Happy Mutt Day!

35 minutes and I am so out of here! Yay! I promise to think about maybe posting while I am away. Maybe.

Last night we got Greek Lady for dinner and I made Walnut Mushroom Pate (substituting sage for tarragon) from the Veganomicon. I also made pesto with basil (from the garden), thai basil (from the garden), chives (from the garden), mint, oregano (from the garden), hot cherry pepper spread and toasted pine nuts. Those are both for boat happy hours. God I hope they make it through security.

Pretty boring night all in all. We packed, I cut Matty's hair, we finished watching the first disc of Season 3 of the Office.

Today is the last day of working with Peffin, the mosue tech and only other person working on L1s in my lab. When I come back, she will be gone and I will be alone. And I will be doing both of our jobs since she is not being replaced. Yay! I am so excited. Really. I am very happy about this arrangement. Because really, I didnt think I was doing nearly enough grunt work. And who doesnt like dealing with a smelly mouse colony?

Of course what is ACTUALLY good about the whole thing is that the reason today is our last day together is because after work today I am officially on vacation until the 10th! Yay! So the current plan is to leave at first light tomorrow morning and head to Cuttyhunk and spend the afternoon/evening/night there. Then Saturday head over to Onset. Sunday we go through the canal and head over to Provincetown. We will stay there until Wednesday and then head to Gloucester. We will be there until at least Friday. At some point Saturday or Sunday someone will get us from wherever we are and either bring us to the family beach house in Salisbury or to the Manchester airport. Sunday we fly home. Sigh. So excited!

Last puzzle for a bit.
Brad set out in a motorboat at 2 pm on Saturday with enough fuel for two days. He arrived at 2pm on Sunday with an empty tank. With no supernatural or weather phenomena, what happened?

Oh, while I am gone, could someone please get to the bottom of the Montauk Monster thing, cuz it kinda freaks me out. Awesome.

Happy National Cheesecake Day!

Nothing particularly relevant today as my brain is fairly fried from a meeting with Nina in which when essentially asked to make my life exponentially easier, said no. But in 26 hours I will not have to deal with work for 10 whole days.

Last night we almost had a dinner party. I invited Dan over so that we could discuss how to take care of my plants while we are gone. And Matty invited Joey without knowing I had invited Dan and was kinda surprised when he said yes, at least to stop by anyway. Dan came. Joey had better plans. We grilled the sausage for our trip. It smelled fantastic and we tried some of the bratwurst. It pretty much tastes like breakfast sausage. Which is yummy but not bratwurst. But that's fine, because who doesnt like breakfast? We also grilled up some cheddarwurst for dinner with some zucchini and bell pepper (half red, from the garden). And we had pickles (from the garden). Then Matty and Dan discussed iPhones and we had leftover pie from Dan's party on Saturday. I still love his frozen mocha cheesecake (which was fitting for a little early celebration of today). But his key lime pie and his peaches and cream pie are also fantastic. The key lime was so lime-y! Very refreshing.

After Dan left we watched the first three episodes of Season 3 of The Office. Good season start at least. I love that the topics are so offensive but handled in such a way that the episodes are so not offensive except to people who didnt find the topics themselves offensive. Know what I mean? No? Well whatever. It makes sense to me.

Alphabet Soup: The 18 letters below can be anagrammed into a five-word phrase describing something that's hard to find. The enumeration is 1 6 2 1 8. What is the phrase?
A A A A C D E E E H I K L N N S T Y

Happy National Lasagna Day!

Ok, enough REAL posts and RELEVANT topics. Warning: sausage pics below!

Interesting results in the herb polls. Looks like cilantro managed make both lists. Tying iwth mint as second most liked behind the ever loved basil. And tying for least liked with chervil and tarragon (damn licorice-y-ness). Dill also making an appearance on the least liked list. Lets see if we can get more than 4 people to vote about spices shall we?

Last night Matty and I had leftover barbecue pork chili from the freezer, mixed with leftover vegan chili from Dan's and leftover kale and mushroom sauce from last week topped with leftover tzatziki from last week. It was uber-yummy and fast as the rest of the evening was dominated by sausage stuffing. Warning - graphic stuffing pics to follow:






After the stuffing was completed we relaxed with a little Karate Kid. Wow. That's pretty much all I am going to say. I never took karate or any other martial arts. But pretty much everyone knew someone who did. And how much of that was because of this one movie and how awesome Mr. Miyagi is and how evil Cobra Kai were and seriously, who doesnt want to be able to do a move that has no defense? Though really, wouldnt ducking have helped? I mean it is not like it is subtle. But anyway. Yeah. Karate Kid.

