Frog and Goat

It is not only raining (again) but the wind is blowing and it is cold. I just had to tromp out to the garden to cover up the cold frames because the automatic mechanism is still in the garage. This is not, despite what it looks like, a nag on the better-half. It’s just that we have had other stuff going on so slapping the plexiglass sheets down at night is what we do and ordinarily it isn’t a big deal but it was very dark when I got home because I actually worked late today (the horrors!) and cold and rainy and because of the 9 inches of rain we’ve already had this month, there’s serious mud in the garden. And. Just because I didn’t use enough ands in that sentence, I’m going to speckle some more around. And.

I worked late because I observed a pilot training today and we always debrief afterward. This is a good part of the pilot because the writer, trainer and observers of the course get to talk about what worked or didn’t and if a trainee misbehaves we get to talk about that too. We had an energy suck in the room today and the trainer handled her pretty well.

Anyway, I had to sit next to a co-worker that I’m not fond of mainly because she’s a lazy sack of shit (look it up in the dictionary AND there she is). She and I took a MEd class together. My first one and her last one. I worked in a group with her and she lied to the professors and lied to us and didn’t do her work. AND! The bonus is that I also have to be nice to her since I work with her, but still lazy sack o’shit. And! She brings up that class all the time like we bonded. Um no.

So, tonight I will be whipping up a batch of soup that uses two honeycrisp apples that I bought for The Niece when she spent the night recently but she didn’t eat. It also has butternut squash and some sour cream or yogurt whichever I happen to have. Soup and sandwiches will make up for having to sit next to that person today and for the icky wet I just had to endure in the garden.

The sandwiches may or may not include a slice of the country pate we made over the recent holiday. We used the Bourdain recipe from the Les Halles cookbook. The butcher was happy to see us because we bought all kinds of nasty bits.

Our tape measure is missing. Actually, it’s the tape measure my roommate and I bought for the Historic Preservation class that’s missing. It’s been missing for weeks. She and I bought it more than 20 years ago. There’s some attachment on my part. I’m getting ticked off about it.

I also have to go back to work on Monday. Then 3 weeks until break. Thank the maker. I have a plan, like the Cylons. I have to admit to watching the BSG, The Plan DVD lately. Lame. My plan is better.

I’m out of Southern Tier beer. Sad. It’s really awesome beer. It rivals the Stone brew. Have I talked about beer enough on Saturday night for you to know what I’m doing?

She’s supposed to be a turkey chilling on her nest:

I’m not at work today. I wasn’t at work yesterday either and my calendar reminder for this week came up and reminded me to “thank the Lord that I’m off this week”.

We were having lunch yesterday and saw a guy get tossed. Apparently something went down a day or so ago and he’s been banned from the restaurant until he talks to one of the long-time waitresses who doesn’t get back to work until Wednesday. I’d love to know that story. I had a steak and cheese and drank my weight in iced tea. So good.

I had a can of Campbell’s Select Harvest Light Maryland-Style Crab Soup today for lunch on the recommendation of a long-term friend of the mother of the better-half’s long-term friend. I really think if the word crab appears in the title of the soup that crab should be an ingredient. I think what they meant to call the soup was “A Crab Skittered Past The Factory Soup”, but the marketing department decided that wouldn’t sell. Truth be told there was some crab in the soup if you looked very carefully. Mostly it was tomato and potato soup. It was OK but I won’t be seeking it out again.

Today I primed the piece of furniture that we’ve been working on in fits and starts for awhile. It was a Hoosier knock-off that my sister had and she gave it to us when she revamped her kitchen. The cabinet will eventually be red on the outside and khaki on the inside. The khaki is done and now the primer is drying. Maybe by the end of the year we’ll have the piece finished. It will eventually end up in our study as a bar.

I think a shout-out is necessary for Becoming. She’s a PhD today. Congratulations.

Close Encounters of the Redneck Kind from Marc Bullard on Vimeo.

I’m not quite ready for Christmas yet…didn’t it seem like the holly and trees and stuff went out before Halloween this year?

If you are looking for something that’s not quite traditional in the song department, WOXY has their Christmas mixer running.

A woman at work asked me to go over to the local Firestone shop this morning so she could drop her car off to be inspected. I agreed and as I was sitting in the car waiting for her to come out of the shop, I had the window down and was watching the sun light up the shopping mall.

It’s now cloudy and rainy but shortly before 8 this morning the sun was breaking through the clouds and it was balmy. Actually, it was quite nice sitting there. The light reminded me of Florida in the fall. I don’t know if it’s always true down there but nearly every time I’ve been in Florida in the fall, I’ve noticed that the sky starts off cloudy and then the sunlight breaks through. So, there are grey skies, blue peaking through and then the sunlight.

In my case I was staring at JC Penney’s and the nearly denuded trees. I’m sure if I were in Florida, I’d still be looking at a mall, but all the trees would have leaves and the shrubs wouldn’t be cast in brilliant late fall reds.

Wow, nothing since last Friday and that entry wasn’t much on original content. Oops.

We had dinner last night at Bouchon. I indulged in sweetbreads and mussels. The better-half had country pate and leg of lamb. Our friend got the steak. We ate like kings. I also had a martini with Lillet. I’m going to have to pick some up next time I’m in a sweet booze store. Quite tasty.

I also think we’re going to attempt to make a country pate. The better-half has ordered it twice recently and both times it’s been damn fine. It always makes me happy to see cornichons on a plate, but the pate has been very nice too.

I’ve been working on a course at work–turning it from instructor-led to elearning and I’ve been highly unmotivated about it. Some days it feels like I’d rather have my finger nails pulled out then to write more than 50 words. I finished it today and did the fist pump at about 3:45 this afternoon. Tomorrow I need to read it through, fix any errors and then send it off to be read by the subject matter expert. Then, I’m off to the next course.

A funny thing happened today when a co-worker was helping me come up with things that were wrong answers to an interaction I was working on and she kept mentioning that I should ask so-and-so if that was what such and such policy said. Every time I said, yep, that’s still correct. Because so-and-so hasn’t done dick with policy in years. I’ve been the one keeping up with it. Nice that people still don’t trust me to know the policy surrounding the work they love. I’m still a square peg in a round hole.

Whatever. I made a batch of cookies when I got home and that put things right.

Remember Soul Coughing? Loved them. Dig his newer stuff too:

This one mentions petting parties (awesome):

And, I’ve been listening to Robert Bradley lately in the car:

Because Robert Bradley mentions San Antonio in the above song, I looked for Sara Hickman. This is one of those songs that makes for a great cover:

Can Glen Hansard just come home and live with me?

And, because I can’t leave us with quiet at 5:30 on Friday: