Monday, November 10, 2008
lesson learned
don't leave a little dish of catnip near kitty's food bowl overnight. it's cute in the evening when he gets all nuts before bedtime, but then he goes downstairs for a snack at 230a and discovers the catnip, and then he's nuts all night long while you try to sleep.
Friday, November 7, 2008
whoops
belated t3 again this week. i guess my mind has been elsewhere. this week i am thankful:
1. that it is friday! i am so in need of a break. hubby and i are going to the car show this weekend too which is always fun. i imagine this is the same car show that comes to the moscone center in san francisco the last two weeks of november and if it is then we'll have a good time. we always like looking at the new cars, spending our imaginary lottery winnings, and figuring out what would realistically fit our budget, lifestyle, and brian's long legs.
2. that i get to spend the entire weekend with my hubby. last sunday he had to work and while it was kind of nice to have a quiet day to sew and do whatever without him bothering me to get laundry or cleaning done, it was too quiet and i really prefer having him around.
3. that my favorite holiday is practically upon us! that would be thanksgiving. i love the lack of present pressure and all the delicious good food. i love spending the day in the kitchen with the women in my family, cooking and chatting and bugging each other and generally having a great time. to me thanksgiving is exactly what every holiday should be about: celebrating the good things in your life with the people you love and some darn good comfort food. we will likely be only four at my house this year and i love a big noisy table so you're invited. seriously. email me.
1. that it is friday! i am so in need of a break. hubby and i are going to the car show this weekend too which is always fun. i imagine this is the same car show that comes to the moscone center in san francisco the last two weeks of november and if it is then we'll have a good time. we always like looking at the new cars, spending our imaginary lottery winnings, and figuring out what would realistically fit our budget, lifestyle, and brian's long legs.
2. that i get to spend the entire weekend with my hubby. last sunday he had to work and while it was kind of nice to have a quiet day to sew and do whatever without him bothering me to get laundry or cleaning done, it was too quiet and i really prefer having him around.
3. that my favorite holiday is practically upon us! that would be thanksgiving. i love the lack of present pressure and all the delicious good food. i love spending the day in the kitchen with the women in my family, cooking and chatting and bugging each other and generally having a great time. to me thanksgiving is exactly what every holiday should be about: celebrating the good things in your life with the people you love and some darn good comfort food. we will likely be only four at my house this year and i love a big noisy table so you're invited. seriously. email me.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
the morning after
i think there is a law somewhere that says you have to post about the election if you are a blogger and it was as big of a deal in your country as this one was.
personally i don't know what to think. i think i would have been disappointed either way, unless some dark horse somehow pulled off a steal. that didn't happen. instead we're stuck with a tall, skinny, slippery guy from illinois who has a total of four years of national political experience, almost half of which (20 months) have been spent on the campaign trail for this election.
otherwise we'd have been stuck with a older, balding, wolf-in-sheep's-clothing from arizona. maybe it's a coyote, not a wolf. i don't know yet if i'm disappointed or what.
i'm willing to give obama a chance, at least. he has some interesting, unconventional ideas. i worry almost more about the fact that he has a congress who will largely be yes-men for him. it would be nice if congress could swing back to the republicans, just to temper obama.
i don't mean for this to be very political in nature. i don't want this blog to become a forum for political discussion. there's enough of those out there. i want this to be about my life and the interesting (to me, at least) things that are going on in it and in my head and heart. at the moment, however, this is what is going on in my life and head and heart.
personally i don't know what to think. i think i would have been disappointed either way, unless some dark horse somehow pulled off a steal. that didn't happen. instead we're stuck with a tall, skinny, slippery guy from illinois who has a total of four years of national political experience, almost half of which (20 months) have been spent on the campaign trail for this election.
otherwise we'd have been stuck with a older, balding, wolf-in-sheep's-clothing from arizona. maybe it's a coyote, not a wolf. i don't know yet if i'm disappointed or what.
i'm willing to give obama a chance, at least. he has some interesting, unconventional ideas. i worry almost more about the fact that he has a congress who will largely be yes-men for him. it would be nice if congress could swing back to the republicans, just to temper obama.
