at what is out there beyond the bay limits.

Sunday, due to sunburns and sore feet, we had a lazier, indoor day. The "attraction" for the day was the SFMOMA, something that lived up to many stereotypes of "modern art" (think, blank white canvas titled "Angst of the Demon Hypertext.com" or such) but did show some interesting exhibits. In all, the most enjoyable were the early classics (Matisse, Magritte, Kahlo, O'Keefe), a very striking post-war Japanese photography gallery, and the museum's own collection of current works. I'm afraid I could have skipped the Matthew Barney that everyone seems to think is the prime attraction.

Today began with a haircut in a fancy local salon - fun, the jury is out on the results but it's neater and cooler for now. We're about to be off to the Fisherman's Wharf area, but to see the Aquarium, and then tonight is our Alcatraz cruise.

A balmy Thursday by the Bay

Today involved much walking. Beginning with a hurried search for breakfast on the way to Adam's class, the result of that was not spectacular, but adequate. I wandered back up and down streets and alleys, and eventually to an open-air art-mart in Union Square. Largely paitings, and largely well out of my budget, this art fair also showed some of the striking contrasts of the city - art shoppers juxtaposed against the aimless, homeless lurkers in the shady corners.

After a stop back at the hotel to pick up the pocket map I forgot, I wandered vaguely towards one of my CityPass destinations. In between here and there, though, turned out to be THE shopping district, complete with a Macy's, Nordstrom, Nieman Marcus, and Tiffany's. After stopping into Macy's long enough to spot at $368 made in Korea t-shirt, I realized they were probably scanning my credit cards remotely and charging me for breathing their air, so I stuck to the sidewalks after that.

I eventually arrived at the California Academy of Sciences Steinhart Aquarium, in its "temporary" but still impressive two-storey industrial warehouse home - the permanent facility in Golden Gate Park is under development. This aquaria-focussed tour still included much of terrestrial and airborne California ecology, and more than a few impressive fish, amphibian, and reptile displays. Their oldest fish is an Australian Lungfish about a year older than my Dad, and several of their animals have reached their 50's.

My wanderings took me on a MUNI bus to the Ferry Terminal, where I thought to use my CityPass on the Embarcadero Streetcar line - only to discover that today was a Save the Air day -MUNI was free for all, and consequently VERY crowded with lots of folk who might otherwise have been on foot. Many trolleys went by without stopping. I eventually did catch one, and wound up at Fisherman's Wharf. I stopped at Pier 39 long enough to pick up a coupon book that went with my CityPass then run from the rest of the insane hordes of tourists.

A late lunch happened at one of the walk-through seafood booths serving crab cakes, and then I stopped by the Boudin bakery and Museum - the History of San Francisco as related to Sourdough! Did you know that this bakery company was saved from extinction in the 1906 quake and fire when the proprietess had the presence of mind to run from the collapsing bakery having dumped the "mother dough" into a bucket to take with her? The "mother dough" is the yeast culture completely unique to San Francisco that has been kept going since the 1840s and lends a distinct flair to the many breads from Boudin.

After picking up an authentic Sourdough loaf, a local goat cheese and equally local artichoke/olive spread for a picnic dinner, I waited almost an hour at the cable-car turnaround for my chance to ride one of the San Francisco cable cars, now part of the MUNI. The wait was long due to the "free ride" day (usually a $5 fare, compared to the $1.50 for the bus), but still somewhat entertaining as I watched the cable cars come in, and the ritual of the turn-around was performed. The operators must get out and manually trip the turn release, then push the car around to head back the way it came. There are two operators on each car, one at the front and one at the back, and at each stop and onload/offload they communicate via a pair of bells, the rear operator ringing the "all clear" before the driver will engage the car again. Quite an impressive choreography, and a fun way to navigate the extreme hills.

After trying a local Merlot at the end of wine hour at the hotel, I caught Adam in the lobby. We had our picnic dinner in our room, and then wandered out to do a little bit of shopping for gifts for the younger of the Hu clan we will see Saturday. Now it's back in the room, Adam is studying for his exam, and I'm here on the blog. Tired but awake, I have more plans for tomorrow than I have hours, but I'm looking forward to it.

Made it out west

Can't seem to load any photos over the PDA's wireless, so I've switched over to borrowing Adam's laptop.
If you want the GOOD photos, anyway - head off and check Adam's gallery, he's been updating it daily. You don't need my cel phone snaps.

After a long but not too horrid day of travel, I landed at SFO around 2:45, and by 4:30 had negotiated the baggage claim, air train, BART, and a few blocks of the city to make it to Hotel Triton .
Our room is tiny but cute, the walls are a harlequin pattern in pale blue and butter yellow. I wandered back down to the lobby thinking to meet Adam when he got in from his course, and stumbled upon the nightly Wine Hour and Astrology readings. Our astrologer of the day seemed to be already fully booked but I had a glass of a nice California red I can't remember the name of.

Next it was off to The Stinking Rose for a garlic-laden dinner - I was starving, Adam wasn't really, but we were both quite full after that. So we went for a walk. UP. Up a hill, then another hill, then some stairs on other hills. We made it up to telegraph hill and paid the small fare for the elevator up Coit Tower. From there, you have 360 degree views over the city, quite stunning. The mountains behind the east bay cities to the east, and the Golden Gate and beyond it the Pacific to the west. We watched the sun drop over the Marin County hills.

So far the whole place is very eye-catching, just walking around and not even paying attention to any "tourist" stuff (except, I guess, the Coit Tower ride). The architecture is stunning. We snuck down some stairs and alleys, and found tiny, gorgeous gardens in front of square, blocky, West Coast row houses that appears ready to slip down a hill any moment. Back into the commercial part of the city, it was amusing to see some of the late-night-life on the prowl. Some alleyways turn entirely into restaurants or pubs.

Off to find breakfast, and wander the sights while Adam's in class. More later.

