Steven Harper's Blog, page 50
January 12, 2020
Ice-Storm Aftermath (Yawn)
So after two days of ICE STORM! ICE STORM COMING! DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE AWFUL ICE STORM? alerts from the National Weather Service, the ICE STORM ARRIVED!
It was rain.
All day Saturday, it rained.
ICE IS COMING! shouted the NWS. REALLY! SEVERAL INCHES OF ICE! ANY MINUTE NOW!
The rain continued.
NO, SERIOUSLY! ICE! THERE'S GONNA BE ICE!
And more rain. It rained and rained and rained. Darwin and I stayed in all day, worried that the rain would indeed turn to ice any second and catch us flat if we drove anywhere. Nope. No ice.
Finally, around eleven, the rain slowly . . . slowly . . . turned . . . into . . . sleet. We popped outside to salt the driveway again with more water softener salt. The sleet was more snow than actual sleet. Little pellets of snow, really. We went to bed.
This morning, our driveway is clear, but the street is coated in white frosting. It's not particularly slick. The trees have no ice on them at all.
After all that build-up, we were worried we'd be trapped in the house for days.
Better, I suppose, to be prepared for a dangerous event that never happens than the reverse. However, I'm afraid that at the next one, people will look back at the NWS's reaction to this one and say, "Well, they always exaggerate," and get caught by a truly serious storm.
comments
It was rain.
All day Saturday, it rained.
ICE IS COMING! shouted the NWS. REALLY! SEVERAL INCHES OF ICE! ANY MINUTE NOW!
The rain continued.
NO, SERIOUSLY! ICE! THERE'S GONNA BE ICE!
And more rain. It rained and rained and rained. Darwin and I stayed in all day, worried that the rain would indeed turn to ice any second and catch us flat if we drove anywhere. Nope. No ice.
Finally, around eleven, the rain slowly . . . slowly . . . turned . . . into . . . sleet. We popped outside to salt the driveway again with more water softener salt. The sleet was more snow than actual sleet. Little pellets of snow, really. We went to bed.
This morning, our driveway is clear, but the street is coated in white frosting. It's not particularly slick. The trees have no ice on them at all.
After all that build-up, we were worried we'd be trapped in the house for days.
Better, I suppose, to be prepared for a dangerous event that never happens than the reverse. However, I'm afraid that at the next one, people will look back at the NWS's reaction to this one and say, "Well, they always exaggerate," and get caught by a truly serious storm.
comments
January 10, 2020
Hunkering Down
Big ice-storm heading our way. We've prepped. I got the grocery shopping done this afternoon. Darwin drove up from Albion and we went hunting for driveway salt. Couldn't find any, so we bought two bags of water softener salt. Spent several minutes coating the driveway with it.
Right now, a soft fog has enveloped our neighborhood, accompanied with a gentle, misty rain. Hard to believe this will transform itself into a raging monster tomorrow.
comments
Right now, a soft fog has enveloped our neighborhood, accompanied with a gentle, misty rain. Hard to believe this will transform itself into a raging monster tomorrow.
comments
December 31, 2019
Final Meal of 2019
For Yule, I roasted a goose--and I saved the fat. I carefully rendered it, strained it, and stored it. So much of it! And now came the reckoning!
Max has to work this evening and since we had a LOT of Christmas and Yuletide celebrations, Darwin and I decided to do a quiet New Year's at home. So I made a big dinner before Max had to head out.
And for that, we had goose fat.
I chopped up and parboiled some potatoes while a roasting pan with a dollop of fat heated in a hot (400d) oven. When the potatoes were not quite done, I drained them, dropped in a little flour, and tossed it all together. By now the fat was sizzling and ready. I dumped the potatoes into the roasting pan (so much sizzling) and spooned the fat over everything. Added some salt and pepper and paprika, and put it all back in the oven.
While all this was going on, I was simultaneously working on a set of ribs. Rubbed them with spices and salt, set them in the Instant Pot, and hit the pressure cooking controls.