i don't mean for this to be very political in nature. i don't want this blog to become a forum for political discussion. there's enough of those out there. i want this to be about my life and the interesting (to me, at least) things that are going on in it and in my head and heart. at the moment, however, this is what is going on in my life and head and heart.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
asian pot roast
omg this is so delicious, and this is what i am having for dinner tonight:
it's called chinese-style stove-top pot roast with noodles, and it is so flipping good. i call it asian pot roast; brian loves it and begs for "that stuff with the bok choy." it's a bit more work than i think pot roast ought to be, though i probably have a skewed version of how much work it ought to be (none). also, i make it in my crockpot even though the recipe says to do it in a dutch oven on the stove. i did it like that once which was fine, but i don't want to leave the stove on all day, so crockpot it is.
due to copyright restrictions i don't want to post the recipe here in case i unwittingly run afoul of some strange law that i don't know about. it was in the october 2006 issue of cooking light magazine. if you don't subscribe to cooking light (you ought to) or you don't save your back issues obsessively like i do, they have a recipe search option on the homepage. i suppose you could type in the recipe name; i just typed in "pot roast star anise bok choy" (some of the ingredients in the recipe) and it came up. it's relatively cheap to make too, once you buy the star anise and the chinese five-spice (spices being the most expensive part of a recipe anyways as well as the part you don't always have to buy). if you make it please let me know how you liked it!
pssssst: it's not really that much work. i'm just a lazy cook and a complainer, kind of like how i'm a lazy seamstress. i did all the prep work this morning and when i went home at lunch i put the meat in the crockpot and turned it on. when i come home tonight, viola! dinner will be done, mostly. there is still some cooking to be done, but it's really easy stuff. the noodles take all of like 5 minutes to cook, if that, and the mushroom/carrot sauté only takes about 5 minutes too.
it's called chinese-style stove-top pot roast with noodles, and it is so flipping good. i call it asian pot roast; brian loves it and begs for "that stuff with the bok choy." it's a bit more work than i think pot roast ought to be, though i probably have a skewed version of how much work it ought to be (none). also, i make it in my crockpot even though the recipe says to do it in a dutch oven on the stove. i did it like that once which was fine, but i don't want to leave the stove on all day, so crockpot it is.
due to copyright restrictions i don't want to post the recipe here in case i unwittingly run afoul of some strange law that i don't know about. it was in the october 2006 issue of cooking light magazine. if you don't subscribe to cooking light (you ought to) or you don't save your back issues obsessively like i do, they have a recipe search option on the homepage. i suppose you could type in the recipe name; i just typed in "pot roast star anise bok choy" (some of the ingredients in the recipe) and it came up. it's relatively cheap to make too, once you buy the star anise and the chinese five-spice (spices being the most expensive part of a recipe anyways as well as the part you don't always have to buy). if you make it please let me know how you liked it!
pssssst: it's not really that much work. i'm just a lazy cook and a complainer, kind of like how i'm a lazy seamstress. i did all the prep work this morning and when i went home at lunch i put the meat in the crockpot and turned it on. when i come home tonight, viola! dinner will be done, mostly. there is still some cooking to be done, but it's really easy stuff. the noodles take all of like 5 minutes to cook, if that, and the mushroom/carrot sauté only takes about 5 minutes too.
Monday, November 3, 2008
halloween 2008
this year was the best halloween thus far in our married life, possibly since i have known brian. when i was in college living in san francisco, we did not get any trick-or-treaters. now i realize it was probably because i lived in kind of a ghetto area of sf (not super-scary, but not exactly the friendlist spot in town), though at the time it did not seem so ghetto to me. funny how much you can overlook in the thrill of being young and getting your first apartment. when i lived in daly city i didn't get any either. maybe there weren't a lot of kids in my building. when we lived in san francisco we didn't get any either, and we lived in the outer excelsior district which is not sketchy at all. maybe we did and i just always worked too late.
when we lived in marin we didn't get any trick-or-treaters either, which i always thought was odd because we lived in a nice suburban town in a nice apartment complex with lots of kids. i always thought if i was a parent that it would be great to just take my kids around the complex. it was safe and well-lit and i always thought you'd get a great take from the 100+ apartments there. maybe it was all the stairs to those second-floor apartments that were too daunting for little kids, who knows.
now that we are smack in the middle of a suburban development, this halloween was more like i remember as a kid. we even got to decorate the exterior of our home (something very hard to do in an apartment). i didn't dress up for work (it's kind of hard in an office, so i wore my orange sweater and black pants to be festive) but brian did for his residents. he usually doesn't do all the makeup or wear the cap, but he went all out this year. this costume cracks me up on him:
he stood outside behind one of our entry columns and mooed at people as they walked up to the door and scared them. our neighbors called him the mad cow. he is nuts, that man of mine.
