Frog and Goat

Did you just hear a loud yelping noise? That was my wallet begging for mercy. I just bought five textbooks for next semester. I don’t know how many tabs I had open in Firefox but I was doing some serious shopping around. As it turns out, I purchased all of them through Amazon–the used feature sure is handy.

We making Cassoulet for new year’s eve dinner. The latest Martha Stewart Living has a recipe and it jibes pretty close to all the other Cassoulet recipes we have but hers is a bit easier. We stopped by The Belmont Butchery yesterday and Tanya hooked us up with all our meat needs. As she pulled duck legs out of the confit container, I smiled. All that duck fat. Mmmm.

The last time I had Cassoulet was on our trip in 2006 to the Pacific Northwest. I hope we’re able to come close to that taste extravaganza.

What are your plans for the eve?

We whipped up a mustard (a little dijon and a lot of harvest coarse ground) and garlic marinade for a breast of chicken (we’ve taken to slicing a big chicken breast into two pieces) and the better-half grilled it using the emergency grilling technique because of the rain. The emergency grilling technique? Open the garage up, strategically place old box fan, fire up charcoal grill. Pour bourbon and ginger.

We boiled some wide egg noodles then dressed with butter and freshly cracked black pepper. And, I cut the tops off some beets and sauteed the beet greens in bacon fat, olive oil and onions. I steamed them (or is it braising) with some white wine and then finished with a little butter–very little.

We enjoyed Kris Pinot Grigio with the meal. We originally had it on vacation but I discovered the Fresh Market carries it. W00t.

For a meal that came together in less than a half hour, it was delicious.

Oh, crap, I forgot to mention. We stopped at Once Upon a Vine and stocked up on Strongbow (of course) but while I was filling up a specialty six-pack, one of the guys working there commented that he noticed I’d put a Hobgoblin in my six pack. Then he whips out the most beautiful gift set–the glass is a magnificent pint glass (I love pint glasses–has there been a better glass manufactured? Doubtful.) and then a big old bottle of Hobgoblin. I was sold. He then talked to me a bit more. I guess a woman lingering over hoppy beer brings out the beer geek.

And, so, another holiday passes under the bridge. The better-half and I were worn out when we got home around 7 last night. We attended to the electronic part of our world and then we commenced with the drinking. Seriously, what else were we supposed to do? This is, knock wood, the MIL’s last holiday at home (unless she starts celebrating President’s Day) as she should be moving into some sort of assisted living in the next couple of months. Of course, we’ve had some bad Christmases with her (due to her bitchiness) but this year it was more pathetic than anything else.

My father is on drugs this holiday season due to an undiagnosed condition, the doctors are still trying to figure it out, that causes upper back pain–ask me–it’s Karma. I’m so detached that it makes me feel a little guilty, but then what’s to be expected after 5 1/2 years of crappy treatment?

Because I can’t actually post something this bleak: the Nieces were awesome-each in their own way. My sister and brother-in-law did a nice job hosting Christmas breakfast and I was able to rib my Florida sister via email. Ahh, life is good.

I am a:

You’re a major sci-fi geek! Do you speak Klingon?

	I received 64 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Guess the Sci-Fi Movie Sounds hereCanon powershot

This morning we got up early and went out for breakfast. As we were pulling out of the driveway, we noticed a dead animal right in front of our house. At first glance we thought it was a cat but it turns out it was a rabbit. Poor bunny.

When we got home a little while ago, the rabbit was gone. I walked down the driveway and found a leg hanging in a tree and then at the mailbox there were fur bits everywhere. Whatever consumed that rabbit ate everything but the fur and the leg hanging in the tree. Even though the rabbit leg in the tree was freaky and would keep people out (hey, don’t go over there, they have carcasses hanging in their trees), I decided to shake it out so some other creature could finish it off. Ah, the circle of life.

