VS and YA are out and about this week. A few clues:
Where are we?
Last week was my birthday. I learned a long time ago that I don’t want to wait around to have friends/family bring celebration to me; if I want a particular celebration, then I just make it happen. I came to this revelation after wasband #1 and I split up. It was Valentine’s Day and I was feeling sorry for myself so I went out and bought myself a small bouquet of flowers, some heart-shaped balloons and a couple of pink frosted donuts with sprinkles (one for me, one for the dog). I had also scored a big box from the new tv of the neighbors (Katy Scarlett loved to sit in big boxes and then eventually destroy them) which I decorated with red and pink markers for her. Turned out to be a great day and a great lesson for myself.
This is not to say that I don’t love what friends/family do for me – I think when folks think of me it means MORE to me because I am self-sufficient in the “celebrate me” arena. This year I had an especially nice surprise. While I was out walking the dog that morning, the little girls next door (Margot and Matilda) came over and did chalk decorations all over my sidewalk. I’m sure they had help from their parents, but the rainbows and butterflies were clearly Margot’s inspiration. It was so touching – it’s still there a week later although getting a little faded from folks walking on it and the couple of rain sprinkles. It was the best birthday wish I got this year!
Do you have a favorite neighbor? Or a not-favorite one?
I can get really dirty when I’m working in the yard and putting in a new fence post this week made for TWO seriously dirty days.
The fence was initially installed in the end of April 1991, right after I moved in, so I didn’t have to take the dogs out on leashes six or seven times a day so they could do their business. One of the fence posts was replaced years ago and the others have slowly deteriorated over time. I have a huge black steel fence post “holder” keeping one up and my handy man did a serious MacGyver on another one last November when the ground was already frozen. YA and I decided to replace the saggiest one and see what lessons we learned before attempting the MacGyvered one.
All the online advice talks about how hard it is to get the previous concrete out and they weren’t kidding. The hole was humungous because we couldn’t get any leverage in a smaller hole. We finally got down to where we needed to be and we measured the post and I sawed it off to the right height. Then on Day 2 we got an ugly surprise; the very corner where there post needed to go had an old remnant of the initial fence post. Believe me when I tell you it doesn’t take thousands of years for old wood to calcify. It took an hour, a saw, a drill with 2 different bits, one dandelion digger that didn’t survive the ordeal and a hammer to finally clear that corner.
So the post is in, I’ve taken another super serious shower and some ibuprofen for my sore shoulders. YA and I had lunch after we had finished and we both agreed that we learned a lesson that we could apply to the gate post – that we were hiring someone else to do it!
Any projects that you’ve gotten dirty doing?
Last week I got bitten by a bee, on my bottom lip. I felt the bee start to fly in my mouth (I’m sure that’s not where he/she meant to go) and I spit it out pretty quickly, but not before I got a mild sting. No big swelling, no allergic reaction but it did hurt for a few days. On Day 3, if I looked REALLY hard, I could see a teeny whitish blister. Kinda. Certainly no one else could see it, including YA.
Then on Monday, while hammering a nail in the bathroom, I missed the nail and whacked by left index finger something good. I swore so loudly that I had to go apologize to the neighbors. It really hurt. No bruise, no blood under the fingernail. Nothing except for the lingering soreness.
Now I don’t know about you but I think if you get hurt enough that it still hurts after a day or so, you should get a little bruise or a blister or something. It doesn’t have to be some egregious wound, just a little badge of honor for your pain.
Have you ever received a trophy (or badge or prize)?
After the great naan breakfast recipe last week, we had ricotta cheese left. I hate throwing out food so I bought some lasagna noodles and told YA what I was going to make.
The morning I started to make the dish, YA wandered into the kitchen. “Make lasagna rolls instead of regular lasagna” she said. I whined and said this was a lot more work than just quickly layering stuff into one pan. She whined a bit more and I told her (as I was putting the noodles into the boiling water) that I would think about it. This is straight-up parent-speak for “No, but I want you to quit bugging me about it.”
She left me in the kitchen and a few minutes later, I heard the vacuum running upstairs. I made the lasagna rolls.
Is there anybody who can push your buttons this well?
Guinevere and I have been expanded our walking routes, going a little farther and trying out new streets to walk down. Last week we went down a street in Tangletown that we hadn’t tried before, heading down the hill toward the creek. As we were walking I looked up and was startled to see a pair of women’s underwear hung on the tree close to the sidewalk. On closer inspection, I discovered about ten different garments (all women’s undergarments) hanging from the tree.