i have not been very creative the past few years for my halloween costumes and have just been recycling my old ones. this pirate wench i made about 12 years ago:
i thought my gypsy/esmerelda costume would be warmer, but i couldn't get the cummerbund around my waist. boy, did i feel fat and pregnant friday night. brian really liked the eyeliner, though.
this the one guy in our house who did not appreciate halloween:
he didn't mind his "costume" but he did mind the doorbell ringing all the time and the kids yelling, "trick or treat!" at first he hid behind brian's chair but later he slunk upstairs and hid under the bed. he finally came out later when the doorbell stopped ringing so much, because brian and i hung out outside and chatted with our neighbors and gave out candy before the kids got to the doorbell. poor little man, he's really in for it when spot comes.
how was your halloween?
when we lived in marin we didn't get any trick-or-treaters either, which i always thought was odd because we lived in a nice suburban town in a nice apartment complex with lots of kids. i always thought if i was a parent that it would be great to just take my kids around the complex. it was safe and well-lit and i always thought you'd get a great take from the 100+ apartments there. maybe it was all the stairs to those second-floor apartments that were too daunting for little kids, who knows.
now that we are smack in the middle of a suburban development, this halloween was more like i remember as a kid. we even got to decorate the exterior of our home (something very hard to do in an apartment). i didn't dress up for work (it's kind of hard in an office, so i wore my orange sweater and black pants to be festive) but brian did for his residents. he usually doesn't do all the makeup or wear the cap, but he went all out this year. this costume cracks me up on him:
he stood outside behind one of our entry columns and mooed at people as they walked up to the door and scared them. our neighbors called him the mad cow. he is nuts, that man of mine.
i have not been very creative the past few years for my halloween costumes and have just been recycling my old ones. this pirate wench i made about 12 years ago:
i thought my gypsy/esmerelda costume would be warmer, but i couldn't get the cummerbund around my waist. boy, did i feel fat and pregnant friday night. brian really liked the eyeliner, though.
this the one guy in our house who did not appreciate halloween:
he didn't mind his "costume" but he did mind the doorbell ringing all the time and the kids yelling, "trick or treat!" at first he hid behind brian's chair but later he slunk upstairs and hid under the bed. he finally came out later when the doorbell stopped ringing so much, because brian and i hung out outside and chatted with our neighbors and gave out candy before the kids got to the doorbell. poor little man, he's really in for it when spot comes.
how was your halloween?
Saturday, November 1, 2008
souper yummy
the first rain of the season is upon us up here; it started intermittently late thursday afternoon. it was dry most of the day yesterday but we did get some sprinkles and showers off and on last night. i felt so bad for the kidlets trick-or-treating, but fortunately it didn't really start until most of the little kids were already done. the kids in our neighborhood are real gamers anyways. they were more than willing to walk around in the rain to get some candy. i think it was the parents that were ready to call it a night. one little kid just pushed up his power ranger mask and used it to protect his head.
it has rained pretty steady all day today and miserable dark weather like this makes me crave soup, a cozy blanket, and a good movie. i think i'll watch love actually tonight. i adore that movie. i get my soup too - tonight we are having polish soup for dinner. i don't know if that is what it is really called; i don't know if it even has a name. i thought for a long time that it was just something my mom made up on the cheap, but then i made it one night a couple years ago and brian exclaimed that it was soup his grandmother (who was full-blooded italian) used to make and it brough back memories from his childhood. i think of it as polish because it uses kielbasa (polish sausage) and cabbage, and for some reason cabbage seems very polish to me. it also seems like poor peasant food, like leftover scrapings, which makes me think of old-world poland, which has historically been rife with poverty. no matter, it's super easy and super yum.
polish soup
1 package polska kielbasa, sliced down the middle and then sliced into half-moons
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 carrots, halved and sliced
4 c. vegetable broth
4 c. beef broth
1/2 head cabbage, coarsely chopped
generally i don't prep anything; i do it all as the other stuff is cooking.
heat a stockpot of medium heat and chop the kielbasa, then lightly brown the kielbasa. don't add any oil as they release enough of their own grease and you may even want to pour some off. while the kielbasa browns, chop the onion, then add it to the kielbasa along with the garlic and start chopping carrots. when those are done then the onion should be ready; add the carrots in and start on the cabbage. when the cabbage is chopped, the carrots ought to be done, so you can add the broth. turn up the heat and bring it all to a boil; then reduce the heat to a simmer and add the cabbage. simmer for 15-30 minutes, until the carrots are tender.