And in the middle of =that=, I threw together a batch of caramel popcorn for munching tonight.
When the potatoes should have been done, I checked on them. They were cooked, but not crispy like I wanted, and showed no signs of heading in that directions. I thought a moment and switched the oven from bake to broil. In five minutes, voila! We had lightly-browned potatoes with a crispy crust.
Removed them, slathered the ribs with barbecue sauce, and put them under the broiler for a couple minutes to finish.
It was all deliciously fantastic. My last cooking venture of 2019!
comments
Max has to work this evening and since we had a LOT of Christmas and Yuletide celebrations, Darwin and I decided to do a quiet New Year's at home. So I made a big dinner before Max had to head out.
And for that, we had goose fat.
I chopped up and parboiled some potatoes while a roasting pan with a dollop of fat heated in a hot (400d) oven. When the potatoes were not quite done, I drained them, dropped in a little flour, and tossed it all together. By now the fat was sizzling and ready. I dumped the potatoes into the roasting pan (so much sizzling) and spooned the fat over everything. Added some salt and pepper and paprika, and put it all back in the oven.
While all this was going on, I was simultaneously working on a set of ribs. Rubbed them with spices and salt, set them in the Instant Pot, and hit the pressure cooking controls.
And in the middle of =that=, I threw together a batch of caramel popcorn for munching tonight.
When the potatoes should have been done, I checked on them. They were cooked, but not crispy like I wanted, and showed no signs of heading in that directions. I thought a moment and switched the oven from bake to broil. In five minutes, voila! We had lightly-browned potatoes with a crispy crust.
Removed them, slathered the ribs with barbecue sauce, and put them under the broiler for a couple minutes to finish.
It was all deliciously fantastic. My last cooking venture of 2019!
comments
Future Plans
So with Darwin living part-time in Albion and Max graduating this spring with plans to move out, we realized we needed to deal with The House.
The House, the one Darwin and I bought together just before same-sex marriage became legal, is huge. It has three bedrooms upstairs, a living room, dining room, breakfast nook, huge kitchen, two bathrooms, and a main-floor laundry area. The basement is completely finished, with a kitchenette, a sitting room, a rec room, a bathroom with a whirlpool tub, two bedrooms, and lots of storage. It has a huge back deck and an enormous, shady front porch I use as my summer office and adore.
When we moved in together, there were four of us, and the house was nicely roomy. Now, however, we're down to two-and-a-half people, and one of them is planning to move out in June. This will leave me rattling around in this giant-ass house all by myself five days a week.
I love this house. I love the layout and way it's built to entertain. I love the cool front porch and the way I can basically move out there during the summer to write. But it's ridiculously large for one person and one part-time person to inhabit, and it's silly to pay the mortgage on space we simply don't need.
So we came to the reluctant conclusion it's time to sell.
This spring, we'll put The House on the market and start looking for another, smaller place in this area. Much as I'd like to, I can't relocate to the house in Albion--the drive is simply too far, especially in winter.
But whatever house I find will need to have a shaded porch for summer writing.
comments
The House, the one Darwin and I bought together just before same-sex marriage became legal, is huge. It has three bedrooms upstairs, a living room, dining room, breakfast nook, huge kitchen, two bathrooms, and a main-floor laundry area. The basement is completely finished, with a kitchenette, a sitting room, a rec room, a bathroom with a whirlpool tub, two bedrooms, and lots of storage. It has a huge back deck and an enormous, shady front porch I use as my summer office and adore.
When we moved in together, there were four of us, and the house was nicely roomy. Now, however, we're down to two-and-a-half people, and one of them is planning to move out in June. This will leave me rattling around in this giant-ass house all by myself five days a week.
I love this house. I love the layout and way it's built to entertain. I love the cool front porch and the way I can basically move out there during the summer to write. But it's ridiculously large for one person and one part-time person to inhabit, and it's silly to pay the mortgage on space we simply don't need.