Five to Ten Servings a Day, the Easy Way

So if you didn't already know, one of my favourite things in the world for a couple years now is Smoothies. The gyms started opening Smoothie Bars (which are unfortunately never open when I'm there) and now there's one or two that have popped up on my route to work. But, with a good blender you can save money, and usually sugar additives, and do it yourself.

Smoothies, like pizza, are to me a design concept rather than a rigid recipe. There are key elements to the framework, but unlimited possibilites for endlessly varied, and yummy, meals on the go.

Here's my favourite general framework:

• 4-5 ice cubes, processed on "pulse" setting until crushed up, in the blender
• 1/2 cup to a cup of milk OR yogurt OR soy milk, or if you just want light, crisp, and fruity, fruit juice, ice water or more ice.
• 1 cup or more of semi-frozen fruit chunks.

• Semi-frozen means take the hard-frozen fruit from the freezer and nuke it for 30 seconds to a minute. I was told this by a cranky appliance repair man when I had to take two blenders in for service within only a couple weeks of purchase. Apparently a frozen strawberry could destroy a jet engine and blenders don't have a chance, so part-thaw them first. Bananas can be added fresh and some fruits like raspberries blend easily when fully frozen because they break up.
• Or use all fresh fruit - it'll not be quite as icy-cold but still good. I use frozen for the convenience of not having to chop up and clean up every time I want a smoothie
  

• 1-2 tablespoons of frozen juice concentrate, in place of a fruit you don't have handy or so you can add water instead of juice and still have a richer taste.
  
• Any powdered supplements you want - whey or soy protein to balance carbs, or fibre supplements, or I sometimes use powdered whole-grain rolled oats.
• Sweetener to taste, optionally.
• A few drops of a flavour extract like vanilla or almond adds a nice body. Also optional.

So, having got the basic ingredient categories, the method is:

1. Put in Blender
2. Blend

If you want a little more detail, and to prolong the life of your blender, I do it in the following order:

1. Crush ice
2. Add milk/yogurt/soymilk/water/juice and powders - blend to slushy with ice
3. Add fruit, a bit at a time, blending until smooth.

So, you've got the concept and the method. If you're one those folks who is still reading but thinking you have no idea what fruits go together - the answer is probably that any fruits that you like individually can be put together into a smoothie. But, for those who must have directions, here are a couple of my favourite recent inventions.

The Ontario Summer Market Special smoothie:

• 4-5 ice cubes, crushed.
• Add 1/2 cup of unflavoured or vanilla yogurt and blend
  
• 2 tbsp frozen apple juice concentrate, unsweetened - blend
• Optional: 1/2 scoop of protein powder, fibre supplement, or powdered oats - blend
  
• Add semi-frozen fruit:
• 1/3 cup peaches
• 1/3 cup strawberries and/or raspberries
• 1/3 cup melon chunks
• 1 tsp honey, or to taste, optional

Add fruit a bit at a time and blend each time, then blend until smooth once everything is in.

A Northern Tropical Smoothie

• 4-5 ice cubes, crushed
• 2 tbsp unsweetened orange juice concentrate - blend
• 2 tbsp coconut milk* OR 1/2 tsp coconut flavour extract - blend
  
• Optional supplements: protein and/or fibre and/or oat powder - blend
• Fruit chunks:

• 1 small or 1/2 large banana, fresh or frozen
• 2/3 c. frozen pineapple chunks
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh coconut* or dried, unsweetened coconut

• 1/2 to 2/3 c. of plain or vanilla soy milk
• optional sweetener to taste - sugar, brown sugar or Splenda
  

Add fruit gradually and crush on the "pulse" setting. For some reason this particular recipe works better for me when I do that, then pour the soy milk over, and blend until smooth.

* Coconut prep: I love real, fresh coconut but it's a pain. If you want to do it, drain the coconut water into an ice cube tray and freeze. Bust open and cut up the coconut flesh into french-fry sized pieces, and freeze these. Throw one coconut ice cube and a few of the strips of coconut into the blender with the ice cubes and crush.

If you're not into the whole live coconut project, some ethnic and organic food stores carry canned coconut milk. Get the plain, unseasoned kind, and pour the can out into an ice cube tray and freeze. If you don't like the small chewy bits of coconut in a drink, JUST use the frozen canned coconut milk, as it's quite dense and creamy compared to the stuff you get out of fresh coconut.

Something I learned this week....

Prepackaged burritos can be heated in a wide-slice toaster.

However, if it is a frozen burrito, let it thaw first or you have a crispy toasted outside and icy bean-slush in the centre.

Another warning: Make sure the tortilla is intact. The cleaning staff at work probably don't like exploded burrito guts in the toaster.

California, Here I Come...

Still more than a month away, but this should be fun.

Here is the hotel, Hotel Triton, Adam's company travel agent found for us in San Francisco.

They have a wine tasting hour with massage chairs and Tarot readings every evening, fresh baked cookies twice a day, and "celebrity" rooms designed by Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, Woody Harrelson and more.

Sure beats the Holiday Inn Express.

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...

News update on me:

Work: status quo.
Home: very nice. Has more art now thanks to generous Benjamin siblings allowing us a turn with Sassy's time-share masterpiece. Still needs a sofa.
Personal projects: pursuing a car-free week in honour of Commuter Challenge.
Menus: nothing of note lately. Tried a mock-pot-pie tonight with some leftover chicken and a Pillsbury pressure-dough tube, it was soupy.
Mundane achievements: survived 35th birthday. Am I middle aged yet?
Fun: Off to San Francisco for a week in July . Milwaukee, too, but that's work and not nearly so choice a destination.
Sooner fun: Sissy, Hubby and the Bump coming to visit Saturday, if plans don't change. (The Bump being the now two-years-and-some Owen).
At the moment: off to wash me head and get some sleep.

Maybe not the greatest menu...