i also serve it with a nice hunk of bread for sopping up the broth, because brian doesn't always like to finish all his broth and i believe that is where a lot of the nutrition is in soup. yummy!
it has rained pretty steady all day today and miserable dark weather like this makes me crave soup, a cozy blanket, and a good movie. i think i'll watch love actually tonight. i adore that movie. i get my soup too - tonight we are having polish soup for dinner. i don't know if that is what it is really called; i don't know if it even has a name. i thought for a long time that it was just something my mom made up on the cheap, but then i made it one night a couple years ago and brian exclaimed that it was soup his grandmother (who was full-blooded italian) used to make and it brough back memories from his childhood. i think of it as polish because it uses kielbasa (polish sausage) and cabbage, and for some reason cabbage seems very polish to me. it also seems like poor peasant food, like leftover scrapings, which makes me think of old-world poland, which has historically been rife with poverty. no matter, it's super easy and super yum.
polish soup
1 package polska kielbasa, sliced down the middle and then sliced into half-moons
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 carrots, halved and sliced
4 c. vegetable broth
4 c. beef broth
1/2 head cabbage, coarsely chopped
generally i don't prep anything; i do it all as the other stuff is cooking.
heat a stockpot of medium heat and chop the kielbasa, then lightly brown the kielbasa. don't add any oil as they release enough of their own grease and you may even want to pour some off. while the kielbasa browns, chop the onion, then add it to the kielbasa along with the garlic and start chopping carrots. when those are done then the onion should be ready; add the carrots in and start on the cabbage. when the cabbage is chopped, the carrots ought to be done, so you can add the broth. turn up the heat and bring it all to a boil; then reduce the heat to a simmer and add the cabbage. simmer for 15-30 minutes, until the carrots are tender.
i also serve it with a nice hunk of bread for sopping up the broth, because brian doesn't always like to finish all his broth and i believe that is where a lot of the nutrition is in soup. yummy!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
pleading for your vote
five days left! if you're like me, you're oh so tired of hearing about the presidential election and candidates. election season in general really wears on me, but this year in particular because it's gone on for so long. i cannot wait for wednesday. do you realize it's been 20 months since barack obama announced his candidacy?
as exhausted of the election as you probably are, i have to beg you one thing: please go vote, if you haven't already. in california, tomorrow is the deadline for mailing in your absentee ballot if you want to be sure it gets to the registrar's office in time to be counted. otherwise you can drop it off at any polling place.
i feel very passionately about voting. i don't care who you vote for as long as you vote. okay, that's not quite true: i do care, especially if you're not voting for my guy or my proposition, but i also feel that political choice is a very personal decision, like religion, and it's not specifically my place to convince you that you're wrong. maybe i'm wrong, who knows. my political beliefs are shaped by my values and my life experiences, which are totally different from your life experiences, because you're not me and i'm not you.
by not voting you forfeit the right to complain or even be the slightest bit aggravated by anything that happens politically. even if you feel your vote doesn't count. someone told me a couple years ago that he didn't vote in the last presidential election as a protest, because he didn't want to vote for george bush and he didn't want to vote for john kerry. (i didn't either, and i don't want to vote for either obama or mccain, but i'm not about to throw my vote - my voice - away.) fine, but then what right do you have to complain about president bush? he said, "well, i didn't vote bush into office so it's not my fault that he screwed up!" technically that's correct, i guess, but he also didn't vote for anyone else against him. by not voting you're removing yourself from the decision-making process and allowing others to make the decision for you. if you consciously allow others to make decisions for you, then you have no right to complain about the decisions they make.
i've heard people say that it doesn't matter if they vote because their one vote doesn't matter. every vote matters! look at the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. regardless of whether or not you think the outcomes of those elections were correct or not, they were both exceedingly close elections. especially in 2000, every single vote mattered in florida. here in california, we're an exceedingly blue state, which is often very frustrating for a conservative like myself (though i tend to be relatively moderate rather than staunchly conservative). republican candidates don't even campaign in california because it's such a given that the democrat will carry the state. so if i vote republican, my vote basically "doesn't count" - it's overruled by all those other democratic votes - but i still vote, because that's my voice and my way of being a part of the political process. and hey, who knows, maybe one day we'll vote red. it happened to reagan in 1984, it could happen again.
so please go vote. because today i am thankful - and you ought to be too:
1. that we live in a country where we have a voice in the political process and can vote our conscience. we have secret ballots and don't have to be afraid of retaliation against ourselves or our loved ones if we vote for an unpopular candidate.