So we came to the reluctant conclusion it's time to sell.
This spring, we'll put The House on the market and start looking for another, smaller place in this area. Much as I'd like to, I can't relocate to the house in Albion--the drive is simply too far, especially in winter.
But whatever house I find will need to have a shaded porch for summer writing.
comments
Story Smash
Several months ago, I was invited to submit to an SF anthology. I looked over the guidelines for it, but didn't have any ideas for a story, so I let it slide from memory.
The day after Christmas, I came across the guidelines again while was clearing out old emails and WHOP! An idea came to me. It was intriguing, but only partly-formed, so I did what I always do in these cases--I went out for a long walk to think about it. The idea solidified, and the next morning, I sat down to write. I wrote close to six thousand words in two days. The story did stall partway through when I realized it didn't have an emotional center (it was basically a philosophical conversation between two people, very Asimovian), and I had to restructure it a little to create one, but in the end, I got it done.
The trouble was, the deadline is December 31--today! My usual pattern for shorts is to write a rough draft fairly quickly, do a rewrite almost immediately while the original ideas are fresh in my head, then let the story sit for a few days or a week, like bread dough left to rise. When that time is up, I do another rewrite and send it through the Untitled Writers Group. I do one more rewrite with their feedback in mind, format the final manuscript, and send it off.
But with the deadline coming up so quickly, I'd barely have time for a single rewrite, and I know some basic mistakes would slip through with so little reworking. So I emailed the editor (who had already published my work and knew me) to ask if I could have a day or two past deadline. He agreed. Yay!
Now my writers group is having a look on an emergency basis. I hope this story works out. It's quirky and funny and smack-you-in-the-head-y, and I have hopes for it. We'll see. :)
comments
The day after Christmas, I came across the guidelines again while was clearing out old emails and WHOP! An idea came to me. It was intriguing, but only partly-formed, so I did what I always do in these cases--I went out for a long walk to think about it. The idea solidified, and the next morning, I sat down to write. I wrote close to six thousand words in two days. The story did stall partway through when I realized it didn't have an emotional center (it was basically a philosophical conversation between two people, very Asimovian), and I had to restructure it a little to create one, but in the end, I got it done.
The trouble was, the deadline is December 31--today! My usual pattern for shorts is to write a rough draft fairly quickly, do a rewrite almost immediately while the original ideas are fresh in my head, then let the story sit for a few days or a week, like bread dough left to rise. When that time is up, I do another rewrite and send it through the Untitled Writers Group. I do one more rewrite with their feedback in mind, format the final manuscript, and send it off.
But with the deadline coming up so quickly, I'd barely have time for a single rewrite, and I know some basic mistakes would slip through with so little reworking. So I emailed the editor (who had already published my work and knew me) to ask if I could have a day or two past deadline. He agreed. Yay!
Now my writers group is having a look on an emergency basis. I hope this story works out. It's quirky and funny and smack-you-in-the-head-y, and I have hopes for it. We'll see. :)
comments
Yule and Christmas, 2019
Both celebrations went off just lover-ly this year. On Yuletide, my family and my ex's family came over. I roasted a goose and a ham, then off-loaded the side dishes to my family. :) I've never made goose before (Darwin requested it), and when I announced its presence, my family was wary. When I was very young, my mother decided to try roast goose for Christmas, but it came out greasy and no one liked it. I did some research, though, and discovered that a goose needs to be pricked all over so the fat can drain out and roasted on a rack so it doesn't sit in the grease. This I did, and the bird came out to perfections. My brother commented that it was a combination of a steak and a pork chop. Delicious!
