What a difference a semester makes

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Frog

As I was walking out of the School of Ed tonight, a fellow student said something about how this semester is so much better than last. I laughed and said it was like this, raising my hand over my head.

The class he and I share is about evaluation. It’s going to be challenging and that’s a very good thing. We’re also working on projects by ourselves which, apparently for him too, is a very, very good thing. The class also only has 11 or 12 people in it, we have someone who is auditing so I don’t know if he should be in the headcount. Already we’re off to good conversation and a relaxed atmosphere.

I’m still the rare bird, which we already knew and a delicate flower too, because I’m the only EdS in the room. I’ve heard of one other but he’s nearly done and I think he’s a distance student. That’s OK. I don’t have to be like everyone else. I already have my master’s (making up half the students in class) and I just don’t want to do the research to be a PhD (the other half).

I stood outside for about 10 minutes waiting for the bus tonight. It was cold so I put on my unattractive hat and paced. As I was pacing, I thought it was good that I was outside with a hat, coat and gloves because there were some fool students in shorts and t-shirts. WTF. Actually, what I meant to say was something about how lucky I am to have a coat, gloves and a hat, but the WTF of shorts and t-shirts in 20 degree weather just blew me away.

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Adventures in Cooking

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Frog

On my way home Friday, I stopped by Whole Foods to pick up a few things for our cooking adventure this weekend. I remembered how much lamb to buy, but the bulgur? I bought 1 1/2 lbs from the bulk bins. Good thing we like it, since we only needed about a half cup.

Here’s the bulgur after a stint in the microwave:

While waiting for the bulgur (bulgar? bulger? burghul?) to cool, I quartered some carrots and tossed them with olive oil, salt and pepper:

Those cooked for about 20 minutes and could have gone a little longer, but they were still just fine and dandy. After roasting, they were tossed with my version of za’atar. That blend of spices calls for sumac, but we were plumb out as in I have no idea where to get some, but will be on the look out. Really, I think those carrots could easily just be salted and peppered again after roasting and they’d still be lovely.

OK, so here are all the main ingredients:

And, you’ll notice in the above picture that the mint and onion aren’t shown. I think those were being pulsed in the blender when I took this picture. You’ll also probably notice, if you’ve figured out what this dish is, that there’s something critical missing. The recipe we found on the intertubes left out pine nuts. Seriously? So we tossed a half cup on for toasting and then they were thrown in the blender with the onion and mint. A nice gooey paste came out of the blender and went into the bulgur.

As the better-half was mixing the ingredients with his hands, he said, “grab some more pine nuts”. I guess another 1/4 cup went into the dish. Those remained whole and untoasted.

The raw:

And, the cooked*:

Yep, that’s kibbeh folks. We love kibbeh and talk about it probably more than we should. Now, we know a basic recipe–which I will be rewriting because who leaves out the pine nuts?

*I crack myself up.
Updated 2/13/11: we had dinner the other night at The Phoenician which is a Lebanese place over on Broad. We ordered kibbeh as an appetizer. Theirs must be a mix of beef and lamb because while ours were delicious, they were a bit strong (think multiple Tums). In the future we’ll be mixing the meats because the restaurant’s were smoother in flavor and there was no backtalking.

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Technology

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Frog

Did I mention that over the winter break the better-half and I switched over to Droids from Blackberry? Yeah, not really missing the Blackberry.

Have you tried any QR codes ? The new phone recognizes them. We saw an ad in Harper’s not long ago and listened to the author of Endgame: Bobby Fischer’s Remarkable Rise and Fall – from America’s Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness speak about his friendship with Bobby Fischer and the book. Once we were done listening, I popped over and added it to my wishlist at Amazon. Technology is cool.

The only thing that I’ve missed, but there’s an easy work-around, is that once you set up how you wanted the alarm clock to work on the Blackberry it shut up at nighttime. So, this morning at 4:30 when 2 messages came through I was caught off-guard by the chirping. Problem solved by putting the Droid on silent. Just need to do that whenever I’m using the phone as my alarm clock.

When the alarm went off at 6:30 I was not prepared to get up. The apartment in the college town is chilly no matter if the heat is on or not. I think the insulation dates back to newspapers pressed into the voids like shotgun shacks of yore. Anyway, not ready to get up, I decided to watch a couple of music videos on the phone.

This is one of those videos:

Rollerblading through traffic, bright colors, big shirts, big hair. Now, that’s motivation to get up.

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Not quite ready for the happy dance, but close

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Frog

I just looked at the class list for those folks who are in my Thursday class and it looks like the woman who was such a trouble-maker last semester isn’t in this class. It also looks like we do NOT have a group project. For that I am especially grateful.

Right now, I’m supposed to be working, but I can’t get answers to emails…not a technical issue but one of people not responding. This is hampering my ability to do certain things. Of course, the push to answer emails is greatly diminished because of the wailing and hand-wringing we’re doing lately. I really think our organization is going to go down in flames because our “friends” at our client seem to be in the inevitability mode instead of “holy crap we don’t want to be responsible for this work” mode.

The wailing and hand-wringing is going to prove especially difficult as I have to perform an evaluation of a product/program for my Thursday class. I had initially thought I’d do it at work since I have to have an actual client. I’m afraid no matter what I come up with will be met with a lukewarm response. I’ll have to figure a way around that. I’m beginning to feel like I’m the workaround queen.

She’s not in that class. Hooray.