2. that we live in a country that recognizes the rights of the individual. voting is not mandatory. sometimes i think it ought to be, but i think forcing people to be part of the political process is wrong. if you choose not to be, that's your perogative. we don't require you to be any particular religion either. you can be whatever religion you want, or none at all. vote if you want to - if it's important to you - or don't. (but i still think you ought to!)
3. that we live in such an amazing republic that functions so well. (many people think our form of government is a true democracy, but it actually isn't.) lots of people say our government is broken and doesn't function, and that may be true to some extent, but we don't abuse our citizens for speaking out against the government or build palaces of gold while inflation runs rampant and people die of starvation in the streets. yes, i'm sure you could cite many specific examples where i'm wrong, but as a general rule, america is a pretty damn good country. i'm also not trying to start a political debate here, so please don't get all over me for what i just said.
i love that america is the only country in the world founded on an idea - not an ethnicity or a religion or anything else. the idea was freedom and equality, and that idea has succeeded for the past 232 years. even more, if you count back to the original settlement on roanoke in 1607. so please love your country as much as i do and participate on tuesday.
as exhausted of the election as you probably are, i have to beg you one thing: please go vote, if you haven't already. in california, tomorrow is the deadline for mailing in your absentee ballot if you want to be sure it gets to the registrar's office in time to be counted. otherwise you can drop it off at any polling place.
i feel very passionately about voting. i don't care who you vote for as long as you vote. okay, that's not quite true: i do care, especially if you're not voting for my guy or my proposition, but i also feel that political choice is a very personal decision, like religion, and it's not specifically my place to convince you that you're wrong. maybe i'm wrong, who knows. my political beliefs are shaped by my values and my life experiences, which are totally different from your life experiences, because you're not me and i'm not you.
by not voting you forfeit the right to complain or even be the slightest bit aggravated by anything that happens politically. even if you feel your vote doesn't count. someone told me a couple years ago that he didn't vote in the last presidential election as a protest, because he didn't want to vote for george bush and he didn't want to vote for john kerry. (i didn't either, and i don't want to vote for either obama or mccain, but i'm not about to throw my vote - my voice - away.) fine, but then what right do you have to complain about president bush? he said, "well, i didn't vote bush into office so it's not my fault that he screwed up!" technically that's correct, i guess, but he also didn't vote for anyone else against him. by not voting you're removing yourself from the decision-making process and allowing others to make the decision for you. if you consciously allow others to make decisions for you, then you have no right to complain about the decisions they make.
i've heard people say that it doesn't matter if they vote because their one vote doesn't matter. every vote matters! look at the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. regardless of whether or not you think the outcomes of those elections were correct or not, they were both exceedingly close elections. especially in 2000, every single vote mattered in florida. here in california, we're an exceedingly blue state, which is often very frustrating for a conservative like myself (though i tend to be relatively moderate rather than staunchly conservative). republican candidates don't even campaign in california because it's such a given that the democrat will carry the state. so if i vote republican, my vote basically "doesn't count" - it's overruled by all those other democratic votes - but i still vote, because that's my voice and my way of being a part of the political process. and hey, who knows, maybe one day we'll vote red. it happened to reagan in 1984, it could happen again.
so please go vote. because today i am thankful - and you ought to be too:
1. that we live in a country where we have a voice in the political process and can vote our conscience. we have secret ballots and don't have to be afraid of retaliation against ourselves or our loved ones if we vote for an unpopular candidate.
2. that we live in a country that recognizes the rights of the individual. voting is not mandatory. sometimes i think it ought to be, but i think forcing people to be part of the political process is wrong. if you choose not to be, that's your perogative. we don't require you to be any particular religion either. you can be whatever religion you want, or none at all. vote if you want to - if it's important to you - or don't. (but i still think you ought to!)
3. that we live in such an amazing republic that functions so well. (many people think our form of government is a true democracy, but it actually isn't.) lots of people say our government is broken and doesn't function, and that may be true to some extent, but we don't abuse our citizens for speaking out against the government or build palaces of gold while inflation runs rampant and people die of starvation in the streets. yes, i'm sure you could cite many specific examples where i'm wrong, but as a general rule, america is a pretty damn good country. i'm also not trying to start a political debate here, so please don't get all over me for what i just said.
i love that america is the only country in the world founded on an idea - not an ethnicity or a religion or anything else. the idea was freedom and equality, and that idea has succeeded for the past 232 years. even more, if you count back to the original settlement on roanoke in 1607. so please love your country as much as i do and participate on tuesday.
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