There was one food kerfuffle. Back at Thanksgiving, I made a super-dark chocolate-and-espresso cake with cocoa and mascarpone cheese frosting, and everyone raved over it. I decided to make it again for Christmas and only after the cake was in the oven did I realize I had grabbed the carton of cream instead of the carton of buttermilk, which meant the cake didn't rise very far and it was soggy in the middle. I started over (hey--making cake is fun anyway) and got the batter right, but when I made the frosting, the cheese somehow curdled and the frosting refused to thicken. I was cursed! Mascarpone cheese is expensive, and I didn't feel good about shelling out a pile of money for more of it. I decided to use the gloopy mess as a filing and frost it with store-brought frosting. Except--and I should have predicted this--the gloop made the layers slip and slide and the stuff oozed out from between them, mixing with the regular frosting and making a big, messy pile o' cake. It was too late to make yet another dessert, so I put the mess into the fridge to firm up a little and called Sloppy Cake. When time time came, my family devoured it wholesale and raved over it again. Cool!
There was a lot of conversation and shouting and laughing and present-unwrapping. My family is huge, and we make a lot of noise when we're together, but we're always kind about it. We've observed several times that when we get together, we just want to make sure everyone has a nice time. It's a nice family.
And then the Big-Ass cleanup. When I was little, we usually had holidays at our house, and my mother usually left the cleaning up to the next day. A huge part of my childhood was getting up before the grownups and chowing on the leftovers from last night's party. But I don't like to leave a big job hanging over my head--I'd rather stay up late and get it done. Darwin feels the same way. And so we got everything cleaned up and put away before we collapsed into bed.
I had the next day off. I did have some party prep to do, but most of it was already taken care of.
On Christmas Eve, we had Darwin's family over. It was a small group that included our grandson Noah. Noah (aged 2) is such a sweetie. I've never heard him cry. He gets a little anxious if his daddy goes out to the car, say, but he doesn't actually cry. He's not talking much, but I have the feeling he'll make up for it once he starts. For this party, I roasted more ham and made a huge dish of gourmet macaroni and cheese. And a correctly-made cake. We played with Noah and we played hearts. I won the game with a long-shot moon shot. It was memorable. :)
Christmas morning was just Darwin, Max, and me. We opened the final presents and loafed for the day with the rest of the holiday break stretching ahead of us.
comments
There was one food kerfuffle. Back at Thanksgiving, I made a super-dark chocolate-and-espresso cake with cocoa and mascarpone cheese frosting, and everyone raved over it. I decided to make it again for Christmas and only after the cake was in the oven did I realize I had grabbed the carton of cream instead of the carton of buttermilk, which meant the cake didn't rise very far and it was soggy in the middle. I started over (hey--making cake is fun anyway) and got the batter right, but when I made the frosting, the cheese somehow curdled and the frosting refused to thicken. I was cursed! Mascarpone cheese is expensive, and I didn't feel good about shelling out a pile of money for more of it. I decided to use the gloopy mess as a filing and frost it with store-brought frosting. Except--and I should have predicted this--the gloop made the layers slip and slide and the stuff oozed out from between them, mixing with the regular frosting and making a big, messy pile o' cake. It was too late to make yet another dessert, so I put the mess into the fridge to firm up a little and called Sloppy Cake. When time time came, my family devoured it wholesale and raved over it again. Cool!
There was a lot of conversation and shouting and laughing and present-unwrapping. My family is huge, and we make a lot of noise when we're together, but we're always kind about it. We've observed several times that when we get together, we just want to make sure everyone has a nice time. It's a nice family.
And then the Big-Ass cleanup. When I was little, we usually had holidays at our house, and my mother usually left the cleaning up to the next day. A huge part of my childhood was getting up before the grownups and chowing on the leftovers from last night's party. But I don't like to leave a big job hanging over my head--I'd rather stay up late and get it done. Darwin feels the same way. And so we got everything cleaned up and put away before we collapsed into bed.
I had the next day off. I did have some party prep to do, but most of it was already taken care of.
