Adventures in Gastronomy

Unfortunately, I mean “mission accomplished” in the George Bush sense in that I’ve technically completed the quantity of pages required for the paper that is due Thursday, but the quality of the paper still needs additional work.

In my defense, I did draft the paper with multiple distractions. My parents ended up paying a surprise visit over the weekend as a result of my sister-in-law’s mother’s funeral. They arrived Friday afternoon and left Saturday afternoon. In between I did do some work, but a good chunk of the time was spent entertaining them (cards, meals, conversation) and helping them with Mom’s new laptop.

I am feeling more comfortable about the whole thing now, though, since I at least have all of the relevent information written, so even if I’m unable to focus enough to make the paper appear more seamless, at least the basic facts are there.

I’m such a slacker.

February 23rd, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: Comments Off on Mission Accomplished

My sister-in-law suffers from Mitochondrial Disease. She had various symptoms throughout her life but they were all misdiagnosed. However, she had three children and the last of the three children was sick from birth. It took about 2 years for the doctors to finally diagnose my niece. Since Mitochondrial Disease is hereditary, my sister-in-law was finally accurately diagnosed.

Also around that same time, my sister-in-law’s mother suffered a stroke while in her early 50’s and was diagnosed with the same disease. Over the course of the next year, my niece died from the disease a week before her third birthday. My sister-in-law rapidly got worse. Today she has a completely non-functioning gastro-intestinal system (she’s fed through a series of tubes that go directly into her belly), she is weak to the point of using a wheelchair, and she is legally deaf (a result of the antibiotics being pumped into her a few years go when she was placed in a  forced coma for a month to survive). It’s a rather depressing story, but this past weekend it got worse.

Her mother went to bed on Saturday night and woke up around 2AM to discover that she bad been bleeding for who knows how long. She was able to dial 911 but it was too late. By the time the ambulance arrived she was dead, surrounded by unbelievable amounts of blood on the bed and on the floor where she was found. From what I’ve been told, it seems that something went wrong with her feeding tubes and she started bleeding to death in her sleep.

My brother said the bloodshed was so massive that the bed had to be tossed and the carpet had to be ripped up.

What a tragic way to go. The worst part is that she woke up; she couldn’t have just slept through it. I can’t imagine waking up in that state.

She was only 59 years old.

February 19th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 1 Comment

The previous owners of our house opted for off-white carpet in all rooms except the kitchen, dining room, living room, foyer, and bathrooms. Otherwise, the bedrooms, stairwells, and hallways are carpeted in off-white.

We live in New England. A locale filled with rain, snow, slush, and mud. Worse, the snow gets mixed with salt and sand. We still take off our shoes before leaving the foyer, but between sock lint and every other material imaginable, the white carpets don’t remain white. After a recent party, somebody stepped on either a blueberry or a blackberry and managed to track a 1/2 inch berry-colored stain down one set of stairs. Then there are the drops of laundry detergent in the 3rd floor hall outside the laundry room. OOOH, or the time we replaced the vacuum bag and some oily goop got onto the gears and made some tracks the next time we vacuumed. And don’t forget the spilled paint when we painted the place.

You can probably guess where this is leading: we want new carpet. In fact, we’re thinking of getting some shag carpet. It’s technically called “frieze” nowadays. The fibers (yarns?) are not as long as old-school shag and they don’t come in the bile green or banana yellow colors nowadays, either.

It’s much more plush than that horrible rental-apartment looking “cut pile” that is ubiquitious in so many places. Plus, it’s loose fibers help conceal the sock lint before the next vacuuming (and, to be honest, that’s my biggest concern). Besides, it’s so darn plush!

It reminds me of that 1990’s carpet ad that showed the head and tail of a cat sticking out of some wall-to-wall carpet since it was so luxurious that the cat sank right in. The tagline was “Too Plush for Fluffy.” I always thought that would be a good name for my band (or at least the title of my first album).

February 18th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 1 Comment

A month or so I was suggested we go someplace for President’s Day weekend. Last year we were in San Francisco. The year before that we were in Las Vegas. The year before that, Puerto Vallarta. We toyed with the Caribbean, Florida, or San Francisco again for this year before deciding to take a trip in March instead.

But then we started deciding what to do with the three day holiday if we’re going to be local. We nearly went to Foxwoods (or Mohegan Sun) but decided against it. Ultimately, we went to Cape Cod to visit my parents and help them finish painting.

This year, President’s Day weekend coincided with Valentine’s Day weekend. Now, Randy and I have a complicated history with this holiday. Last year we had a houseguest, which eliminated much opportunity for romance. The year before that we went out to dinner, just the two of us…plus Randy’s ex-boyfriend who came along.