Double-salt licorice and pepperettes for lunch... hmm.

One of those days when we're scavenging the desk drawers for food.

Nostalgic Guelph Moments....

Trying to isolate myself from chatter and focus on my job today, I pulled out my iPod and started dialling down my artists list.

Came across this one I'd recently ripped and forgotten about: Black Cabbage .

Read the record review from that link. I can't describe them any better, musically.

Black Cabbage is one of very, very few bands I repeatedly and deliberately sought out at live shows. Hillside Fest, the Trasheteria, or the Albion, they were THE act to see in Guelph in the years post-scholarship-undergrad but pre-pancreatic disaster (umm.. mid=90's for those who don't mark time by my personal benchmarks). A Black Cabbage show was always a frantic, thrashing crowd, which you know in most circumstances I hate, but there was something about the chemistry that happened around this band that made it the most friendly mosh pit I've ever heard of.

Unfortunately, but possibly not unexpectedly, the creative maelstrom of some 8 talented folks was not sustainable and as far as I know, these individuals all went their own ways in the late 90's. But if you're a fan of genuine Canadian Eclectic Indie music, it might be worth the effort to dig up their catalogue.

Headphones on! Back to the grind.

Why I'm pretty uninspired lately...

Because THIS ---->


Is what I see all day.

I can't compete with my wonderful live-in photographer's immense talent, so I've decided I won't even try, I'll just see what I can come up with from my camera phone. But I'm not even getting far with that. Work is not very inspiring at all. And that's all I get all day.

If you are calling for Mrs. Benjamin, please hang up....

Some recent and extremely disruptive calls from TD Canada Trust lately have prompted me to wonder... how do telemarketers get on at cocktail parties?

Other guest: "Nice to meet you, Sid. What is it you do for work?"
Telemarketer: "Oh, I phone people when they're eating, playing with their kids, or trying to take a dump, in order to harangue them to buy unnecessary products and services they never thought they'd need..."
Other guest: (sidesteps rapidly to go find a slaughterhouse worker to chat with...)

I actually repeated the sentence: "I am not interested in any additional credit cards" 4 times for the TD Visa slob who called, and I think I snapped at that point - I've been quite rude (even for me!) to the next couple. HOPEFULLY after the last one, when I finally remembered to explicitly request that they remove me from their call lists, they'll stop. It's that much more annoying that they keep calling as I am completely removing my business from TD after their screwed-up handling of my investments over the last few years.

Also sick of telemarketers? Check out the-cma.org, under Consumer information, and register for the Do Not Contact service. It's no guarantee, but marketers who are at least responsible enough to cross-check their DB with the CMA Do Not Contact list should be removing your name if you're registered. It's better than nothing. Also remember to ask all parties from whom you request information - including magazine subscriptions and charities - to NOT share your address. Most of those are concerned enough with your business that they will respect your request.

Failing that, screen calls. Anyone who calls our house for Mr. Botari or Mrs. Benjamin deserves a hangup, as they obviously don't know who they're calling.

Helo, MoMo... hee hee!

(Photos.blogger.com seems to not be loading right now - no pic today!)

Ok, so I'm hardly competing with the real enthusiasts, but in between cleaning up the old place and setting up the new, I've had a couple hours of geeking out this weekend, figuring out how to hack... er, 'customize' my new Motorola RAZR v3 BLK.

Thanks to MotoModders, MotoX, and poetic_folly's Motoguide, I've dug up what it takes to update my phone software, fix a resulting bug, load a new skin and re-flash. If you look at those sites above, you'll of course find there's so much more and I'm hardly among the elite, but hey, I'm proud of myself, having done nothing more geeky than change my Windows wallpaper in a couple years. Maybe I'll get into seem editing after a little more study.

Ooops....

Well, it was bound to happen at some point. Our first observed incident of cat vs. gravity occurred today when I popped home for lunch.

I heard a soft scuffling and saw one foot and a tail swing down below the loft railing, and before I could get there, Maui went FLUMPPPPH onto the seat of the futon.

Luckily, he was more surprised than hurt or upset. I'm not sure what he was doing, or if Sprout! pushed him. Blue was on the ground floor with me, so it wasn't her.

Also luckily, I had removed hard or pointy things from the end of the couch under the railing. I think this is some impetus to get more junk out from under the loft rail. If they're going to do that, landing on the futon cushion is fine, but if they miss that, I want them to hit carpet or floor, not say, a pile of lamps or a dissassembled shelf on which they will impale themselves.

I'm guessing if Maui did this while performing stunts on the railing, he's bright enough to not try again soon, but if it was an escape attempt from a more aggressive cat, it might not be the last.

Look out below!

Wow, do we have too much stuff.

Hi to all - since I got pounced as soon as I showed up back online today, thought I'd fire of a quick "yes we survived the move" update.

Or, we're surviving - there's still some moving happening, argh.

The time to move our junk was waaaaayyy underestimated Monday, and as such we kept two really strong guys very busy until after dark. And at 4 pm we had to call off the loading and get to the new place, as we were supposed to be moving IN from 1-4.

But, we made it. Our condo looks like a junk warehouse for the moment, with paths excavated through the boxes. The cats keep getting lost but I think they're all still in here. Maui and Blue are still trying to figure out the deal with the stairs. They're going up and down them OK but every time they notice they're up and we're down, or vice versa, they seem to be very upset about the height difference. Or something. Who knows what's going on in those fuzzy little brains.

Back to continue unpacking the kitchen, then I'm meeing a fellow local FreeCycler to pick up a table we no longer need (and left at the old place).

Living less vs. Living better

Amongst the boxes and bags and piles here lately, I've been contemplating the ironic conflict I feel between a wish to "live simply", and all the various wants and wishes I have to add things to my life. To be fair to myself, I generally want to alter, not add - for example, the 40 yr. old sofabed has gone to a new home with a needy FreeCycler, with the eventually plan being to buy a nice new sofa. I didn't want *another* sofa, I wanted a *better* sofa.