On Christmas Eve, we had Darwin's family over. It was a small group that included our grandson Noah. Noah (aged 2) is such a sweetie. I've never heard him cry. He gets a little anxious if his daddy goes out to the car, say, but he doesn't actually cry. He's not talking much, but I have the feeling he'll make up for it once he starts. For this party, I roasted more ham and made a huge dish of gourmet macaroni and cheese. And a correctly-made cake. We played with Noah and we played hearts. I won the game with a long-shot moon shot. It was memorable. :)
Christmas morning was just Darwin, Max, and me. We opened the final presents and loafed for the day with the rest of the holiday break stretching ahead of us.
comments
December 19, 2019
So Much Cookery
We're having two holiday celebrations at our house this year. My side of the family is coming over the Sunday before Christmas (on Yuletide!) and Darwin's will be here Christmas Eve.
Guess who's doing the cooking? :)
So far, I've made a huge batch of piragi, a mess of cookies, and two cakes of chocolate so dark, they're actually black. I'm also roasting a goose for the first time when my family comes over. We'll see how that turns out!
comments
Guess who's doing the cooking? :)
So far, I've made a huge batch of piragi, a mess of cookies, and two cakes of chocolate so dark, they're actually black. I'm also roasting a goose for the first time when my family comes over. We'll see how that turns out!
comments
December 8, 2019
Albion: The Desk from Hell
So, the Desk from Hell:
See, we'd gone to Staples and found a small, inexpensive desk for me to use in the Albion house. I'm getting a desk there because with summers and holiday breaks, I'll probably spend more time in Albion than Darwin spends in Wherever, and I need a desk to write on. The desk in question had a keyboard drawer and some side drawers and it was just the right size. So we ordered.
When the desk arrived in Albion, we discovered two things. First, it was packed in that nasty-ass styrofoam that breaks into fluffy little beads that cling to everything everywhere. Second, it was in literally hundreds and hundreds of pieces. If we'd known it was like this, we wouldn't have ordered it. But here it was. Sighing, we got to work.
It took nearly four fucking frustrating hours. We wrestled with badly-done instructions and poorly-labeled hardware and tried not to get short with each other. And in the end, the keyboard drawer didn't line up quite right and wouldn't close properly. (Has anyone ever assembled a desk on which the keyboard drawer worked?) I finally said, "Screw it," and pulled the keyboard drawer off. Now it's a desk with an open space in the front, and it looks fine.
After that, we went downstairs to tackle the lamps. The house's ceiling lights don't illuminate everything, so I had bought a bunch of basic floor lamps from Ikea. It was the very last thing we needed to do. After the desk debacle, Darwin was wary.
"How hard are these to put together?" he asked.
"Easy," I reassured him. "When you moved and took some of the table lights with you, I bought some of these, and it took me maybe a minute to put each one together."
I reached for the first box on the pile, opened it–
--and found the silverware.
The silverware, along with a couple-three other kitchen things, had been packed in an Ikea lamp box after I'd bought floor lamps for Wherever, and the old box had gotten lumped in with the new lamps. The silverware had been sitting in dining room the entire time!
The lamps were simple, as advertised, and now we had silverware. At last!
So now the Albion house looks nice and is all moved in.
Except for the office. Darwin still hasn't unpacked the office.
comments
See, we'd gone to Staples and found a small, inexpensive desk for me to use in the Albion house. I'm getting a desk there because with summers and holiday breaks, I'll probably spend more time in Albion than Darwin spends in Wherever, and I need a desk to write on. The desk in question had a keyboard drawer and some side drawers and it was just the right size. So we ordered.
When the desk arrived in Albion, we discovered two things. First, it was packed in that nasty-ass styrofoam that breaks into fluffy little beads that cling to everything everywhere. Second, it was in literally hundreds and hundreds of pieces. If we'd known it was like this, we wouldn't have ordered it. But here it was. Sighing, we got to work.
It took nearly four fucking frustrating hours. We wrestled with badly-done instructions and poorly-labeled hardware and tried not to get short with each other. And in the end, the keyboard drawer didn't line up quite right and wouldn't close properly. (Has anyone ever assembled a desk on which the keyboard drawer worked?) I finally said, "Screw it," and pulled the keyboard drawer off. Now it's a desk with an open space in the front, and it looks fine.