Only 2 more full days and the rest of today til vacation!

What two six-letter words that are anagrams of each other can be used to complete the sentences below?
The irate custmore began to ______ the poor clerk. "I mailed in the forms, but was denied the ______ that you promised," he said.

Lukewarm Reactions to Favored Obama Veep Candidate

So Obama is starting to seriously float veep names and will likely make a choice very soon. This article (NY Mag) about a possible nod to VA Gov Tim Kaine worries me a bit. They go through the possible positives and negatives (as seen by the media) and I am not seeing a whole lot on the positive side honestly. I do not know anything about him besides this article so I cant add or detract.
+ He might deliver the red state -> blue state that everyone is saying he needs right now.
- He MIGHT deliver VA. Only 50% favorability and similar geographic favorability as what Obama already has.
+ He is a DC outside.
- Obama is getting slammed for being a DC outside.
- No foreign policy experience. Same as Obama.
+ Centrist
- Centrist
+ Can deal with Republicans and has experience balancing budgets.
+ "comes across as very warm. Empathetic. Normal guy. Not politician-y.", "has below-average looks." Honestly? This is a talking point? So sad but true.
+ "serve as ambassador" to "four key groups: Virginians, Catholics, working-class white voters, and Hispanics"

I do not know who he should have as his running mate. I do not think it should be Hillary. But I am not sure that this is the guy either. He needs someone who can get him the votes that he can't seem to. He needs someone with foreign policy experience (not because I personally think that is what makes a president, but because it seems like everyone else does.) He needs someone who can get religious, working class, white and Hispanic voters. And he needs to fulfill this "experience in general" void, whatever that means. I guess someone who has spent a significant time in office (aka older). And I guess someone with military experience. So anyone have any ideas? Oh an be sure to check out the comments to the original article. Priceless. Really.

Spicy!

So these will be the last of the herb and spices polls. We have had a bit of a weak turnout in our polls thus far, but some interesting answers. There are 2 new polls available, favorite and least favorite spices. Feel free to choose more than one for each category. If you are unsure about what they are, the title of this post is link to this site which should help a bit. Please leave comments too, we love to hear people's thoughts. Also, these polls will be open until after i get back from vacation to give people extra time to answer. So have at them!

Things that interest me

I am going to start reposting stuff here more often than I have been because I realize that some of my readers will end up reading/ this stuff more than once, some of you might not.

W


Quantum of Solace

Also, it is pronounced "cool"
And, because more things should be like ninjas.
And a fun blog on the lines of The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks and Failblog.

Happy Milk Chocolate Day!

Well as you might have noticed from my posts from Saturday, the main highlight of this weekend (at least for Matty) was getting his iPhone. But lets start on Friday which was pretty standard. Happy hour and dinner at Sidecar. I had the tomatillo gazpacho which was lovely but not green which I was kinda expecting. Matty had the fish and chips which he loved, but did not love him back. All night. After dinner, Lego Star Wars.

Saturday morning we were up before 7 and out of the house by quarter past to catch a train to the Main Line. We arrived in Ardmore at 8:05 and were in line by 10 past. The line stretched from the front of the building to the back, that is the first pic from Saturday. Suburban Square is an outdoor mall, similar to Garden City for you Rhode Islanders. Unfortunately, nothing except the Farmer's Market is open until 10. So I left Matty in line behind two of the most obnoxious, annoying, spoiled rich suburbanite 13 year olds I have ever had to deal with in person and wandered over there. Farmer's Market generally induced visions of hay and produce with calculators and money boxes. This place makes Reading Terminal look like a road-side tomato stand. So ritzy and Main Line-y. I got myself a sausage, egg and cheese pretzel roll-up from Stoltzfus (which was AWESOME!) and wandered around drooling at the meats and cheeses and produce and wine and everything. Then I went to relieve Matty from the kids for a bit. So kid 1, I will call "the annoying one" (TAO for short). Kid #2 (actually getting an iPhone) was named David. Some snippets of our time in line with them.
TAO: dragging his obviously new apple laptop from his backpack that he leaves hanging open, "I am totally going to have them clean the screen for me, because like, that's there job."
. . .
Older gentleman 2 people ahead to TAO, not realizing that TAO and David have managed to weasel between the person ahead of them and him: "I am going to go to Starbucks to use the restroom. Will you hold my spot?"
TAO: "Sure."
Older gentleman: "Thank you" and walks away
TAO guy who is ACTUALLY ahead of them: "Was he kidding? Of course I am not going to let him back in line."
Guy in front of him: "Well, since he is actually right in front of me, not you, and I am NOT and ass, I am going to let him back in line. He is going to take a piss, what is wrong with you?"
. . .
TAO: referring to the Coldplay concert that he had just gone to and was wearign the T-shirt from. "Well, I mean we had a VIP box, its not like we just went."
. . .
TAO: "Maybe I should get a 3G too," while playing with his iPhone which he had gotten in June.
. . .
TAO: After David complains that he had to spend 30 minutes on the phone with AT&T because he isn't actually eligible to get the iPhone at the discounted price and so his mother, who had to come down and wait in line for 2 hours because her son isnt actually old enough to buy an iPhone on his own, added another line to their plan and will have to pay the early termination fee on his current line, or pay for him to have 2 cellphone lines. "What are you whining about? Don't you understand that this is the best day of your life? You will always remember this day. You will tell you kids about the day that you got the iPhone 3G."