As we continued on our way, I thought about tee-peeing, which was a popular prank when I was a kid. I never took part in tee-peeing, but my house was the target of this prank once. Nobody I knew ever fessed up, so I always wondered if it had been meant for Sam’s house; he was my next-door neighbor and a much more social kid than I was. I wondered what kind of prank resulted in women’s underwear in a tree in a front yard. Was this what kids do these days? Where do they get the underwear? Thrift shops? Their mother’s dresser? Or was it more nefarious – one spouse getting even with the other, hopefully not with a divorce looming on the horizon.
Then I was surprised yesterday to walk that route again and found the underwear still hanging in the tree. At first I thought maybe the family was not at home the last few days, but there were golf clubs in a bag sitting on the front porch; surely no one would leave town with their clubs sitting out in the open. The mystery deepened when I got home and mentioned it to YA. She confirmed that the underwear has been in the tree for at least 3 weeks. Now I’m really wondering what the story is.
What do you think?
Well, we did it. We found a fair food truck that had three of our favorite things and that wasn’t too far! It was up in the Costco parking lot in north Minneapolis, so if you don’t count my having to backtrack because it turns out the 46th street ramp onto 35W is closed, it only took about 15 minutes to get up there.
We shared an order of cheese curds, an order of French fries and a bag of mini donuts (although I probably had more than half… YA likes them but not as much as the other things). We sat in the car to eat and watched other folks wander up to the truck for their orders.
It was quite pleasant except for the fact that seven hours later I was still not interested in food – still not hungry. If a half order of three items filled me up that much, how in heavens’ name do people eat so much at the fair? I never get cheese curds or French fries on my solo fair days since I don’t have anyone to share it with, but even so, if you add up what I do consume on my own, it’s quite a bit. I expect that the increased exercise from walking all over the fair is what keeps me from getting too full. Since my only exercise yesterday consisted of the stationary bike for 30 minutes and the dog walk for just 20 minutes, my fair food kept me full all day. Guess that means that without the whole state fair experience, I should probably stay away from too many food trucks this summer!
How are you getting your exercise in this summer?
I’m not sure what motivated me but last night I clicked on CNN.com. I know, I know… what was I thinking? It went against my ostrich imitation of the last couple of months (head in the sand), but something drove me to it.
But amid all the bad news, there was an interesting bit. Apparently when asked a direct question about whether the U.S. is still interested in buying Greenland (despite it definitely NOT being on the market), a straight answer was not to be had from the Secretary of State. Here’s a link to the story, which is kinda funny: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/22/politics/trump-buy-greenland-pompeo/index.html
I don’t really have much to say about this (since it is so beyond absurd that “absurd” isn’t a good enough word) except that I think I might prefer for us to get a tropical island instead.
What do you think? If we have to buy an island, which one to you think we should put in our shopping cart?
Even though I have a strict rule about cookbooks (if I buy one, I have to get rid of one), it doesn’t stop me from checking them out from the library. I love reading through cookbooks, seeing what different chefs/authors do, with new or old ingredients and techniques. It’s been a while since a cookbook has been tempting enough for me to want my own copy, but I usually find one or two recipes that I like.
I found a Naan Breakfast Pizza recipe recently that I thought would be fun to adapt to my kitchen. It turned out great. Here is how I made my version:
(this is for one, but you can certainly make more at one time)
½ naan bread (I’m only socializing w/ the dog these days so I used garlic naan)
1 tablespoon ricotta cheese
1 egg
2 strips vegetarian bacon
2 tablespoons grated gruyere cheese
1 scallion, chopped
4-5 grape tomatoes (or any other kind of tomato you like, or have on hand), chopped
Salt & pepper to taste
Have you tried anything new lately?
I got a letter from the city last month that prior to the re-surfacing project in Tangletown, they will be re-doing some of the curbs. (I am technically part of the Tangletown neighborhood, but my street is actually a county road, so I am not affected by this.) Every morning Guinevere and I have been seeing signs of the project; they dug up all the affected curbs first and then are going back to add the new concrete.
When we came around a corner yesterday, we were surprised by a group of ELEVEN construction workers, all in their neon yellow vests, standing around one of the holds where a curb had been. While we watched, the concrete mixer started to whirr and soon there was concrete glopping into the hole. Two of the eleven worked to control where the concrete was pouring and the other nine started smoothing out the mixture. I’m not sure if they really needed nine guys to do this, but I’m sure it made the job go quickly.
As Guinevere and I continued on our walk, I said to her “well, now you’ve been to a concrete workers’ convention”. She was more interested in the smells along the sidewalk than the convention. I kept thinking about it and realized that except for two Stampin’Up annual conventions about 20 years ago, I haven’t been to any other conventions. Trade shows yes, conventions no. Full disclosure — I did drive a friend downtown to a Star Trek convention once and drove around the block several times while he ran in to buy a couple of t-shirts. But I didn’t actually go inside so I’m not counting that!
Have you ever been to a convention? Any good stories?
Trail Baboon 