Lo, they built a table

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Frog

Yesterday afternoon my sister brought Niece 2 over for her first sleepover with us without her sister. I’d have to say we all had a really good time and it was especially nice to see Niece 2′s true personality. Which makes it seem like she’s hiding it when she’s usually with us and I don’t mean that. But, she’s the little sister and sometimes it’s just all about the competition with her sister.

Niece 2 is an unabashed fan of bacon so the first thing we did was make a batch of bacon and maple ice cream. She cooked the bacon until there was a grease pop and her finger got the brunt of the burn. Then, she was in charge of stirring the custard ingredients. We had bacon and maple ice cream with a side of bacon this morning for breakfast. The three of us agreed that I’d alter the recipe to up the amount of bacon and make sure we kept the maple syrup under control. The recipe called for 2 1/2 cups, but I only had 2 cups of syrup and we all agreed any more would have taken the ice cream in another direction. Yes, we had that conversation. For reals.

We had an early dinner at a local hot dog restaurant and then played a round of miniature golf. The Niece didn’t win, but she was the only one who managed a hole-in-one. Pretty excellent. To top off the evening, we went for a nighttime swim and used the “disco” light at the end of the pool. It was the first time this season the better-half and I had been in the pool at night and I remembered how fun it is to be out there when the first stars appear and the bats are hovering over head.

At one point after Niece 2 and I got in bed (first time spending the night alone–need the aunt to be there) there was an outbreak of the giggles. The better-half asked me about it later and I think it was just the giggles of someone who didn’t want to go to sleep, but they were contagious nevertheless. Little kid giggles are the best.

This morning the better-half and the niece went into the garage and built a table out of scraps. The niece cut the legs and helped to affix them to the top.

Turned out pretty well:

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Sometimes you get what you need

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Frog

I’ve been doing some volunteer work for an organization that offers elearning to people who work for NGOs. I was asked to work on the last module of a project management course. I’m happy to say it is ready to be translated into a variety of languages. It’s been an interesting process because I had all of the content and a template to use. I just had to figure out a way to tell the story so the content was engaging.

Usually when I work on elearning, I’m responsible for coming up with most of the content so it was a breeze in some respects to get the module done well ahead of the deadline. What wasn’t a breeze was getting the story together especially since I wasn’t present for the development of the previous six modules. I could only review those finished pieces and make some assumptions. Does it sound funny that I had to get the story together?

I suppose, without sounding too grandiose, that it is like a sculptor saying, “the form is there, but I just needed to remove all that marble so we could see it”. It is very much like that. Otherwise the course is just too many words on a screen and a back/forward set of buttons. Would you want to be that learner? Not me. If presented with that course, I’d take my chances with passing the final assessment/test by skipping ahead and seeing if I could score a satisfactory percentage.

Back in late June when I was first assigned the training module, the better-half and I were taking a late afternoon dip in the pool. I told him I was working while we were floating around in the water. He laughed, but said he knew I was. I was thinking about how to get all that marble out of my way so the learning could come into being. When I tell people that I get a lot of my work done when I’m not sitting down and banging away on the thing, it’s true. I’d rather let it perk and then let the solution come out all at once.

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I lied

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Frog

I lied to my sister and brother-in-law last night. It’s only been six times.

The four of us went to see the Indigo Girls last night at Maymont. Who knew they sometimes have shows there? It was a nice experience and probably the closest thing we have to Wolf Trap. The only complaint was that outside food/drink were prohibited. That’s a shame, but the food and beverage prices seemed pretty affordable. The best thing was that in order to drink a beer we did not have to be corralled in a “beer garden”. Really? I’m in my 40s and I’m not going to get freakin’ nuts because I drank two beers on a 100 degree evening. I don’t need to be put in a fenced-in area. So, thank you concert people for trusting us. It’s a refreshing change.

The opening band was The Shadowboxers and they also performed duties as the backing band. I really liked them and will check out more of their music.

Here’s a photo I took last night (with my craptastic cell phone) as the Indigo Girls sang Closer to Fine. I love that song and have to admit it’s one of those songs that tends to float around my head on a pretty regular basis. I first saw them with my other sister when they were touring in support of the album that included Closer to Fine. That album came out in 1989. Talk about musical staying power or maybe it’s the failing of my brain to latch onto another song.