This one's maybe harder. I have a longstanding habit of buying packs and bags. I have a few now, including a very expensive one from Cirque du Soleil. So, what do I want now?

One of these:



And this:



Yeah, more Cirque goodies. Again, to be fair - the PVC knock-off designer bag I succumbed to last spring is starting to disintigrate and doesn't stay on my shoulder. And I damaged one of my older ones somehow.

And, we have a decent vacuum cleaner, old-fashioned solid canister type with bags, and Mom offered to get me a lightweight Swiffer vac, but I want a :



"Living more simply" means a $430 robotic vacuum? Nope, I must be a failure.

Well, maybe not. I recently read a pagan Almanac article that reiterated for me something I had already hashed out - "living more simply", or "living lightly" as this article called it, if you consider it to be techno-phobic, dress-out-of-a-dumpster, poor grooming movement, is just plain not a sustainable lifestyle choice. And that's not what modern simple living advocates really are going for.

Consider the phrase should be "Living Consciously".

Yes, bust the clutter. If you don't know why you have something - why do you still have it? Walk when driving would save you only 5 minutes. No, you don't need 35 pairs of jeans (or 4 vacuums!). But buy some fresh damn socks and if you need shoes to go with just one particular outfit, well, yeah, you do. And maybe two of some household tools can tackle a job in a way that saves you dragging heavy equipment up and down narrow stairs or putting a hole in your plaster.

It's not even, necessarily, about living as *cheaply* as possible (though that is a need for some - great!), though it is about not exceeding your means, financially and karmically.

What it's about is being CONSCIOUS of what consumerism does to you, and for you, and understanding your buying decisions and the drive behind them. The power of them, too, really. Understanding the reasons why you need/want these things. Also understanding what is your need/want is not necessarily someone else's. Others are free to define what they NEED.

Living consciously (simply, lightly) can't be about depriving yourself of nice comfy furniture, a couple fashion handbags if their use would really satisfy you, or a convenience when yeah, you could do it the hard way. If it is, I'm sorry, but then it is a doomed movement. Living consciously should be about developing your awareness of quality, sustainability, direction, and action in choices about how you live. Learn what the different choices are and how they work, and what the better one is - FOR YOU - rather than just blindly accepting what's on sale under the blue-light special.

Another score for penicillin ( I hope! )

Well, this is the longest that I've been this sick from strep, but I think we got it now. Fever was gone this morning, back to my usual 36 -plus-a-smidge kind of temps. The sore throat has been fading with some repeated help from Chloraseptic and a bit more OTC pain stuff - it comes back a bit less each time. I've eaten a whole can of soup with REAL stuff in it, some watery oatmeal, and some toddler apple-snack things. Beats barely being able to swallow water and the pain stuff being ineffective as the inflammation was so deep it was a physical barrier.

I was actually up for trying some mild, soft Indian food tonight, but am still not quite presentable enough to go out, and the take-out option wasn't happening tonight. Sweetie popped out with friends without me - I'm jealous, but we will do that another time. Our local Mom'n'Pop Indian restaurant is an absolute gem and does a couple of mild paneer dishes I really like.

Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be back in the packing-and-moving routine. TONIGHT I'm actually trying to be a good student - I'm long overdue to finish this one last assignment and I'm actually getting into the research. It will be completely Googled, which might cost me a point or two over "academic" library attendance - but sheesh, the topic is videoconferencing benefits to business, it's hardly Human Genome research - anyone in industry would use the 'net too.

Surviving...

Antibiotics are a good thing - WHEN you really need them. I guess I do.

Fever is almost gone. It's around "normal" for those people who aren't normally 1 degree below normal like I seem to go. Throat mess is a different thing. Still very painful to swallow, despite all the non-narcotics I can try. 1 hr to eat cream of wheat today. Some applesaucy thing made for toddlers got choked down just now. And I'm talking like someone with an overly-large tongue, as any speech that requires the back of the tongue/throat for enunciation just is not happening.

Most of the rest of "feeling bad" is actually from such severe low food consumption all week I'm drained. I've been so sick I'm not actually hungry, and between that and the serious pain, it's hard to eat. If only I could lose my appetite like this when I'm healthy - I'd get rid of my 50+ extra pounds in no time.

Off for another nap. Went and booked the moving day with our building manager just now, that wore me out. Yeesh.

Me an' my bug...

You gotta think it's not the best day you'll ever have when your doctor says "Open up and say 'AAAHH' ", and then promptly says "BLEAAAGH!" right back at ya.

I think I have my second-worst bout of strep. The worst would be the one in 2000 where I actually had to go to the hospital for fluids and IV antibios as I couldn't swallow even water. Today I can barely swallow water, so no 12 hour stint on a gurney in emerg. Doc Y didn't even do the swab test, because she said if its not strep, it's something similarly evil that warrants penicillin. So penicillin it is.

Ironically, this appointment was made was before I got this sick, and was to discuss my long-running headache. Doc Y. did look at that with all the standard in-office neurology assessments (touch your nose, touch my finger...) and concluded I don't have a tumour and haven't had a stroke. But we couldn't assess much else with raging strep throat, a 40-degrees-for-3-days fever, and EVERYthing hurting so bad I couldn't tell where the headache started and ended as opposed to the rest of me just hurting.

I did get a note to stay off work for the rest of the week. I've been, literally, in bed for most of 3 days. Pretty unusual for me, even when sick. I had this same bug about 13 months back, and though I was home from work for a couple of days, I puttered around, made soup, did a bit of laundry.

I did one load of laundry yesterday but needed a nap between washing and drying and again between taking it out of the dryer and putting it away. I HAD to do that much - I had soaked every bathrobe, wrap, pair of jammies and alot of cushions with sweat from the fever-chills cycle. Dear spousal unit, bless his heart, solved that problem with a space heater. I was trying to warm up my feet with a hair dryer this morning and realized it felt good. Sweetie saw that and when I got the hair dryer out later to warm up the bed (and play with Blue, who discovered despite the noise that things that blow hot air are nice) and went and got this little heater-fan instead and parked it beside me.

So, it works because instead of bundling up against the chills, then sweating to soak the blankie, then kicking the blankie off until I'm freezing, then bundling up in the now-cold but still wet blankie.. etc.... the warm air keeps me evaporating enough to not get anything gross and sweaty, but is warm enough that I don't need a cover or just a light one. Remember this if you ever spend 72 hours with a 40 degree fever. I'm sure I'll have cause to use it again, strep and me have a long-term repeating thing going.

Bonus fun is that Blue liked it. She would squirm and roll in front of the hot breeze. When it stopped because the thermostat thought it was warm enough, she'd roll over, sit up straight, and wait for it to go again.

In a pinch, hair dryers are nice for warming cold feet when the rest of you is hot.

Needless to say, not much packing has happened this week.

Condo findings...

Ok, so we got in last night... had an indian take-out picnic on our hardwood floor and new area rug. The vendor came by with almost all the keys, less one garage door opener he'll stop by with on Monday, and a couple replacement lightbulbs he promised to leave but that got packed and moved.

For the most part, the surprises were good ones. A bit of dust here and there, we found some evidence of old moisture marks at a drywall join in the ceiling and around one fixture, a bump or ding in the wood here and there. Though, for the wood, for all we know, the damage could have happened in 1905 when someone rolled a whiskey barrel into one of the warehouse timbers.

Something I guess I knew but hadn't quite connected up is that stainless steel is not magnetic - we can only put fridge magnets on the side of the fridge. Oh, and Dad - the fridge is fitted to install the tubing for the internal ice-maker, but it's not there. No big deal. The ceramic-top oven/stove is a programmable convection oven that doesn't seem to have ever been used (I think our seller was a divorced dad living the bachelor life with occasional visits). Adam diligently cleaned a bit of melted plastic off it while I dusted floors.

Oh, and get this - our microwave takes dictation. Yep, the GE Profile over-the-range programmable microwave actually will hold a 20-second voice memo. And it has a nightlight mode.

All in all, I think we got our financing's worth out of this. It's definitely not a "starter" home budget-wise - but we're not "starting" and we're hoping to be living in it for a while.

Home Suite Condo: Now its ours!

St. Patrick's Day, 2006 - now in a heap of debt, we are happy homeowners!

Picked up the keys from the lawyer early afternoon today - well, one set of keys. Our seller was busy moving out this morning, and has the other set, the second garage door opener, and the mail keys still, but we're getting them from him this evening. So far the place is bright and empty, save for the area rug that was part of the deal, some manuals and odd bits of hardware, and some dust we'll head back to take care of tonight.

More when we're settled in!

Caution: decaffeinated geek.

This seems to be the day for reading, hearing, or encountering folks feeling sick. A little more than usual.

Heck, so I'll chime in, see if anyone has suggestings.

I've had a headache for close to two months now. Yeesh. Some of you have heard about it. I'm actually theorizing I have at least two headaches, that are tag-teaming me. One seems to be related to neck/base of skull, and the other to sinuses. But I can't get rid of them for trying - best I can do is take enough ibuprofen to scare them into a corner for a while. Except after going through most of a bottle of OTC painkiller in a month, I came across a newsbyte saying chronic use of ibuprofen or acetominophen can WORSEN headaches - yay.

Massage tomorrow, for more work on the neck.

And, though I don't think he's right (but I love him anyway) Adam keeps insisting it might be the coffee I drink. Non-coffee drinkers come off as so self-righteous sometimes! Sheesh. BUT, for the sake of argument, I've had no coffee for a couple of days. Will try to go a week. Still have the headache, but actually left work early today as I was struggling to stay awake and feeling even crankier than usual (like, how could you tell?).

Now, I have reasonable grounds for arguing that it's not coffee. My coffee habits haven't really changed in years, and the daily headache-monsters started visiting mid-to-late January. I also do not drink gallons of it - I take a mug with me in the morning. On a bad day, I'll have a second one. Only very rarely will I have any caffeine after lunch.

Also, the headaches seem correlated with other things. Work. Stress. My face hurts, under my eyes and above my top teeth, that's a giveaway for sinus issues. I started taking an extended mid-day break to do aquafitness on days I don't teach at my gym, and that chases them away sometimes. For a bit. Some days I wake up with one, some days it takes until mid-morning to really hit.

I need to go see my doctor and fill her in, but I can't get through to her office on the damn phones. They're always busy and they don't answer at all for an hour and a half from 12 noon to 1:30.

We'll see. So for now - no painkillers, no caffeine, more massage, more exercise. Off to try to get a good night's sleep.

Get yer mulched imported termites, right here!!!!

To those who send along all those very alarming emails, about how household products will kill my pets, drivers with no headlights on are serial killers, and there's a rapist haunting the mall parking lot - thank you. It is nice to know you care and I appreciate being thought of. I'm not being sarcastic! The reason those emails live so long is that lots of good people err on the side of a little more superfluous email for a little more security in the world. That's OK.

However, next time you hear that a serial killer is poisoning dogs with floor cleaner in the local mall, here's a quick-reference guide to getting the real goods: Snopes.com.

I like Snopes. In a world where any hoaxmongering dork can invent fake credentials and claim to be the authority on aspartame killing your grandmother, these folks dig the real dirt. And when they hit bedrock and can't get through it, they admit it.

It's not perfect, but have a look. At the very least, learn what to look out for in the baseless (or sometimes, fact-based but a bit skewed) email circulations.

It'll save all our inboxes, and you can always send me chocolate to show you care!