This year, we were wearing crappy clothes, covered in pain, and listening to my dad talk as he followed us around asking questions and “observing.”

When the holiday was over I said that we really need to do/plan something special for the next Valentine’s Day. I’ve probably said this every year and look what happens? Nothing.

On the plus side, no matter how what activities I do or don’t do on Valentine’s Day, at least I get to do them with Randy.

February 16th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 2 Comments

Seriously, the reliability of me getting  jury duty exactly 3 years from my previous summons is really, really, REALLY, pissing me off.

Within a month of turning 18 years old I got my first juty duty summons. Since then, I’ve been called at a minimum of every three years. In fact, back when I lived in Boston (and moved fairly frequently) I got notified every year or two. Luckily, I was able to disqualify myself for having done jury duty within the previous three years. But that sure as hell didn’t stop the state from trying to get me to serve…again and again and again.

Meanwhile, I’ve got friends who have never been called. My mother got her first summons when she was 70 years old. SEVENTY! Yet the state harrasses me every three years like clockwork. This time, it was exactly three years. Well, technically, they contacted me before my three years were up, but the date they assigned me was 3 years and 2 months TO THE DAY after my previous jury duty.

So, I’m finding it incredibly difficult to be impartial when it’s obvious that their methods for calling people to jury duty is far from impartial. Otherwise, everybody would get called and not just the same people over and over.

I suppose I’ve been somewhat fortunate in that I’ve only been picked for a trial once despite being called so many times. Of course, that trial made me even less trusting of the judicial system upon observing witnesses lying on the stand or having the lawyers say something they know is not accepted just so they can have it verbalized before the judge asks the stenographer to strike it from the record. At that point, it’s already been said and is in the juror’s minds. Very sneaky.

Long story short, the murderer was obviously guilty of murder in the first degree, but it was reduced to manslaughter because of the lies by the victim’s family. Which sucks because if they’d have been honest and stopped trying to protect the image of their dead family member, the punishment could have fit the crime.

Anyway, I’m the last person the “system” would want as a juror as I’m fairly bitter about the whole thing. So, I’m warning all of my neighbors to behave over the next few months because I very well may be a juror on their trial.

February 11th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 5 Comments

A few weekends ago I was cleaning the master bathroom a bit too vigorously and I managed to dislodge the faucet to one of the sinks (there are two). As it dangled, I noticed that the pieces that held the faucet together were rusted through. In that case, I can’t really be blamed for breaking something that was faulty to begin with and bound to need replacement anyway.

Unfortunately, with two side-by-side sinks in that bathroom, repairing meant replacing both sets of faucents (the existing model is no longer available and it would be tacky to have unmatching sinks).

So, off to Lowe’s we went (our home away from home, it feels) and purchased two new faucets. I’ll admit, Randy did about 95% of the work replacing the first faucet. I took everything out of the box and prepped them, I handed him tools when necessary, I held things in place on the counter while he secured them from underneath. But I did help, just not so much with the actual labor.

Because the old hardware was so rusted and nasty, replacement took around two and a half hours. Exhausted, we gave up and decided to work on the second faucet on Sunday.

And that’s where I more than helped. Well, not really. I still just helped, I just did more of it. Randy had me underneath the counter this time, removing the old hardware. What an unnatural position this puts you in. You don’t normally work on things while on your back, reaching upward, in a narrow space with no lights.

But we finished both faucets and the bathroom looks great.

Now we’re both feeling it in our backs and necks. I should also mention that we acquired an eliptical machine from one of Randy’s co-workers and we picked it up on Sunday. The thing weighs a few hundred pounds and doesn’t come apart (it’s nearly my height).  With our friend, Jeff’s, help we brought it into the house. Of course, this wasn’t something we could use in the foyer so it had to go in the office…which is on the fourth floor. UGH.

Needless to say, there was no need to start working out on the machine on Sunday since carrying it up all those stairs was exercise enough.

However, I did try it out last night. OUCH! Even with the resistence at the lowest level, this machine was much harder to use than the ones at the gym (where I set it at “difficult’). So now I’ve brought the pain in my arms and neck down to my legs, too.

‘Cuz nothing makes your body feel better than making it feel bad.

February 9th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 1 Comment

I had the most peculiar dream last night. Actually, the most peculiar dream I’ve ever had was a rather erotic one involving, of all people, Sigourney Weaver. That was back in the 1990’s.  Matt, my partner at the time, said mocked me for picking the most masculine female imaginable for an erotic dream (whereas most people at that time would have picked Cindy Crawford or something).

