2.28.2007

Scene: a Walk

So, made it out on the walk, thought I'd share something I saw.

elvis, revisited

morning

Things are movin' and shakin'. Clouds pass over quickly. Doings:
  • slept until my alarm clock woke me up
  • snow
  • rain
  • coffee
  • snow
  • sun

Things to expect:
  • rain
  • further delays on all fronts
  • a walk?
  • more coffee
  • a bad episode of Lost
Things not to expect:
  • sun
  • a walk?
  • a good episode of Lost
  • more haiku

2.27.2007

migraine haiku










Uh, yeah. So lovely to have a friend in migraines. Woke up early (surprise, surprise, surprise) and took magic pill. Believe it is working as disconnected feeling is taking over. Can't wait to talk with the Boss in coherent manner. Will compose haiku to ready myself.

Monster in the head
In need of Magnum P.I
Higgins took the Vette


caffeine and sugar
magic pill in the darkness
pain no more, perhaps


brother and mother
me, grandma, great grandmother
pain family tree

finis.

2.26.2007

I blame Gloria

Now, I've listened to Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine a time or two. And I'll admit it, I got a little choked up the first time she sang "Reach" (her song for the Summer Olympics in Atlanta)... you know, she was almost paralyzed in that bus accident not too long before. Uh, yeah. So. I blame Gloria for "The Rhythm is Gonna Get You" as that song, more specifically, that chorus, so thoroughly consumed my brain last night I had difficulty falling asleep. And I gotta say, reading Steinbeck while hearing Gloria is weird. I don't really recommend it.

2.23.2007

Celebration by Proxy

birthday cake
Yesterday was my sister's birthday. Unfortunately, she too was hit by the plague at an inopportune moment. Being 300 miles away and a good sister, I did what I could. Thus I spent a delightful Thai dinner with the gals of the BCC, a much need respite for everyone, in homage of her birth. The celebration didn't stop with dinner nor with the loss of my BCC fellow travelers. Though filled to the gills with Thai food, I made a stop on the way home to pick up a piece of cake... a lovely piece of lemon cake. Okay, okay, so the lemon cake was not something she would have chosen. So I took a few liberties. All for the greater good, though... right?

So Sara, I hope you enjoyed your birthday last night, because I sure did. Don't say I never did anything for you... tee hee hee...

2.22.2007

Pinball Wizard

Wednesday night is Lost Night. Lost Night encompasses dinner with none other than Trust in Steel, some games of pool, and then a viewing of Lost at the BCC. I love the routine, love the company, love the horrid hot and cold nature that constitutes my billiard abilities. There are limits, however, to all this love. The jury is still out on Lost. I'm intrigued, I won't deny it. And that new Seven Kinds of Scary lady does a good job of communicating evil. One might even go so far as to say she's dripping with evil. This is all a not-so-fancy way of saying, "I'm ready to get back on board, Lost. But I'm keeping my eye on you."

Last night also brought other entertainment. By some pinball god decree, I played the pinball game of my life last night. It was all quite surreal. There was one magic silver ball left as I just happened to look with no one else around... check the side buttons, nice, very nice... check out all the options before me... hmmm travelling the wold with Ripley's Believe It or Not, whatev... okay, pull back and GO!. I swear the stars aligned, angels sang, all wars momentarily ceased, you get the idea. All I needed for the moment to be absolutely perfect was to be magically transported to a mall in 1986. Well, that and a slushy by my side. I was brilliant. There were 4, yes 4!, magical silver balls on the table at one point. Bonus points stretched that original magical ball into too many to count. That being said, my magical pinball moment fell drastically short of the high score. Such is life. As a side note, anyone should really check out the lyrics to Pinball Wizard. Uh, "A pinball wizard got such a supple wrist"?

Finally, it is with great pleasure that I introduce Trust in Steel to the world of blogs. That's right friends, you can get all you've been missing now of our great Conan Intellectual on the interweb. Have patience at first, things will really begin to take off when he moves down to L.A. Though I'm sure he'll have plenty of things to say in the meantime. A quote from the archives, "Love is false. Trust in steel."

Happy Birthday Sara!... dork!

2.20.2007

Sign of the Apocalypse.

You can buy Britney Spears hair for a cool $1 million (for unnamed charities, of course). Thrown in as a gesture of goodwill: the clippers she used, a blue lighter she left at the salon, and an empty can of Red Bull she was drinking at the time.


Wrong. Very, very wrong.