More Homey stuff

New clickable image version of our condo photos, thanks to my Spousal Euphemism:

To the Condo gallery.

On a different note, I've finally gotten around to loading a few more quilty pics, mostly "UFOs" (UnFinished Objects). Go here. Photography credit of course also goes to Adam Benjamin.

This week's new home to-do list...

In between work, sleep, pager call, and another really bad sinus cold I feel sneaking up on me after a month-long headache, I need to remember to:

Call Hydro and explain how we'll be moving but have two residential service addresses for 6 weeks

Call insurance company, explain same

Make sure March's rent is paid (last month of paying rent! yay!)

Book my moving days off work

Hunt down coworkers who will be avoiding me to cover my cases while I'm off work

Re-record the answering machine to provide information on the Pennysaver ad I just placed

get my darned correspondence course assignment done before I have to buy another extension

Catch up with the Yoga teacher who found the insurance receipt I lost - file claim.

Submit donation receipt to employer for gift-matching program, before I forget or lose it in the move

Start listing the bazillion address changes I have to make

... and I'm sure a whole bunch more stuff I haven't thought of yet...

2.5 weeks to go!

Hopeful Yoga

I am at times in awe of my dear friend, and her determined political activism even though she often finds herself facing those elements of society that make it its most miserable. I'm not that strong. I really haven't the emotional energy to take on city counsellors, chiefs of police, and the administrative bourgeoisie that think arresting squeegee kids will fix all the urban decay.

On the other hand, I also feel determined that one should do what they can. Despite my recent move to become an upscale urban condo dweller, I don't believe in shutting oneself off inside your tower and leaving the less fortunate to scavenge your dumpsters. So I give money. I try to support local organizations with my limited free time to volunteer. And every now and then I come across something that suits my craving for both inner and communal peace while making strides to make the world better for someone, if even in a small way.

Yesterday I spent a few hours, after doing a small amount of fundraising, at the second annual Yoga For Hope day. For lack of a less laughable way to describe it, it's a 12-hour "yoga-a-thon". If you can imagine a roomful of Yoga students all chanting "om" together as a "thon". It really is a lovely event.

Hopespring Cancer Support Centre is a community organization which runs two resource centre locations providing resources, counselling, support, and wellness programs to those living with cancer and their loved ones. It's a small organization. It doesn't get the airplay that THE Cancer Society or even cancer centres at hospitals do, but it works to make a difference. One of Hopespring's key wellness programs is Yoga classes, offered free of charge to their clients. Yoga For Hope invites Hopespring clients, staff, friends and family to come together, raise funds and awareness, and have a healing day of community. I'm fortunate to not be directly affected by cancer (so far!!) though I got involved through my Yoga teacher, who has been.

I don't have the final total yet, but Yoga for Hope last year raised thousands to support this community program. Judging by the attendance and activity, they probably did better this year. I managed to gather $250 this year, and will be able to double that to $500 as I found my employer's Donation Matching program will match my funds raised, just not my own donation.

I'm not really writing this to be smug about yesterday's accomplishments. I'm writing more to remind myself, and any of you reading, that even though some of the determined accomplishments of others may make us wonder what good we ourselves can do, that every time you reach out, someone may be touched, and for the better. That every little thing can help.

Minor maudlin home-buyer sentiments...

I should preface today with "I know I really have nothing to complain about".

My wonderful sweetie and I are 3 weeks away from taking possession of the Dream Loft. There's not alot that can go wrong. Sure, we'll have to work out some storage issues and fight over furniture arrangements. That's expected.

One thing I wasn't expecting was a strange little twinge of grief over the move. Maybe I can blame my current day-to-day stress or practically chronic shortness of sleep. But I'm finding lately I walk around our current rental, roomy and adequate but still a rental with everything BEIGE (ugh), and get a little choked up.

One thing I can put my finger on is the loss of my first 3 cats in recent years. This apartment I'll soon be leaving was the last "home" for Lenny, Lucy, and Panda. I think I still subconsciously look for them in the corners and on their favourite perches. Shortly those little habits will be gone forever as this place passes on to new tenants. I'm taking one more step away from something treasured that is lost.

More general and more vague is just the overall stress moving creates - always something you forget, always more work than you wanted. There's something good about every place I've lived. Many locations in Guelph were charming - across from the Farmers' Market, or downtown by the riverbank. Here its been my cute little balcony, and the annual Jazz Festival right under it (admittedly, I'll only be moving a block away).

All in all, its a good thing. For all the practical reasons - building equity, nice space, convenient locations - as well as the intangible and emotional ones - pride of ownership, all that. I'm happy to have a big silver lining and only a tiny smudge of gray. The current cats will probably love the loft and stairs and all the new perches they can find. I'm sure we'll have a fun few days trying to find out what nooks and crannies they've found to hide in. Maui the Bath Alarm will be even more excited with the whirlpool tub, I bet. I'll give Sprout a week before she falls off something high, and I have to remember to screen off the furnace closet air return so I don't lose Blue into the ductwork.

Three weeks to go!

Good Coffee, and freedom from Timmy's

About a month or so back, folks on my Quilter's newsgroup were chatting about a new way they'd found to make coffee - turns out its a pretty old-fashioned new way. Called cold brewing.

Check it out at Toddy Cafe.

Now, I don't often jump on bandwagons or fall for advertising hype I haven't investigated. But the Quilters, many of whom are coffee fans of my calibre, were not wrong. This is a darned nice way to make coffee! I have not purchased a take-out cuppa, nor have I had a case of coffee-heartburn, in over 3 weeks.

It is, as the vendor of this product admits, more expensive per cup than a drip brewer. But it is less expensive than take-out, certainly, and more convenient to make at home on a rushed morning (the reason I would get take-out). And you don't end up pouring out half the pot, so overall it does seem to save some.

If any of you want to try out the coffee, let me know and I'll try to remember to bring some along next time we gather.

Hey, Superwomen everywhere - you rock!