It was a delightful time all around. They ran out of the 16gig black within an hour and a half of us getting there. But since Matty is going to get a hard case for it anyway, white is fine. He actually got the second to last 16 gig they had. When we fianlly got inside we got to deal with Sybil, the world's oldest apple store employee. She had to be at least 70. She was a bit slow but not incompetent. Until we actually got it all up an running and she decided to play with it. Like we hadnt been there long enough. She wanted to play with the iPhone. We finally got out of there and to the train at 12:45. Oh, and TAO talked David into getting his mom to also buy, (in addition to the iPhone, a case, a Mobile Me account ($99 a month)) a red iPod nano.

We got a train back to the city and stopped at the Terminal to get lunch, a roast pork sandwich with sharp provolone and broccoli rabe from Dinic's which we split. Then we bought a 6lb pork shoulder, some sausage casings and headed home. Finally. Oh we stopped at the Gallery and bought Crosswords from the DS for our trip. When we got home I took a nap and then picked 6 cucumbers from the garden and we made a new batch of pickles. With garlic and serrano, mustard and corriander seeds. We made that spicy cucumber and peanut salad from a few weeks ago and then headed over to Dan's for his summer cocktail party. I made a lovely drink with JellyBelly Strawberry Daiquiri mix, citrus vodka and tonic water. Matty was drinking rum and diet cokes. A mistake. Dan made guacamole and vegan chili and grilled cheeses which were all yummy. As well as a peaches and cream pie, a key lime pie and a frozen mocha cheesecake (my favorite). We had a really nice time, met some new people, saw some people we hadnt seen in awhile . . . and then Matty had a drink too many. It started as it normally does, Matty being horribly inappropriate and yelling and then he couldnt walk straight, stand on his own or hold on any conversation at all. He finally asked me to bring him home and so home we went. Luckily it is only about a block to our place, though the stairs out of Dan's and into our place were a bit dicey. When we got home he was asleep before I finished brushing my teeth. He hadnt really eaten anything all day except half a pork sandwich and then half a grilled cheese. He had been up all friday night regretting the fish and chips and then we were up before 7 on Saturday. So that plus he doesnt drink rum and should never be allowed to mix his own drinks it all caught up with him real fast. Sigh.

Sunday we got up and headed to Marathon in University City from brunch before a 12:10 showing of The Dark Knight. We ordered at 11:15 (me a breakfast quesadilla, matty a sandwich) and since it was less than half full we figured we would have plenty of time. When the food still hadnt arrived and we hadnt seen our waiter at 11:45 we started to get concerned. A bunch of people who had sat after us had already gotten their meals and the table next to us (same waiter) who had sat before us were also still waiting. Matty and a girl form that table finally tracked down the waiter to ask what was going on and he was very defensive about it. our food arrived right then and we asked for it to be wrapped up since we didnt have time to eat it. Matty ran across the street to Fresh grocer to buy two slices of pizza for us to eat quickly before the movie started. I waited for the food and to pay. I understand that sometimes the kitchen backs up or is really slow. But no other tables except his seemed to be having a problem. But whatever. It had only been 30 minutes but we were in a rush. I was going to give him a full 20% tip and then he walked over to the table next to us and essentailly through a fit about it not being his fault and he didnt do it on purpose and there was nothing he could do. So he got 15%. I know I have never waited tables and I am sure someone will complain. But you have to handle that better. If there is a prolbem in the kitchen, at least go over to the table and mention what was going on. At least refill our waters. And then dont get pissed when people are upset. Or when they apologize and ask for their meals to go because they are in a rush. Ugghhh. So Matty and I stood outside the theater and inhaled a piece of pizza and then went in. Luckily our day got much better. The Dark Knight is awesome. It fully lived up to my expectations and the hype. It was creepy and dark and violent. I think it should have gotten the R rating personally. But it had a great story, great action, great acting. It was all just awesome. I wont say anything else because I dont want to give anything away. But if you are at all interested in going I would highly recommend seeing it. And I totally think Heath Ledger deserves at least an Oscar nomination.