I received a gift card to iTunes yesterday. Years ago I checked out iTunes and decided I didn’t like the fact that you have to have their music player on your system to play songs, that the songs didn’t come in a format that was easily movable to another player, etc. I don’t mind paying for music (obviously) but I want the track to be mine after I buy it. Mine, all mine.

Enter the iTunes gift card. I’d have to be a fool to let $15 worth of songs languish so I reinstalled the software, signed back in and spent about $13 worth this morning. Yes, I’ll roll over on my convictions when it comes to buying music. I just need to figure out what to do once the remaining $2 is spent.

Here’s what I bought:
Amy Rigby-I Don’t Want to Talk About Love No More
Amy Winehouse-You Know I’m No Good
Anat Cohen-La Chanson Des Vieux Amants
The Bad Plus-Tom Sawyer
Ed Wiley, Jr, et.al-Without a Song
Coldcut-Timber
Dannii Minogue-Put the Needle On It
Dave Alvin-Here in California
The Derailers-Country a Go-Go
Emmanuel Santarromana-Back in the USSR
Gheorghe Zamfir & James Last-Last: the Lonely Shepherd
Harry Gregson-Williams-Dinner Out (Rothrock Remix)
Rickie Lee Jones-It Hurts

We bought the TV, a Toshiba 37HL67, and then came home. The drive home was nice and we listened to some NPR shows the better-half captured and put on his MP3 player.

The TV rode home in the back of the truck so it had to come up to room temperature before we could do anything with it and during that wait time the better-half ran over to the cable company to get a HD box. Wouldn’t you know the customer service rep didn’t activate the system and we had to call back again and again until we finally got a very helpful live person?

Of course we set up the TV and all the components, found out the cable remote was broken (some of the buttons work not one bit, but the old remote works just fine, thankfully) and then the power went out. No warning brown-outs just slammed into darkness. I called the power company only to be told that my call was important but I might have to wait 6 hours to talk to someone. I hung up and ranted that my call was in a queue that was 6 hours long. I tried again later when their system wasn’t taxed and found out a circuit breaker at the substation blew out. Luckily the power was back on within an hour or so.

To cap it all off, the generator wouldn’t start so the better-half took a hammer to it and then hooked it up to the truck’s battery. It finally turned over and we were able to do the ever favorite toilet flush. Isn’t it funny as soon as the power goes out, I have to use the bathroom? (For those of you who don’t rely on a well for water: when the power goes out, so does the well and that means only one flush per toilet until the power comes back on.)

The TV is beautiful. And, now that we have HD, we can watch the HD yule log:

I am officially on vacation and do not have to be back in the office until January 2nd. On January 2nd, a less than bright person decided to schedule an all-day meeting. Who does things like that? The day that everyone at the meeting will be returning from a long weekend if not a week or more of vacation and they schedule an all-day meeting. Brilliant, I tell you, brilliant.

I am actually going to have lunch with my work buddies tomorrow since we couldn’t quite get our acts together for Christmas. So, I will be in the hell building for a short amount of time.

Today we’re off in search of a new TV. The better-half did a bunch of research and we know exactly what we want and we know the store that carries it. The store happens to be out of town so we’re packing the cooler. There’s schmancy food stores in this other town–we plan on cooking wondrous things over this break. I also have a pile of books and a cabinet that needs to be painted. Above and beyond those few things, I think there will be movie watching and lounging about.

I had my last class of the semester last night and I’m not as relieved about it being over as I have been about other classes. It’s not that I loved this class but I finished my paper so early that it felt like a non-event to finally turn it in. 6 classes down, 7 to go.

I got to campus early yesterday to take some books over to the library and then walked through the student commons building to get over to my classroom building. I was amazed–students studying. Everywhere. I guess the last week of exams does that. Usually when I’m hanging out on campus I see some kids studying but a lot of them aren’t. Usually, most of them are on their cell phones.

It is a nice feeling to tell nearly everyone that you’ll see them again next semester and to know that those people in other programs who were particularly annoying you won’t see again. That one educator with the loud voice and the disapproving tone won’t be missed.