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Well I can’t see anyone else smiling in here

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Frog

This came up on the MP3 player and I thought it was about time I shared a video of it:

It’s pretty amazing that this song came out in 1995. It’s so 80s.

It occurred to me the other day that I need to let you know that we ate kangaroo over the holidays. It was delicious. We served it with oyster mushrooms and a wine sauce. It’s definitely something I’d eat again.

We’ve also started having a meatless dinner one night a week. This week it was tofu, baby bok choy and spinach. While eating that meal, the better-half started pushing the stems of the bok choy over to the side. I declared years ago that I didn’t like bok choy because it was too bitter, but I’ve changed my tune and think that baby bok choy is quite tasty. The better-half says, in fact, bok choy is too bitter. As is radicchio which we combined with chard and served with the kangaroo. We’ve decided that he’s more sensitive to the bitter flavor than I am. I think it’s because I’m a bitter old lady so the flavor comes naturally to me.

This weekend I’m making Swedish meatballs. I’ve never made them, but the better-half has and he’s stoked that I’m going to make them. At least he seems stoked. I’m using this recipe. Every recipe I’ve tried from that site has turned out wonderfully.

I’m leaving work early today because it’s a long weekend and I may as well make it longer. Of course, you could argue that my weekend has already started since I’m goofing off here, but this is just to give my mind something slightly more interesting to do than read policy.

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Small Potatoes

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Frog

I’ve logged in a few times recently and just cleaned out spam. It doesn’t seem right to bitch about the small things when folks are shooting people in shopping mall parking lots.

I grew up in the South when the Ag kids went hunting at dawn and drove their trucks to school with the guns in the back window gun rack. I know how to shoot. I went hunting as a youngster. And, as hokey as this sounds, it was more about walking around in the woods with my dad then it was about the need to kill something. If we did shoot something, we brought it home and ate it. I never need to eat squirrel again. It does not taste like chicken.

All of this to say, where did it all go so wrong? How did we get to a place where young men (and presumably women) tell themselves the best way to be is to shoot up the place? I want to be in another place. A place where those with mental illnesses get real help. A place where assholes from Alaska don’t pretend they don’t fan the flames of violence with their call to Reload. Really? Can she be that stupid? We were all right there when she said that and we’ve all seen her website with the crosshairs on it. Maybe her 15 minutes is up now.

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The Week That Was

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Frog

It seems like this week was the longest week. Something about having to drag myself out of bed before six every morning just seems wrong. It is wrong, actually.

The news at work is grim, but we’re coming up with ways to be positive as the ship sinks. The gallows humor should be in full swing by next week.

I also think nearly everyone is now looking for work. I know I won’t be competing for the same jobs as my compatriots as their interests and skills are pretty different from mine. That’s a bit of a good thing. I think when we took a 50% cut a few years ago that happened to more than a few people. It wasn’t ugly but it wasn’t pretty either.

On the very positive side of things, I did have Mexican for lunch twice this week. Fish tacos are on the menu tonight.

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Welcome 2011. Please be nice.

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Frog

You can bet your sweet bippy we’ll be eating black-eyed peas, tomatoes and greens tonight. I feel like we’ll need all the luck we can get this year.

We’re de-Christmasing the house right now…with a break for a work phone call for the better-half. He has another gig, in addition to his current long-term one, lined up so it looks like his luck is already pretty good.

We watched Dick Clark last night and it will be a sad day when he can’t do the ball drop in Times Square. Every year since his stroke, his delivery of the countdown has gotten better, but man he looked tired afterward. I was tired and I’m half his age.

Monday I have to go back to work after two weeks off. It’s not something I’m looking forward to, but I really shouldn’t complain as I have somewhere to go and the benefits are good.

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Favorites from 2010

Posted on December 28, 2010 by Frog

Music I liked this year:

If someone says the word Arkansas to me, I start singing this song in my head. You shouldn’t be surprised that this is on my list:

Makes me want to climb to the top of a hill:

The night I heard someone cranking this as he drove around the Drillfield was a good night and I started singing along–yes, the crazy old lady on campus is me:

I know some of these weren’t released in 2010, but that’s when I learned of them. When I looked back through the music files, there were many songs I liked and listened to, but these rose to the top.

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Splendid Things, Indeed

Posted on December 28, 2010 by Frog

The nieces just went home after spending the night with us. Nut2 went home with a cut on her face after trying to kick over a pine tree stump. She ended up surfing down the front of it instead. Ouch. I picked some bark out of her nose. She’s a trooper and wanted to see how much blood was on the paper towel during the clean up (not much, but she was impressed). I dabbed on some neosporin and we were back out into the snow.

She and I also did some coloring, TV watching and Polly Pocket playing by ourselves while Nut1 and the better-half played Monopoly.

The better-half and I were reminded of how bedtimes used to be when Nut1 was 4. It took forever and it takes about that long again with another 4 year old in the house. We know that will change and it’s a good thing too, because the aunt in the house needs to be able to go to bed at her old lady time. Last night I really thought the nieces and I would end up sleeping together because I wasn’t sure I could outlast Nut2. I also thought she’d end up with her feet on the pillow and her butt up in the air, but instead she cozied up to her snoring sister and fell asleep. They were very cute when I was finally able to stumble out of their room and into my own.

Also? Wizards of Waverly Place is not bad. It feels like we watched a dozen episodes. So much better than Hannah.

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