After the movie we headed into the the lab (in a thunderstorm) for a bit and then went home. We watched a marathon of this season's The Next Food Network Star. Warning, that link has the winner in case you have been watching but didnt see the finale last night. We ate our brunch for dinner. It was very good, even after being carried around all day. And then we ground and seasoned the pork. Warning: graphic pictures below.












We are making bratwurst and Italian (with basil, garlic, onion, crushed red pepper and parmesan)

Only 3 more work days til vacation!

Crazy countries: Find two different wold countries that fit the blanks.
_ U _ T _ _ _ _ A
_ U _ T _ _ _ _ A

Alphabet Soup: How many common English words can you make from the letters below, using all six letters once in each word? (Try to find 5)
A E L R S T

In Puzzle Land, one teenager eats ice-cream cones at the rate of 36 in 3 hours. Her friend likes them even more and can eat the same in only 2 hours. How long will it take the two of them together to eat 36 ice-cream cones?

Success! Only took 5 hours . . .

We are now at the end of that line

Happy Culinarians Day!

This day is for all of you cookers out there!

Most importantly, in my opinion, my surgery was one year ago today. That fateful Wednesday that pretty much ruined the rest of my year, my abdomen, and still gives me nightmares. In honor of it being one year since the original incision was made, I demand no more scar pain!

Last night I made Thai Chicken Saute for dinner. Ours didnt really look like that. It was much redder and a bit wetter. I pretty much followed the recipe except I used Texmati rice instead of the boil-in-a-bag kind. And sliced chicken breasts instead of tenders. And I substituted half worchestershire sauce and half soy sauce for the fish sauce. And I used a little over 1/2 cup of coconut milk (not light). It was very good and we will definitely make it again. The full amount of Sriacha is not too overpowering or spicy which I was concerned about.

During dinner we watched the last episodes of Undeclared. All in all a good series, much more mainstream than Freaks and Geeks with frequent appearances from well-known actors (eg. Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller). I like Freaks and Geeks better I think though. But all in all worth a watch if you like Judd Apatow.

The rest of the evening was spent playing Lego Star Wars.

At 2 am someone rung our buzzer instead of one of our neighbors which was confusing and upsetting at the time. Oh well. It rarely happens and we both went back to sleep fairly quickly.

We have 5 new cucumbers waiting to be picked. 3 bell peppers, finally starting to turn red. 2 dozen serranos, some of which are also turning red. A half dozen green tomatoes. This morning I got a strawberry! Yay! I beat the animal! It was tiny but delicious.

We are going to try to get Matty's iPhone this weekend. And also see The Dark Knight. Which is good. Because too many people around me have seen it. And things keep slipping. And I get angry. And I really really really want to see it. The only thing is I know that we are going to be sitting near someone who talks through the whole movie. Because everyone in Philly talks through the whole movie. That's what they do. They spend $15 to sit in a giant room full of strangers so that they can talk throughout an entire movie. Sometimes it is actually about the movie. Not always. There are also the yellers. "Don't answer the door!" Or the play-by-players. "Aw, he hit her! Oooo, she hit him back!" Because apparently they are with people who are blind and slightly deaf but spent $15 to sit through a movie they cant see and also cant really hear or understand. Or the explainers. "No, see he doesn't know that she knows about that thing that those people did with the cat." Honestly people. Shut up! I dont mind laughter (reasonable laughter), or gasps or whatever. But no talking! Stop talking!

Animal matters: Each definition below applies to a word that begins with the name of a different insect. Can you find all three words?
1) Advertising circular _____ (5 letters)
2) Pager ______ (6 letters)
3) Opposite __________ (10 letters)

Happy Cousin's Day

I am not really sure how I feel about Cousin's Day.