But last night’s dream was pleasantly peculiar in a more wholesome way. Randy received a work assignment in some eastern-European city. I want so say Prague, but that could be because we’ve been there before. The language and words seemed like Prague, but the subway system was that of Buenos Aires, and the architecture and sunshine more resembled southern California. Culturally, it also felt more like the melting pot of the United States versus the anglo-feel of most European cities.

Anyway, we apparently purchased an enormous home at an interesection with a subway stop right there. And when I say enormous, I mean enormous. The rooms were incredibly spacious with high ceilings, multiple levels and slanting roofs (I guess part of that southern California 60’s-70’s modern architecture).

However, we noticed that our neighbors were putting their home out for rent so we decided to pop on over and look the place over. Upon entering, we realized that this place was even larger and more spectacular than where we were living. So even though we just went over to be nosy, Randy fell in love with the place and decided we should rent out our place and move into the new place instead. Unfortunately, it was going to cost us more money.

After leaving the place, I told Randy that I liked the place, too, but we couldn’t afford to live there since I wasn’t working in that country (I didn’t have a visa). He offered that I should go back to school (and he’d pay for it). Conveniently, there was an English university at the next subway stop, called (and why I remember this name is beyond me since I can’t remember the name of the city) the Baryvalencia English School of Business. Now, Baryvalencia doesn’t sound the least bit eastern-European to me now, but it did in my dream, I swear.

So, I enrolled, got accepted, and became a student. The rest of the dream was a blur as I’m assuming it was when I was waking up. But I recall the neighbor’s wife (our landlord) poisoning some wine that she intended for us to drink.

Strange. I wonder what exciting place I’ll go tonight in my dreams?

February 5th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 1 Comment

I’d been doing pretty good with going to the gym regularly for the past few weeks. But between the party we hosted this past weekend, and having friends stay with us for a few days, I got sidetracked.

Now, I’m generally not upset about this. I never understood those people who say that the more you go the gym the more you’ll want to go. These are the same people who say they like going to the gym. I’m saying it here and now: I will never (NEVER) enjoy going to the gym. I don’t understand how discomfort can ever equal pleasure.

Anyway, after a week of my most strenuous activity being lifting my arm to put a cookie in my mouth, I went to the gym last night. Feeling gutsy, I bumped up my crunches from 3 reps of 15 to 3 reps of 20. It doesn’t sound like much of a difference but, damn, those extra 15 crunches made their impact.

And instead of this making me want to go more frequently, it’s making me want to avoid the gym.  But then as I was dressing this morning I noticed some old marks on my belt indicating where I used to be able to clasp the belt into place (two holes “thinner’).

Sigh – why can’t I just get mono?

February 4th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 4 Comments

Cute is a tiny elderly lady wearing a babushka on the bus this morning with a huge heart-shaped Valentine’s day pin on her jacket that says “Hot Stuff!”

She made me smile.

I had a pretty darn good weekend. The friends who were staying with us for the weekend arrived later than expected on Saturday night and we ended up  chatting/drinking wine until 3:00AM. I don’t think I’ve done that in years.

The next day we slept later than expected then hosted the 7th Annual Re-Gift party. Despite the overall calibre of the gifts being better than in years past, I still ended up with Christmas-themed novelty boxer shorts with the image of a package on them labeled “Handle with Care.” Oh, and a riding crop. Yes, a riding crop. But this was not your ordinary riding crop. This one had a heart shaped indention on the paddle portion so that you can leave a romantic heart shaped imprint on the person you love (or love to hurt).

Lucky me.

Anyway, by Sunday we were both exhausted and did absolutely nothing. But then, isn’t that was Sunday’s are for?

February 1st, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: Comments Off on What is Cute?

After much delibration, I’ve decided to attend that class. Stupidly, I enrolled at a graduate level which means more written work. But starting immediately I will be studying “Designing the American City: Civic Aspirations & Urban Form”  two days per week. I also ordered the books yesterday using a gift certificate my boss gave me for Christmas (thanks boss!).

But even with all of the stress I put on my self deciding whether to take this course or not, enrolling was actually the easy part. Now comes the hard part: completing the course and recieving a good respectable grade.

I won’t worry about that this weekend, though, because we have friends coming in from New York City (OK, Jersey City…same thing). Randy is hosting his 7th annual Re-Gift Party (essentially a Yankee Gift Swap where you bring a horribly tacky or useless gift you didn’t want and force it upon other victims). In years past I’ve seen a messenger bag with a built in AM/FM radio, a package of Fruit of the Loom tighty-whities, a Fog Hat poster, and my all time favorite: a gigantic head of Lucy, from Peanuts (see pic above).

Ah, good times.

January 29th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 1 Comment