Coolest airport ever!

I'm at Reagan national airport in DC (which I just discovered, I knew I was in DC but wasn't sure which airport) and this terminal has a 5 guys! Which is a super delicious burger place, for those of you who are not familiar. Alas, I just ate a chicken salad sub in my last airport and am not hungry. Alfred bought it for me for dinner. He got it just the way I like it, banana peppers and pickles and everything. He doesn't do that when we share. I was considering puking it up so I could get a burger, but that would kind of be a waste of money. Plus I think we start boarding soon.

I'm on my way to Boston for a girls weekend! Steph lives there now, Katie (and Ingo) were flying in for a conference, and Katherine, Rosemary and I decided to join them! I found a super cheap ticket, so this is my birthday gift from Alfred. What a guy. I'm there till Monday, so I even get a day off of work, which is awesome. Not so awesome for the other girl, who was alone for 2 hours after I left today and has to go in both tomorrow and Sunday for groups. Figures. but I'm pretty pumped! Everyone else is already there, but I'll be joining them soon enough. It's actually the first time all 5 of us will be together for something other than a wedding since Katie and I graduated in 2003! It's gonna be awesome!

another tale from the road

The place: Vancouver. Just to refresh your memory, we had blown a tire on our drive there from Seattle. So our morning was going pretty well. We spent a couple of hours wandering Granville Market and eating a bunch of food (like that's a surprise), then unfortunately had to leave when our parking meter ran out. We were walking back to the parking garage and neither of us could find the car keys. This had become kind of a running joke by then, or if not a joke then just a thing, that neither of us ever thought we had the car keys but that the other person had them. So I said I didn't have them, Alfred checked his pockets but didn't have them, so I started checking my purse. Couldn't find them. Checked my pockets. Not there. Alfred checked again. Totally not in his pockets. By this time we were back at the car, so I started searching through my purse again. The purse I had on the trip was pretty tiny, so it's not like there was a lot to look through, but still. Not there. Somehow, maybe in setting my purse on top of the car to look through it again, I noticed the keys: right on the roof of the car, where I had apparently left them when we parked. It's a good thing Canadians are honest (or just unobservant). Also, just as a side note, Vancouver taught me that I don't hate Canada. Just Ontario.

pie recipe

I hope you've all been over to Mike's blog and voted on this week's poll. Usually his polls are opinions, but this week there is very clearly a correct answer.

Nothing much has been happening the last couple of days. I'm mostly feeling better, although I had a coughing rampage that lasted for a good hour this morning. I've been watching more TV. We have over 72 hours free on our DVR right now. This is the most we've had since we got the thing. Usually we hover around 20, breaking 30 was a big deal a couple of weeks ago. The new TV should be delivered tomorrow, and our new HD satellite service is set up on Thursday. Alfred's a man with a mission, he's not messing around. Right now he's heating up milk to make yogurt. He's asking me what I'm writing about. Not much, obviously. Today's picture is from when we went to Ichetucknee with Mercedes and Ilya back in September. I was making bread dough sticks like we used to make when I went camping with my family. I was drunk from my multi-colored Russians. You can see some of the bread dough on my toes. Also, there are about 20 pictures of me with that flashlight wedged under my chin like that.

So, the aforementioned pie recipe. A couple of people commented on my last post asking for it, so here it is. It's the one my mom uses and that my grandma and great grandma used to use. History, people! Anyway, use 3/4 cup Crisco, 2 cups flour, and 2 tablespoons sugar. Mix it all together, adding a tablespoon or so of ice water as you need it. Then just roll it out and bake it at 375. I used to go wrong with the water, I never added enough, then I watched my mom make it and saw that she adds at least a couple tablespoons. It's simple but oh so delicious. I can eat it plain by the pound. This recipe makes 2 crusts, although I usually need to add a little more of each thing to make sure I have enough. Mmm, pie...

black friday and beyond

Alfred made a pretty good purchase this year for Black Friday: a new TV! It's a 46 inch Samsung flat screen, and he got a really good price. He actually bought it on Wednesday night, but that's just a minor detail. It apparently already shipped, so we should get it this week! Very exciting! In order to rationalize spending the money on a TV, Alfred returned his fancy camera last week. He hadn't really used it since our trip, and we'll probably use a TV a little more, so I guess it all works out.

I had to work on Friday, unfortunately. It kind of sucked not having the day off, but at least we had quite a few customers so I was busy outside doing tours almost all day. It made the day go by quickly, that's for sure. After work Alfred and I met up with Kevin and Gara for the evening. We started out at Claude's, which is always awesome, and then went to a wine bar for some dinner and drinks. This place was a total cougar den, we were the youngest people in there by far. Alfred liked that, seeing as how he's getting all old and stuff. (kidding, honey!)