2.19.2007

weekend, in list form

  • coffee
  • bacon
  • reading
  • sunshine
  • fashion show... *fantastic!*
  • dinner and movie
  • coffee
  • bacon
  • coffee
  • reading
  • cowboy boot expedition
  • unexpected bump-into friend
  • phone calls with friends and fam
  • cooking with wine and ground lamb
  • Wayne's World viewing

2.17.2007

sharing a happy spring day

Sharing Spring
Crocus in the yard. Picture taken early this afternoon.

Self-Portrait
Spring Self-Portrait

Sharing Spring
One more crocus shot... they're such happy flowers! Almost as happy as doffodils, methinks.

a shout out

Dear Matt and Fernando,

I cooked bacon this morning for breakfast. I told myself the bacon was an accompaniment to the egg, but that is a lie. I wanted bacon and then felt the need to add something else to the mix to justify the bacon.

I remain, as ever, yours in bacon solidarity,

E.

2.16.2007

updates about waiting; or, hurry up and wait

deceptive bubbles
Deceptive Bubbles

Updates about waiting, updates about waiting.... what could be more fun than updates about waiting?

Beer: Attempt was made last night to gauge the readiness of the beer, the fizz, if you will. Let's just say there was no occasion to sing "Tiny Bubbles" by Don Ho. Though beer failed to live up to expectations of readiness, it only requires more time to get things right. We should all be so lucky. On a side note, the beer itself is a double IPA. It was dry-hopped twice and has a wonderful floral nose to it (as if we could waste a good beer made by our own hands simply because it was flat). But I still think I want to call it Bitter Pill. I'll gladly take any and all suggestions under advisement.

The Plague: I'm still battling the plague, some 2+ weeks after it came knocking on my door. Just when I think I'm improving, back-slide, back-slide, back-slide. Cough, Cough, Cough. The funny thing is, the big, deep coughs I still have don't bother me so much as the tiny kitten coughs. The little coughs that come on like a big cough but result in pathetic displays of sound and productivity. They remind me of coughs a really bad actor would utilize because they couldn't figure out the proper way to generate a stage cough.

That is all.

Understatement of Day:
coma inducing, more like it.

2.13.2007

dried tomato soup

Last night C and I perused the grocery store isles, hunting down ingredients for the magical Red Robin seasoning salt that patrons of that establishment pour on with such joy... and with perhaps a slightly maniacal twinkle in their eye. One critical ingredient is dried tomato soup mix. Now, neither of us have ever had occasion to use said dried tomato soup mix and thus no occasion to actually locate the item in a grocery store. After a walk through, the number of dried items available for sale in a grocery store is quite astounding. One area we were completely thrown off by was the gravy section. Gravies of every variety can be found in can form and dried mix form.... beef, turkey, chicken, white,homestyle, etc. etc. etc. This isn't even counting the au ju mix (and I'm slightly confused as to where that belongs anyway as it is clearly not a gravy). C commented that the large bottle of Heinz ketchup in our basket could probably be dried and then called dried tomato soup mix. Ketchup is a surprisingly versatile condiment . In fact, I believe I was served Sweet and Sour chicken while in China (an entertaining and depressing thought as it is an American Chinese dish) that was mainly made up of ketchup. Sorry, I digress. While I understand the necessity of dry goods as supplemental items in a pantry or out camping (not necessarily for lower cost! can you imagine?), I found the prospect of all the dried goods quite depressing. Because you take something that is wholesome and good, take all the life out of it, let it sit around for a while, and then foolishly think that some liquid will bring it back to its former state. Perhaps this post can be attributed to winter vegetable blues, a desire to cook with what is in season only to realize that you don't want to eat it.

2.12.2007

uppers and downers

matt

With Matt and Fernando safe at home in their respective abodes, it is now time to reflect on their trip. Two key themes running through their visit seemed to be food and alcohol. Both were consumed in large quantities by many in the party. The sum of these two themes is Fun. I think we could identify my weekend theme as food and codeine. As a result, I was asleep much of the time. I'm also going to lay the blame for my horrible pool playing abilities on that particular combination. Despite some bad games of pool, going home early to sleep 12 hours, and an occasional hacking cough, methinks there are worse ways to spend the weekend. Oh, I've also learned that the pairing of uppers and downers only takes you so far. Coffee can only do so much. At a certain point it is useless to struggle against sleep.