My sister's pretty damn on the ball, for all the crap she's dealing with.

Check out this very cool LJ entry.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/gomalley

And, THINK about it, really.

Moving Sale!

So, if anyone is interested in or in the market for the following, leave a comment or get in touch. Willing to sell/barter/bargain/place on "indefinite loan".

Things which WILL need new homes, preferably before the move:

Sofa-bed
Veggie/rice steamer
electric grille
two microwaves
Two Ikea KIMME chairs (look it up at ikea.com)
A lot of Tupperware overstock.
A dome tent
Tri-fold "shoji" style screen/room divider
... more as we figure it out ...

Things which MAY be re-homed, provided we can work out replacements in some way:

Bedroom suite, blue-stained and maple-toned laminate MDF, 4-pcs incl. vanity dresser with mirror, 5-drawer chest, two nightstands. Minor cosmetic damage. Can be sold or bartered if/when we find alternates better suited to our new space.

Futon chair and ottman - folds out to a cot. Comes with two cover sets.

Rattan seashell papasan chair. Cushion is showing a bit of wear but comes with two covers.

... again, there will be more as we figure it out.

Digressions...

Sissy said something about "tagging" me after the end of HER list of these topics on her LJ. I think that means I'm supposed to do the same list. So here goes:

Five jobs I have had in my life:
1. Page (job title for the kids who re-shelve library books)
2. Research Assistant/Laboratory Assistant
3. Environmental Assessments Analyst
4. Teacher
5. Computer Geek (encompases various jobs and job titles all in the same range, up to and including Global Support Specialist, currently).

Five movies I would (and do) watch over and over again (in no particular order):
1. Umm...
2. Err...
3. ..maybe... nah.
4. hmmm.
5. Just gimme the damn book.

Five places I have lived:
1. Burlington, ON
2. St. Catharine's, ON
3. Ottawa, ON
4. Guelph, ON
5. Waterloo (and Kitchener), ON

Five TV shows I love to watch:
"Love" is way too strong a word for my relationship with TV. Have very little interest in that medium, except if there's NOTHING else going on in my life and I'm dead bored but not sleepy:
1. CSI
2. CSI NY
3. CSI Miami but that is by far the inferior of them
4. Cold Case if I stumble across it.
5. ER but only if Adam is watching it and I have nothing better to do - I actually quite hate it.

Five places I have been on vacation:
1. Algonquin
2. Maryland
3. Vancouver
4. Whistler
5. Niagara Falls

Five websites I visit daily: (or at least several times a week)
1. Google's Main page
2. Wikipedia
3. Blogger and LJ, to see what friends are up to
4. Agfa's Livelink instances, unfortunately.
5. President's choice financial.

Five of my favourite foods: (I only get five?)
1. Very, very GOOD dark belgian chocolate, in small but divine quantities.
2. Very, very GOOD steak. Mediocre beef might as well stay on the cow, it's less trouble for them and me.
3. Cheese (Sissy: remind me to take you to Vincenzo's!)
4. Dim Sum!
5. Most well-prepared Japanese food- which is unfortunately not most alleged-to-be Japanese food.

Five places I’d rather be right now:
1. In my new condo!
2. A treehouse in the rainforest
3. Sailboat on open water
4. An isolated stretch of South Pacific or maybe Caribbean beach.
5. A well stocked wilderness cabin accessible only by snowshoe this time of year

Five songs you like but are embarrassed to admit:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

I'll have to fill that one in some other time - all that comes to mind is "whatever's on my Aerobics CDs".

Home Suite Condo, Cats included!

Yay! Past the speedbump. I have email from the Condo Board pres saying we have been granted an exception to the default 2-pet rule.

Signing off on the waiver tomorrow! Closing Date March 17! Moving in early April. WOW, that's only 2 months!

Now I need:

Furniture
Jacuzzi-safe bubble bath
Design Plans for a 20-foot cat tree.
and alot of cardboard boxes.

Still working on the speedbump

Well, I got an emailed response from the Condo Board president today, 3 days after I mailed him. Some of my anxiety was around "did he even get my mail?" - and then I discovered a typo in the phone number I gave him, (doh!) but used the excuse to mail him again and correct it, and he answered my second message.

He has told me, not having the "official" vote of the Board yet, that a) I have made a most reasonable and understandable request and b) we have his vote and c) 2 of the other 4 Board members are also pet-folks.

It seems the Board works on a best-3-of-5 simple majority princple. So unless one of those other pet-folks is say, a dogs-only type who thinks all cats are evil AND the two unknowns are hostile as opposed to just pet-free, we should be fine.

I'm feeling better at least that I've been acknowledged and that my first interaction with these folks has confirmed my agent's impression that they're generally reasonable about this stuff.

Will post the final outcome when I know it! Mr. Pres told me he would be polling the rest of the Board tonight and tomorrow.

Speedbump on the highway to new home - ouch!

So, well, after having all our condo-buying arrangements practically fall into our lap (well, with alot of well-organized support from me, and our hardworking agent), we've hit a small glitch at the LAST condition of offer.

The condo by-laws.

Now, this is a unit in a condo building I've looked at for years. The FIRST question I ask about residential arrangments, is "are there any restrictions on pets?". As you know, my family includes fur-bearing quadrupeds as well as a couple of humanoids.

A few years back when I chatted with a sales rep for the developer and asked my key question, she answered me along the lines of "No, not at all - many residents have pets". So, in this past couple of weeks with our agent, I just casually confirmed this. Our agent knows we have 3 cats - no mention of any issue.

I discovered last night that Article VII: Pets, Item 2 states that "Without prior written approval of the board, the only pets permitted in one Unit are up to two (2) cats....".

Sound of slamming brakes and screeching tires.

I admit to a moment of late-night panic. I mailed our agent and lawyer right away, then mailed our agent's assistant too just incase our agent was out. While we could still let the offer fall through without a legal consequence, well, I DON'T want to be in the position of trading my dream home for one of my fur-folk.