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Occasionally, you impress yourself

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Frog

The better-half and I made ribs for dinner last night and they were amazing. So amazing, we took pictures:

We also had tomatoes and cucumber from the garden. The weeds have pretty well choked the cucumbers so these easy-peasy pickles may be the last we see:

There was a ton of meat on those bones so we will be having porky BBQ goodness again tonight. I’m thinking we’ll make sandwiches this time around. I have some leftover Napa cabbage that could be mixed into a slaw. I need to investigate that over the next few hours.

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The Show

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Frog

We made plans with the better-half’s aunt months ago to go see the B52s and Squeeze last night. About three weeks ago his aunt broke her foot. She asked us to find someone to use the ticket and that she’d really like for us to stay with her even though she wouldn’t be able to go to the show. We decided to ask Niece 1 if she’d like to go. She did. The better-half’s aunt was thrilled to finally meet Niece 1.

We knew the show would be popular because come on…it’s the B52s and Squeeze on a Thursday night. We were not prepared for how many people showed up:

If you’ve ever been to Wolf Trap, then you know there’s the lawn, the upper lawn where lawn chairs are allowed, the asphalt paths to the bathrooms and to the gate and then a wee bit more grass. We were in the wee bit more grass area. We could not see the stage unless we stood on tiptoe. It could have been worse, though. When we went to see Prairie Home Companion several years ago we couldn’t even see the stage area–that whole massive thing in the picture above? Couldn’t even see it. We were on the backside of the wee patch of lawn. In the woods. We’ll never go back to see one of those shows again because no amount of folksy humor is worth the view of bupkis.

We took turns walking around with the Niece while Squeeze played. I was singing along by the time the Niece and the better-half got back from their walk-about. It was about that time that more and more devices around us started to light up. Everyone was checking their various weather apps because behind us the lightning started. It was far off and we thought the storm might go the other way. It’s happened before. Then the wind came up.

The breeze felt so good because it was about 9000 degrees at 9pm last night in Northern Virginia. The storm got worse and those of us in the wee bit of grass started packing up. The better-half took back the rental chairs–which are absolutely worth the price and you can sit anywhere in the lawn with them–and retrieved his driver’s license from the rental folks. The Niece and I gathered up our picnic blanket and other bits and pieces. We bolted to the car, laughing in the rain. The storm unleashed just as we got into the car. Lucky us. We listened to the B52s in the car, pretending it was the show.

This morning we pried the Niece out of bed just before eight and the four of us went to Anita’s for breakfast. The three adults indulged in New Mexico style breakfasts and the Niece chowed down on French toast. After breakfast, we took care of some chores for the aunt while she was on a conference call and then we left. Traffic was crap on the way home until we stopped in Fredericksburg for milk shakes. The better-half and the Niece got two shakes apiece–it was lunch, after all. I ended up drinking most of the Niece’s second serving. We were going to take the scenic route home but 95South opened up and we cruised home.

I’m not sure what the Niece did after we dropped her off, but I took a half-hour nap. The better-half is still napping. Too much fun is what it was. Too much fun.

Posted in Listening | 1 Comment

Tossed it back in

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Frog

I’ve been reading a lot this summer. I don’t know if it’s because I’m increasingly becoming a curmudgeon (being more comfortable with that title, perhaps) or if I’m just lucky in selecting books that have pissed me off.

I started reading Lydia Davis and I was amused by some of her very short stories at first. Then it became an endurance test. While showering this morning, I decided her writing, at least in Varieties of Disturbance, is like performance art. You are pulled in for the first few minutes and by the time the piece has run its course you are just annoyed. You don’t care if the artist has a vision and you beat a hasty retreat to another section of the museum or gallery.

I really felt like some of her pieces are how it must be for creative writing professors to read class assignments. Smartypants students writing on a theme and using their brilliance to shine a light on one trope (key words: smartypants, brilliance, trope, boring). The title story is a circular piece about the variety of disturbance each member of a family felt when an adult son offered to help elderly parents. By the time I got to the third paragraph about who was more disturbed, I decided NO ONE could be more disturbed than I was and I tossed the book on the table. Today I tossed the book onto the book return cart at the library. The next book had better not vex me.

The book I read before the annoyance was riveting and disturbing on an entirely different level. In the Garden of Beasts is the story of Ambassador Dodd and his family in Berlin during Hitler’s rise to power. I read the book using the Kindle app and I had a short loan period from the library. When I first loaded the e-book, I was worried the loan period wasn’t long enough, but I don’t think there was a way for me to read the book any faster. Larson has a way of hooking you immediately and not letting up until the story runs out. I can’t say that I was a fan of any of the characters (characters is the wrong word since this book is non-fiction) and I actually found myself sympathizing with one Nazi. Good grief. I never thought those words would ever come out of my mouth–read the book and tell me how you feel about Rudolf Diels. A moderate man amongst the beasts.

