Frog and Goat

Last night we went to the Get Out The Vote concert. 4 hours later, I leaned over to the better-half and said, “The Beastie Boys need to wrap it up because I am an old lady and need to go home and go to bed.” I know, I was at a Beastie Boys show and I was tired. At least I didn’t complain about it being too loud (I’m looking at you, better-half). Seeing the Beastie Boys was awesome. They are such smartasses and they are so high energy it’s hard to remember they are my age. I bet they weren’t sitting around whining about how tired they were.

As we were hurrying back to the car, I told the better-half when we quote the lyric from the Grandmaster Flash song about the DJ cutting it faster, we know from cutting it faster. Mixmaster Mike was, indeed, a mixmaster. Lord have mercy.

They performed Intergalatic. I was hoping for Sabatoge during their set, but will just have to see them again and hope for the best.

Santogold opened and I must apologize to her. I’m sorry the people on the floor didn’t get wound up until after 10pm. But, I’d like to believe you started them up. For crying out loud you rocked and you had tamborines and dancers. Tamborines and dancers dressed in gold. In fact I can’t think of one thing that wouldn’t be improved with tamborines and dancers.

Norah Jones was up next and she brought Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper with her. I had heard of Sasha Dobson before. Catherine Popper plays bass. That’s cool. Norah Jones stuck with the guitar for most of the evening. Sasha Dobson’s banjo caused some huge feedback (at least I think it was her instrument). A minor mishap but not the only one last night.

How many shows have been put on at the Coliseum and there are still sound issues? Either that’s the nature of the business or there’s something that needs fixing there.

Jack Johnson got all the dudes and their girls wound up. I’d rather see him in a smaller venue.

Sheryl Crow came out and brought the rock. She sang her gasoline song with the video running in the background. She puts on a great show but at some point it looked like she really needed to pee…something about the way she bends her knees when she jumps around on the stage.

I noticed several other old fogies left after her set. They missed the Beastie Boys and I say it’s just as well because you have to pull the stick out of the butt in order to enjoy the Beastie Boys…the fogies near us seemed attached to theirs.

Next to final thoughts-since when is it OK to bring toddlers to big, loud, four-hour concerts?

Final, final thoughts-Please vote on Tuesday.

I really need for daylight savings to be over. This waking up in the very dark thing has got to stop. I’m having more days of dark in the morning and dark when I get home. I need one of those to switch.

My boss just was in my office and I’m really having a hard time with her right now. In fact it felt like she just thought I was an idiot. Perhaps I’m just not that interested in the intrigue at our client. I could care less who moved where and why they report to whomever. I care about a few of those folks and wish them every good thing but the minutiae of how they handle their staff is of no interest to me. I used to sit in the belly of that particular beast and have no interest in returning there or even really worrying about folks who are only tangentally related to what I do now. When I follow a conversation just fine but don’t get real excited, it’s not that I’m an idiot but more or less I’m trying to figure out why we’re even having the conversation in the first place.

I think my Master’s program has ruined me at this job. The more I learn the more effed-up I’m finding my own organization. It’s not like this is the first place I’ve ever worked but damn it really is starting to wear thin.

Plenty of times I get an email from Amazon telling me they have wondrous things for sale that I just have to have. Most of those times, I shake my head and say what kind of algorithm are they running over there.

Today I had quite possibly the best Recommendation email in my inbox. This pretty much encapsulates my interests…(I thought those coffee cups were wine glasses at first glance–now that would make it a perfect Recommendation email).

I used to be able to recite some of this too. I’m just sad that there’s not more and those twits laughing make me grumpy. Thou shall not laugh or the Kwisatz Haderach will take over the known universe.

For the record, I love the David Lynch version of the movie.

How about these apples?

I got to work at the crack of dawn as usual and let myself into the building. The building was cold. Not being a permanent resident of the building, I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for warming the building up or even where the thermostat is located. I unloaded the mail I was carrying (I’m a modern day pony express rider) and went upstairs to my office. I proceeded to freeze. Here’s a sentence from an email I sent the better-half, “Think I’m going to put my coat on and sit hunched over and wonder why Mr. Scrooge won’t let me put another lump of coal on the fire.”

I just went downstairs to pick up something off the printer and it was deliciously warm. I stood over one of the heat ducts and didn’t mind being mocked for being so cold. That’s when the receptionist said, why don’t you turn on the heat. Indeed! Our building is actually three old row houses and each house is controlled seperately (who knew). I walked into the office where the thermostat is and asked the occupant if I could crank the heat. She turned around and says Oh I guess so.

Two discoveries…the thermostat was still set to AC. And the temperature was registering 60 degrees.

I set it to 68 and am finally feeling like I’m thawing. I hear chatter down the hall about the heat being on. I will break bad on these people if they think we need to go back to 60 degrees. I grew up in a household where you did not run the heat and that’s bullshit that I won’t put up with in my old age.

I actually ate the first radish a few days ago, but here’s a picture of our first harvest. I saved the green tops and we’ll have those in salad later this week. We also picked a few leaves of spinach. Our row of spinach is a disaster. Only a handful of plants came up so we’re also growing some in pots near to the house. We’ll see how those do.

Dinner was delicious and the corn tortillas turned out pretty well for our first attempt. I think next time we’re going to play around with adding a little baking powder so they aren’t quite so dense. We finished them off this morning with some chorizo and eggs.

Making the asado yesterday was a ball. I made the chili paste first with the softened ancho chilies and it’s a cool thing watching water and peppers come together quite rapidly as a paste. Ah, the rich color and heavenly smell and taste.

Here’s an action shot (ha!) of me opening the lid to the pot…the dish had been cooking for almost three hours at this point.

If you like pork and a savory sauce with just a touch of heat, I’d recommend this dish. It was perfect for the first really chilly Saturday we’ve had this fall.

I was going to post pictures of our delicious dinner last night but upon looking at them I’ve decided it really just looks like a mess on the plate. Imagine, if you will, pan seared scallops with a sauce of onions, mushrooms, sour cream and brandy. And now that you are hungry, think about the fabulous side dish of roasted acorn squash stuffed with barley, onion, carrot and celery. A nearly perfect meal for a rainy, cool night.

Tonight we’re going to have Asado. I put the ancho chilies in to soak bright and early this morning–why is it that I can’t seem to sleep very far past my regular wake-up time? We’re also going to attempt to make corn tortillas from scratch. We bought some masa harina a month or so ago and the bag has taunted me since. We’ve had a tortilla press for ages and we’ve never used it. Tonight that will all change.

Hopefully the pictures from this meal won’t be such a train wreck.

I’ve had a scratchy throat for the past few days and it’s starting to annoy me. Not annoy me enough to go to the doctor–just complain about it and eat throat lozenges. Whether from the throat or the fullish moon, I woke up around 4 this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. I got up around 5 and took a shower.

Then I read for about a half-hour, covering a chapter in Edgar Schein’s Organizational Culture and Leadership book. As it turns out the chapter was about human nature. It seemed fitting that I should read that chapter in the very dark of the early morning with nothing distracting me except the cat.

I got to work a little before 7 and let me tell you by 3pm I was done-in. I got quite a bit of work completed which was excellent but that was a long day of nose to the grindstone work. In fact, I’m thinking of lounging on the couch and watching bad teevee.