nice things for good people

Sonja has been requesting a treat for a while.  And she deserves one.  She’s the best confidant anyone could ever have and she has promised to teach Ally how to put on false eyelashes.  So she’s cool in dozens of different ways.

And we have been having an extremely stressful summer.

So tonight I pulled out this cookbook…

and made her some cheesecake ice cream with the addition of a packet of candied pecans just because Sonja loves pecans.

I hope it turns out okay… I want her to like it.  It’s nice to make people happy, especially people who are truly awesome.

night

Bad Days and Grown-ups

I had a bad day.

From waking up at 4am thinking about the database.  To going back to bed at 6pm to Under Milkwood with Richard Burton.

Work was very, very work-y.  I think I fixed my database problems but getting the data up to date is going to be daunting.

And I must be seriously stressed because my food consumption got STUPID.  A cup of cold coffee, an apple fritter and a bottle of root beer.

So when the day was FINALLY, FINALLY over I went to the grocery store and got a frozen pizza from Paul Newman and a half of a small birthday cake.

And this would be how grown ups deal with bad days…. well that and a bottle of wine.

night.

on the patio

I had a visitor on my patio this afternoon…

a tiny little baby possum.  So very, very cute.  About the size of my hand.

I had just finished soaking the plants when I heard this sounds and I watched and the little guy crawled down the jasmine, swam around the planter, crawled out, poked around and then headed to the next patio over.

I like him.  I’ve named him Bobo.

I hope he comes back.

night.

Thoughts on Almonds

I was talking to Winnie today and I realized something.

I do not like things that have a slight taste of almonds.

Now I actually LOVE almonds but I don’t like that vague faint taste that extract gives off.

I came up with an idea of why while Winnie and I discussed various mini tart pan options.  It could possibly be slightly wrapped up in the number of murder mysteries everyone in my family reads.

Slight taste of bitter almonds…. equals arsenic.

Which is bad.

So real almonds yes, marzipan yes, full sweet almond taste?  Heck yeah.

Subtle almond flavoring… thanks, I’ll pass.

No one ever said I was normal.

night

super cool new toy

Clara has something like this.

And I asked her to give me the advice on it which one I should get myself.

It’s a Philips DVP5990/F7 DVD Player with 1080p HDMI Upconversion and DivX which is a long way of saying that it’s a DVD player that plays any kind of video file … even if it’s on a thumb drive.

Seriously?  How cool is that?

I love this thing.

And the fact that I managed to set it up and get it to actually work as quickly as I did?  Total bonus.

I love new toys!

night

a parasol on a sunny day

It’s been very hot and sunny around here for the last few days.

Rather uncomfortable in my opinion.

So today when I went to give blood I took my parasol and used it to travel in the shade.

I’m thinking I should get a spare in case anything happens to mine.

My current one came from San Francisco’s Chinatown but I haven’t seen any good ones in a long while.

Maybe I’ll get one of these from ZippyZappy.com…

night.

The internet hates me

So there was a special mid-week mid-level art auction at Clar’s today.

Almost 300 pieces of art.  Most starting at $25.

I got there early enough to get my card and look at everything twice.  I picked out a few pieces that I wanted.

Yes – there was a theme to the stuff I liked and even the auctioneer mentioned it.  But the thing is that I was the first bid and I was in the room but each and every time the internet bidders would kick in and just take the price WAY above what I was willing to spend.

every

single

time

After the first two pieces I would bid and then just stare at the computer on stage and wait for the picture to be taken away.

I’m telling you the internet hates me.

I didn’t get a single piece at the auction.  Which is strange to me because usually I have VERY off taste and the fact that someone else and in most cases a few people wanted the same thing that I did was a bit of a shock.

One of the people at the auction said maybe I had a doppelgänger out there buying our art.

My only comment on that is that if there is a doppelgänger then the question becomes “which of us is the evil twin?”

Here are the other pieces I didn’t win…

night

A new musical love

I have no clue how I stumbled upon these people.

But I’m in love.

I must own their whole discography.

This is phenomenal work music.  I can’t wait to code to it.

night

shop local?

I was coming back from getting bread at the Bread Garden yesterday and window shopping at the killer little shops hidden on Claremont when I saw this sign taking about the 3/50 project.

Support the Brick and Mortar.  I can appreciate the idea.  But I think there should probably be some kind of consideration about why we should support the store itself.

Like this… why should I pay more in a store for something they are going to need to order and have shipped to them so that I can pay them as the middle man when I could just go online and get it myself cheaper and have it shipped to me?

I know very well what the mark up on retail is.  I’ve worked in both independent and chain stores.

So for that extra expense to make sense there needs to be a serve and a value given from the store.

Like Dark Carnival books… where the books SPILL over the stairs and in the aisles and just scream at you to take them home and read them.  Books from people you’ve never heard of … series to begin… new worlds to discover.

I went in to get the Library of America Lovecraft collection I have been wanting forEVER…

And then I randomly pulled two more books from the piles while heading to the front of the store to pay.

Stores should give you the opportunity to find things you wouldn’t think of one your own.  And it helps if the service level is stellar because if it’s going to be crappy then again… I could get this without you online and have it shipped directly to my home.

At least that’s what I think.

later

I wonder about red wine in the 80’s

I’m watching disc one of season one of Matt Houston.

I remember watching this show when it was first run.  I liked it, my mom liked it, it was fun.

It’s fun watching old shows again.  Very nostalgic and the show is actually still really fun.  Crazy, but fun.

The thing that gets me is the restaurant scene that’s in almost every show.  They eat at Mama Novelli’s restaurant and are always drinking red wine.

Fine.  Great.  I’m drinking red wine right now.

But in the show I look at these wine glasses, these very 80’s small balloon glasses and all I can see is cherry koolaid.

The color is so watered down, so far from even the Beaujolais of Spring that it completely throws me.  I don’t know what they were thinking.  But then it’s not like I was drinking wine in the 80’s show how would I know what it looked like.

Yes – these are things I spend time thinking about…. who among you is surprised by this?

night