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Food Weekend

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Frog

Yesterday morning I felt like crap. Some funky stomach thing going on. I started to feel better in the early afternoon and so ate 2 chili dogs. What? Isn’t that what you do after feeling like crap? As it turns out, that’s not the smartest choice when easing your way back to gastrointestinal happiness. By dinner, I felt like crap again. Go figure.

We made chicken meatballs for dinner. They were darn tasty even though I had the thought of “why am I eating” all through dinner. The recipe calls for ground chicken and instead of using fresh chicken, we thawed packets of leftover roasted chicken and smoked chicken (the smokiness smelled good but did not contribute any flavor to the end product). We used the stand mixer’s grinder attachment to grind the chicken. The meatballs were a bit dry, but very tasty. We definitely want to make these again and will use fresh chicken next time. Probably a mix of thigh and breast meat. I’m not sure how you feel about dark meat, but it would be superior in this recipe. You want a little fat and you want the meaty goodness thigh meat brings.

This is the better-half’s dish about halfway through:

Without any sort of segue, here’s what we had for dinner Saturday night:

Have you had these before? They are usually served as appetizers, but we ate them as the main dish. They are oysters wrapped in bacon and are usually called Angels on Horseback. Sometimes the oysters are smoked, but we used the other half of a pint jar of oysters. Friday night we had fried oysters and decided to show some restraint and not fry all the oysters.

The Angels are very easy to prepare. We took some applewood smoked bacon and partially cooked it. Then we cut the bacon slices into thirds (but should have made it halves) and wrapped it around the oysters. We broiled these until they were ready, less than 10 minutes in the oven. I really don’t remember, but it wasn’t long at all.

I tried every hot sauce in the house with the oysters and, strangely, the better-half did not put hot sauce on anything (I know, what’s up with that?). My verdict is the Angels are best plain, but the green hot sauce from Guatemala was the best of the bunch.

Posted in Eating | 1 Comment

Just for the record

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Frog

Not much to tell here. We got power back around 7pm last night so that was about one hour short of exactly 4 days without power. My sister and her family are still waiting.

The squash plant in the compost pile is an Acorn squash. We have definite dark green fruit now. The garden was well thrashed by the storms. Tons of green tomatoes are scattered about. I did harvest a fresno pepper the other night and we were very pleased with how bracing it was. It was perfectly hot and just what our Thai beef salad needed.

Posted in Generic Thoughts | 2 Comments

Happy Fun Time in Virginia

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Frog

If it’s Monday, it means we have no electricity. Last Monday we lost power for something like 30 hours. We’ve shot past that now with the storms over the weekend. We made it through Friday’s storm with only a flicker but Saturday’s storm included a tornado not far from here and based on what the wind looked like, I think we were the lucky recipients of a storm that was just a wee bit too lazy to form into a funnel. Some trees are snapped off or over, but luckily nothing really in our immediate yard.

I told the better-half that I would publicly state that sometimes it is good to have your MIL’s sh*t in the shed. Because we have an old window unit that belonged to his mother and we’re using in the downstairs so we don’t run like raving lunatics into the street because we’ve become completely addled by the heat.

The little window unit that could:

The stairwell sure looks funny, but it was the best idea we had to keep the majority of the heat upstairs and let the cats get to the litterbox. The high temp upstairs yesterday was 86.

Our lighting supplies and Lucy added her favorite item to the pile:

Still life of gas containers and the cord that runs out to the generator:

We are not cruel masters of the generator and offer it some shade as it labors all day, every day for days and days and days (OK, a bit of insanity is setting in):

Speaking of insanity, I don’t know how many more days I can check the Dominion Power work location list and not see any part of our area on the list. Dude! There’s a snapped off pole near our house and there are tons of people back here that just give each other the “look” at the gas pump and then get back into their vehicles and schlep their expensive gas back to feed their generators so they don’t lose their refrigerators/freezers. Give us a little hope already and act like you give a sh*t about HanCo.

Posted in General Spleen Venting | 2 Comments

Moved

Posted on June 30, 2012 by Frog

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The above photo is the current state of our garage. We packed up the college apartment and brought it home yesterday afternoon. It’s interesting that the photo makes it seem almost orderly. There was a plan as we unloaded, but there’s barely room to walk. As soon as the temps calm down, I’ll start sorting things out.

My car’s thermometer registered 105 degrees a couple of times yesterday. I think the official high was 102. How is it we got so lucky?

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