Now, in the light of morning, I've calmed a bit. I noted that the "Without prior written approval..." phrasing was a 2004 amendment to the original declaration that unconditionally stated "only two". I have also noted that despite an explicit prohibition on large dogs of certain breeds, I've seen someone with a Rottie there in the past. I am hoping that this means the change in phrasing was made specifically to acknowledge that exceptions may be requested by Unit Owners who are still responsible, upstanding citizens who just happen to count higher than two when it comes to sharing the fuzzy love.

It's not like I'd want to be breeding pitbull puppies by the dozen - I just have 3, not two, middle-aged housecats. Here's hoping.

Closer to Home Suite Condo...

Inspection was a cakewalk - this was expected. We put the money in against most professionals' better judgement, including the inspector's! Mainly we'll consider it a lesson in owning major home components like a furnace and a breaker panel, as he was very thorough in explaining and documenting this.

And financing is approved!!! Whee!

Only the lawyer's review of the status certificate remains. We're also expecting that to be a cakewalk, really, the building and condo corp have a fairly good reputation.

Home Suite Condo!

OK, gotta do this on the blog as I'm getting so many "how's it going" inquiries I can't keep up!

Adam and I made an offer on an amazing condo, conditional upon financing and inspection, and it's been accepted. THAT means, we've bought a condo as long as someone gives us the money, and our mortgage consultant thinks unless we're all very surprised by a credit report, we're fine. The inspection is likely a no-brainer - even the inspector we hired said he didn't really think we HAD to do one, but we felt better having a pro go through the place with us.

Closing will be March 17 as long as all the legal and finance gets done on time. It's a ground-floor corner unit, 3bdrm, 2-bath, in one of a pair of buildings known both as The Seagram Lofts and "Barrel Warehouse Park" though I think the latter name applies to the landscaped property and the former to the buildings. It's an urban reclamation rebuild of the old Seagram Distillery barrel warehouses. I've had one eye on it since it started in 2000, and any of you who have walked around my Uptown block with me will know the buildings.

It's only slightly more than I set out to pay, and if we get approved for our desired financing option we'll have a hugely flexible mortgage that between the two of us, we can probably get rid of in 10 years if we're determined, 15 if we're a bit lazier. And the unit is PERFECT, there's nothing else we could possibly want to do with it except furnish it. Hardwood, granite, stainless steel, designer lighting, window shades, and the seller, in concession to not really budging much on price, included a designer area rug - and a dinner gift certificate at a posh restaurant that shares the property (go figure). He wasn't wrong about the price being a good deal - it's a luxury property and going up - we just pitched low because we found out HE got it for a steal - but oh well, that's his luck. We bought it before he raised his asking another $20k, so if we look at it that way we split the difference between what we offered and what he really wanted.

We have the inspection scheduled for tomorrow and our finance guy says he'll have an answer by then - more news as it develops!

Blog Soup II

Been meaning to post this for a week or so. So, if you look at my earlier entry on "Blog Soup", you can tell quantity cooking has alot of practical applications - for a single/couple, it lets you prepare a weeks worth of quick meals, or for a busy family or a house full of guests, you can feed alot fast.

The concept of "watering the soup" seems to have negative connotations. It implies low-quality cooking, a cheap host offering a substandard meal, or a way to try to get rid of unwanted diners by offending them with soup that tastes like dishwater. I never really looked at it that way. I think when I was a child I heard my grandmother, or someone around her, joke that something was "no problem, we'll just water the soup!" In that context, it was an offer of additional, spontaneous hospitality. I remember growing up with a large extended family who would always welcome children and grandchildren to bring a friend along, and there would always be enough to offer.

Now, a creative cook and host does not, literally, just pour extra water into a bowl of someone's soup, of course. But, many dishes, like the aforementioned Blog Soup, lend themselves well to extension as leftovers. A leftover soup will thicken when cold, as liquid is absorbed by solid ingredients like rice, barley, potatoes or beans. It becomes less soupy - and hence, when you add water and re-heat for half an hour or so, you can have an additional quantity of home-cooked soup.

Here's how Blog Soup went through a second incarnation (some of which is still in the freezer!).

Sautee two chopped cloves of garlic, one chopped celery stalk, and half a dozen or so sliced mushrooms in a pot with a bit of olive oil. Cook until mushrooms browned and celery a little translucent, but not soft.

Add 3-4 cups of water, salt and pepper to taste, any other seasonings complimentary to your original soup, and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Add to existing pot of original, thickend leftover soup, and mix. At this point, add more water to appropriate consistency or volume needed.

Simmer for half an hour or so.

Still a darned good soup and you'll have a week of leftovers, or with a nice loaf of bread, a modest, hearty dinner for a group again.

Gallery added to my projects

So folks who know me, know I hate being photographed. I don't like taking photos, and I don't like looking at photos.

This, I have come to realize, is because most people take lousy photos. I've been scarred by too many years of perennial this-is-the-family-stuffing-their-faces dinner photos, people who insist that you pose for their quicksnaps in extremely inopportune moments, or pictures of the reputed most beautiful baby ever that are so poorly done you can't be sure it's not just a pale pork roast in a touque you're looking at.

I realized years ago that's about as good as MY photos got, so I rarely take any.

Adam is a GOOD photographer. He's got good equipment, yes, but he's got a good eye and a sense of composition. I still object to seeing my pudgy self in pixels, and I do get annoyed when there's a camera in my face when I have other things to do, but I gotta admit he's really good.

He's been good enough to let me have use of the photos of my cats and my quilting creations, and hopefully I can get one or two of the good ones of me (or, you can find the buried link to his gallery). The gallery is on a private server, so please don't re-post this link anywhere, but you can also find it now at the sidebar of my blog, under my profile.

Cheers.