After that, we went downstairs to tackle the lamps. The house's ceiling lights don't illuminate everything, so I had bought a bunch of basic floor lamps from Ikea. It was the very last thing we needed to do. After the desk debacle, Darwin was wary.
"How hard are these to put together?" he asked.
"Easy," I reassured him. "When you moved and took some of the table lights with you, I bought some of these, and it took me maybe a minute to put each one together."
I reached for the first box on the pile, opened it–
--and found the silverware.
The silverware, along with a couple-three other kitchen things, had been packed in an Ikea lamp box after I'd bought floor lamps for Wherever, and the old box had gotten lumped in with the new lamps. The silverware had been sitting in dining room the entire time!
The lamps were simple, as advertised, and now we had silverware. At last!
So now the Albion house looks nice and is all moved in.
Except for the office. Darwin still hasn't unpacked the office.
comments
Albion: Still No Silverware
So Darwin and I were looking for the silverware and trying to buy curtains at a department store. Department stores don't stock more than two or three examples of any given curtain type, so we had order them, with the help of a Friendly Clerk.
The was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with the on-line order. The Friendly Clerk couldn't get the computer to give us the colors we wanted. Finally he managed it and set up the order.
"Do you want ruffles for the curtain tops?" he asked.
"We're gay," I said, "but we're not that gay."
The Friendly Clerk couldn't decide whether he was allowed to laugh or not.
But a few days later, when the curtains and rods arrived at Albion, Darwin discovered most of the curtains were the wrong color--a dingy, nasty gray instead of the wine red we'd ordered. And so the following weekend, when Darwin came to Wherever, we trooped back to JCPenney to complain. We dumped a big pile of curtain packages on the counter, and the clerk, a different one, re-did the order. Now we're waiting again.
I went to Albion two weekends in a row in here, and by the second visit, most of the house was put in order. Complicated TV/Roku/Cable system: check. Bedroom: check. Bathrooms: check. Curtains: working on it. Kitchen: check.
The kitchen is, at least to me, an important room that requires a great deal of thought and care. Dishes and food and sundries have to be arranged for the greatest level of convenience. Dish cupboards should be near the dishwasher for ease in putting everything away. Foods need to be arranged so that what you're likely to use most often is close to the work space. Appliances needs to be set up so they're reachable, but not in the way. And so on.
I was flummoxed by the lack of overall storage space in the kitchen. Once the everyday-use stuff was set up, there was no room for lesser-used stuff like the Crock Pot and large casserole dishes. Then I came across a tall, shelf-lined cupboard in the laundry room a few steps away. There we go! The secondary stuff went in there, and we were good. However, I still have a bunch of regular-use appliances in Wherever, and no room in the Albion kitchen for them. There's no countertop space for my bread maker, stand mixer, and Instant Pot.
However, the kitchen has a huge amount of floor space. Freakishly huge, in fact. Darwin and I can't figure out what the architect was thinking by having so much floor space and a relatively small amount of counter- and cupboard space tucked into one corner. But it occurred to me that we could put an island in that space. I found one on-line. It's the perfect size and the decor goes with the kitchen. We'll get it. Eventually.
We also need a kitchen table. The table Darwin took from our Wherever house we put in the new dining room because Darwin didn't want the dining room to look so empty. (He's ignoring the fact that the dining room in "my" house is now a giant empty space, but . . . ) We're going to buy an inexpensive one later.
I made a beef roast for our first meal in the newly-done house. It was delicious, but we were hampered by the lack of silverware. Plasticware doesn't work well with roast beef!
By now, we were both seriously annoyed and mystified. Every box had been unpacked, every storage bin had been checked. No silverware.