This weekend has been the epitome of laziness for me. I've had a bit of a cold, and Alfred informed me that I need to watch and delete everything on the DVR that I care about before he gets a new HD one this week, so it was like a perfect storm. I have literally been sitting on the couch watching TV (and occasionally knitting) all weekend. There's probably going to be an imprint of my ass on this cushion for quite some time. I did manage to step outside today for approximately 1 minute, so that was good. I've been following my usual regimen of Cold Eeze and orange juice for 2 days straight, so hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. I actually really like to have these totally lazy weekends sometimes, and it was probably good since I'm sick, but Alfred has definitely reached his limit.

My thanksgiving grades

I contributed a few dishes to our thanksgiving meal with Alfred's family, and have had a couple of days now to reflect on my performance. Let's see how I did!

Baked brie: this is pretty hard to mess up. It could have used a bit more jam, but other than that, it was good. Grade: A-

Cranberry sauce: I almost forgot to add the sugar, which would have been disastrous, but managed to pull it together in time. Unfortunately, no one under the age of 28 liked it, although the grown ups all did. Grade: A-

Dressing: Alfred volunteered me to make this the night before, so I called my mom for the recipe she uses and got from her mother. It was pretty good for a first effort, but now that I've made it once I'm sure I can improve on it in the future. Needed more seasoning. Grade: B

Ice cream: another last minute addition. We somehow had a lot of extra egg yolks to use up, so we decided on vanilla ice cream. It was really delicious, nice and creamy, but it's pretty hard to screw up ice cream. Grade: A

Pumpkin pie: I was going to use a recipe from the food network with fresh pumpkin and pecan streusel. Unfortunately we couldn't find fresh pumpkin, and Max isn't crazy about nuts in desserts, so in the end I just went with a standard pumpkin filling. It was good, nothing spectacular. Excellent crust though, maybe my best effort (another family recipe). Grade: B+

Peanut butter pie: this was supposed to be a chocolate crust, peanut butter custard filling, and meringue topping. The crust and meringue were fine, but the filling didn't thicken up right. It tasted ok, but looked awful. It was basically peanut butter soup in a chocolate shell with a meringue island floating in the center. Bad news. Grade: C-

Overall grade: B- Better luck next time.

happy Thanksgiving!

Buddha the puppy says happy Thanksgiving! He loves his little Pilgrim hat.

He likes Crookshanks the cat as well. He likes to bark at her, anyway. She does not like him.

He also likes to run through the bushes when you take him outside to pee.

He's very good about letting someone know when he has to go out. He goes to the front door and kind of bats at the bells that are hanging from the doorknob and then whines if no one responds immediately. He's also extremely cute. Alas, he is not our puppy. Robyn managed to get him the other day in some sort of shady back-alley deal. Someone whose dog had 10 puppies was getting foreclosed on and had to get rid of the puppies, so a bunch of their neighbors took one apiece, and somehow Robyn ended up with one. I'm a tiny bit fuzzy on the details, but that's the gist of it. Not too shady after all, really. He's 14 weeks old. Right now his name seems to be Buddha, but since he's only been around for a couple of days we'll see if it sticks.

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

open letter

Dear men,

How are you? I am well. Now that we've exchanged pleasantries, do you mind if I get a little personal? Lovely, thank you.

Now, I'm a girl, so I pee sitting down. But I hear that most of you tend to void your bladders while in the standing position. I also hear that you have a nifty little appendage that you can aim towards the toilet, which presumably makes it easier to hit your target. So why, pray tell, do I find myself cleaning up puddles of urine on the men's bathroom floor at work on a regular basis? Maybe it's just the younger members of your species. Today, for example, I went into the men's restroom after several classes had eaten lunch. There was a large puddle on the floor, directly between the urinal and a toilet. It was such a large puddle that I actually used paper towels to push the fluid into the urinal instead of just soaking it up (I was wearing rubber gloves). In other words, it was disgusting. Unfortunately, today was not an isolated incident. The men's room regularly reeks of urine from the young men visiting our fine establishment. And I can always tell when some of them have been in the unisex, wheelchair-accessible stall. Puddles, puddles everywhere, cause they've had too much to drink. I'll save the non-urine messes for another day. And to be fair, those aren't always the boys.

So, gentlemen. If it's really that far of a distance from you to the toilet, or your aim is really that poor, perhaps you should consider taking a seat. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Parents, please feel free to teach your young charges the fun in aiming for the center of the toilet bowl. Yeah, the rim can be fun, and the floor's always a blast, but hey, why not the water? Peeing in the toilet: it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Thank you for your time.