Shots I did not consume. I believe Irish Car Bombs also made it into rotation later in the evening, though I wasn't there for that excitement....
maker's mark

2.09.2007

Matt-O and Fernando

The conquering heroes returned! Wait a minute... that was another night. Uh, yeah, Matt and Fernando arrived last night for a much needed and well overdue visit. Both were, as ever, their wonderful usual selves. Though Fernando the Gentleman Scholar has some fantastic news that anyone with a phone should call him for. This weekend promises to be most entertaining, especially if I don't cough all over everyone. And that is, at this particular moment, a tenuous proposition at best.

2.08.2007

So be it and Nappies


My head this past week has not, how shall I say this, been screwed on exactly right. So be it. Sickness? So be it. More naps in the last week than the previous two years combined? So be it. What? Lost is still disappointing even with the escape? So be it.

Aside from Dawson's Creek, I've been catching up on my news. I've found a number of things entertaining, particularly the little differences between the same American and European stories. Case and point, that wacky wacky astronaut, Lisa Nowak. We're now quite familiar with the fact that she wore adult diapers so as not to stop on her 900 mile Crazy Drive. If you were to read, however, the story on the BBC's website, you would learn that she was wearing "nappies" on her Crazy Drive. Nappies. That's absolutely brilliant. Her master plan included nappies. Can you imagine the shopping list for that? Plastic tubing: check... Nappies: check check.

And for future reference, keep the above formula in your head the next time you get drunk at a bar and see attractive people. Some researchers at Manchester University, in their infinite wisdom, created a formula to measure the Beer Goggles effect. This formula, unlike previous Beer Goggle formulas, is more nuanced as it factors in distance and the smokiness of the bar. So, if you are drinking and cannot factor out your current Beer Goggle state according to the formula, perhaps it is best to just say "No." to anyone who approaches your table. So be it.

2.06.2007

turning a corner?

V. kindly asked if I had turned a corner yet with this ridiculous sickness. And I guess the best answer is yes and no.

Positives: I know longer have a fever, night sweats, weird sickness sensitivity, and/or body aches.
Negatives: I almost coughed up that 3rd lung last night and, considering the miraculous nature of that 3rd lung, fear the worst should I do so. Also, I tried to work yesterday... went in and everything. Failure. Utter failure. I was done at lunch time, completely spent.
Entertaining bits: I discovered that I can sleep when really, really necessary. When I came home early yesterday the roofers were here putting a new roof on. Oh the sweet, sweet symphonic nature of hammers and nail guns.... Now, I'm not going to say I slept the whole 2.5 hours I was in bed yesterday afternoon, but I certainly slept some. An amazing feat considering the noise.

So, V. I think we could call it a mixed bag. But perhaps things are on the up and up. I will also say that your virtual hugs are much appreciated.

2.05.2007

Numbers and not-so-big doings

Uh, yeah... some numbers:
  • 2 - amount of total dry hoppings as well as nice new container for beer to ferment in
  • 1.5 - amount of seasons of Dawson's Creek I've watched in the last two days
  • 0.5 - amount of Super Bowl I could watch. bluh.
  • 3.38 - amount of times I scared my friends with appearance and/or extended coughing fit yesterday
The number of cups of tea is just too large to count at this point. There have also been some home remedies that temporarily relieved the symptoms, etc. One of these was an interesting concoction of fresh ginger, chili pepper, and lemon while another was the hot toddy. They don't call it "grandpa's cough medicine" for no good reason.

2.03.2007

Point of Order

Is it, in fact, possible to cough up both lungs? I'm not entirely convinced it is not. I'm also not entirely convinced that I haven't already done so. To further the miraculous nature of my illness and survival, I believe I have a secret third lung in reserve somewhere. Perhaps this mysterious third lung is located somewhere in the vicinity of my pancreas. I mean really, there isn't much room in there for things to hide. Additionally, if anyone has a spare bronchial tube they're not really using at the moment, I'd gladly take it off your hands.... err, chest.

2.01.2007

Illness in the House of Nerd

I am sick. I do not get sick. Thus I am reduced to pathetic pile of goo. My lovely family at the BCC provided soup, cookies, tea, wine (do they know me or what) and much needed TLC. And, to make things better, there were two roofers here earlier today pounding away... it is not easy to rest with two roofers pounding huge amounts of board feet into your roof. Balls.

Reason # 109-27, subsection F of WhyI Love the Movie Steel Magnolias:
Ahem, a quote.
Ouiser Boudreaux: "The only reason people are nice to me is because I have more money than God."