Sighing, we went upstairs to assemble the Desk from Hell.
comments
The was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with the on-line order. The Friendly Clerk couldn't get the computer to give us the colors we wanted. Finally he managed it and set up the order.
"Do you want ruffles for the curtain tops?" he asked.
"We're gay," I said, "but we're not that gay."
The Friendly Clerk couldn't decide whether he was allowed to laugh or not.
But a few days later, when the curtains and rods arrived at Albion, Darwin discovered most of the curtains were the wrong color--a dingy, nasty gray instead of the wine red we'd ordered. And so the following weekend, when Darwin came to Wherever, we trooped back to JCPenney to complain. We dumped a big pile of curtain packages on the counter, and the clerk, a different one, re-did the order. Now we're waiting again.
I went to Albion two weekends in a row in here, and by the second visit, most of the house was put in order. Complicated TV/Roku/Cable system: check. Bedroom: check. Bathrooms: check. Curtains: working on it. Kitchen: check.
The kitchen is, at least to me, an important room that requires a great deal of thought and care. Dishes and food and sundries have to be arranged for the greatest level of convenience. Dish cupboards should be near the dishwasher for ease in putting everything away. Foods need to be arranged so that what you're likely to use most often is close to the work space. Appliances needs to be set up so they're reachable, but not in the way. And so on.
I was flummoxed by the lack of overall storage space in the kitchen. Once the everyday-use stuff was set up, there was no room for lesser-used stuff like the Crock Pot and large casserole dishes. Then I came across a tall, shelf-lined cupboard in the laundry room a few steps away. There we go! The secondary stuff went in there, and we were good. However, I still have a bunch of regular-use appliances in Wherever, and no room in the Albion kitchen for them. There's no countertop space for my bread maker, stand mixer, and Instant Pot.
However, the kitchen has a huge amount of floor space. Freakishly huge, in fact. Darwin and I can't figure out what the architect was thinking by having so much floor space and a relatively small amount of counter- and cupboard space tucked into one corner. But it occurred to me that we could put an island in that space. I found one on-line. It's the perfect size and the decor goes with the kitchen. We'll get it. Eventually.
We also need a kitchen table. The table Darwin took from our Wherever house we put in the new dining room because Darwin didn't want the dining room to look so empty. (He's ignoring the fact that the dining room in "my" house is now a giant empty space, but . . . ) We're going to buy an inexpensive one later.
I made a beef roast for our first meal in the newly-done house. It was delicious, but we were hampered by the lack of silverware. Plasticware doesn't work well with roast beef!
By now, we were both seriously annoyed and mystified. Every box had been unpacked, every storage bin had been checked. No silverware.
Sighing, we went upstairs to assemble the Desk from Hell.
comments
Yuletide Shenanigans
Today we put up the Yule tree and decorated the house. Dinah the Cat absolutely loves sitting under the tree and always parks herself there the moment we're finished. But this year . . .
This year, Dora the Meatloaf plunked herself down under the tree before Dinah could get there. Dinah was . . . miffed. She circled the tree, staring and glaring at Dora, who completely ignored her. She was upset, but not willing to drive the interloper away.
I shook the treat box, and Dora burst from under the tree like a blubbery explosion and screeched to a halt in the kitchen. Dinah, who doesn't really care much about treats, slid under the tree and pointedly took her spot.
Dora came back and whiffed in annoyance. But then she stalked behind the tree and took up residence in a different spot. Now the kitties are sharing.
comments
This year, Dora the Meatloaf plunked herself down under the tree before Dinah could get there. Dinah was . . . miffed. She circled the tree, staring and glaring at Dora, who completely ignored her. She was upset, but not willing to drive the interloper away.
I shook the treat box, and Dora burst from under the tree like a blubbery explosion and screeched to a halt in the kitchen. Dinah, who doesn't really care much about treats, slid under the tree and pointedly took her spot.
Dora came back and whiffed in annoyance. But then she stalked behind the tree and took up residence in a different spot. Now the kitties are sharing.
comments