Last night we went to Mexican Post for Sips with Dan and one of his friends from work. It was a good time. Very different from most Sips in that it wasnt full and they do Sips at the tables instead of just at the bar. No free food but cheap Mexican Pizza and beef or chicken tacos. $4 margaritas (serviceable basic mix), $2 Dos Equis. So we had a good time.

On the way home I mentioned to Matty that they were having a big festival in Chinatown on the 8th. Figuring that he would know that the 8th, being 8-8-08 is the Opening ceremonies for the Olympics which he didnt. And announced that not only did he not know about the Olympics, he didnt give a shit about the Olympics. To which I was a little . . . surprised? Since he does know all the details of Christian Bale being arrested in London. And this is a pretty politically, news and social awareness-charged Olympics this year. With the riots in Tibet, the protests surrounding the torch running, world leaders boycotting and threatening to boycott the Opening Ceremonies, now Iraq being banned, the original organizers of the Opening ceremonies including Steven Spielberg dropping out because of Darfur, the earthquake, schemes try to clean up the air, even changing the weather! It is kinda a big thing this year. I dont care about the actual events. The only reason I know who is in most of them is because I watch the Today Show in the morning. But to completely ignore them and be totally oblivious even though he says he attempts to stay abreast of what is going on in the world. I was just confused I guess. And I had been drinking and I guess I pushed too far. And so Matty ddint really speak to me the rest of the night. So that was fun.

We made nachos with the leftover enchilada sauce and some guac for dinner and watched Undeclared and Runway. So far I am pretty happy with who has been thrown off.

Happy Hot Dog and Vanilla Ice Cream Day

No, not together. That would be gross . . . or would it? Yes, it would.

Yesterday we went out for lunch to celebrate or bemoan the leaving of Peffin, our L1 tech, aka the person who keeps me sane at work by taking care of our mice for me, aka the only other person in the lab studying L1s (thats what I study fyi). Which means that as of the day I return from my vacation my life is going to become significantly more ridiculous and crazy and unorganized and there will be many more mice stories I am sure. For those of your who do not like the fact that I work with mice, pretend I raise them as pets for orphan children. And the fact that they happen to have balls that glow under UV is just an added fun feature.

So anyway, we went to lunch at Cafe Beau Monde, a creperie in . . . what is that Queen's Village? Which is of course very far away from where we work. Our reservations were for 12:30 and we arrived at 1:10 after a 45 minute bus ride on the 40. But whatever, that's where she wanted to go, Nina offered no resistance, so there we went. And it was very good. I hadnt been before because it is usually crowded ont eh weekends when we would normally go crepe-ing. If we normally went crepe-ing. Which we dont. But if we did . . . anyway, I hadnt been. The menu is very confusing and obviously not vegan friendly since these are crepes we are talking about. I had a chicken, broccoli and cheddar buckwheat crepe. It was excellent. And folded into a square! I am not sure how they did that. magic would be my only guess. Nina decided she wanted dessert and since she didnt want to eat dessert alone (because the calories dont count if you force your employees to eat some too?) she forced all of the girls at her end of the table to also get dessert. So I also had a mixed berry wheat crepe. It was also excellent though totally unnecessary. All in all a good experience. Except that Nina insists on calling them pancakes. And it kinda wants to make me scream. Just a little bit.

For dinner I made kale with mushrooms, tomato, onion, garlic, serrano, oregano, marjoram and rosemary and served it over fried polenta. I love kale. It is so versatile and cheap and nutrious all at once. We finally watched No Country for Old Men. I totally get it now though. It was awesome. I mean I am not sure how much I "like" it. But the acting was superb. The direction and the writing was excellent. Really. Tommy Lee Jones was made for that part, or the other way around. Josh Brolin played Llewelyn perfectly (a long way from Brand Walsh in the Goonies). Javier Bardem will haunt my dreams. Really just all around perfect.

Our night was interrupted a bit by some drama. My mom's friend Heidi called me around 7 to ask if we could please help her son who had no money, no cell phone, no house keys and was walking home (8th and Reed) from 44th and Baltimore (about 4 miles) and it was over 90 out with 70% humidity. Confused I said of course. So he arrived around 7:45 with 2 black eyes, one comopletely bloody eye, the other just badly bloodshot and a huge bruise on his face and sweating profusely. So apparently he was riding his bike on the 4th down South St. and was hit by a woman opening her car door and fell on his head. She was nice enough to drive him to the emergency room and he had a huge head bruise and then the blood sort of drained down his face . . . horrible. Let's just say horrible. And his cell phone was destroyed in the accident as well. So that was part one and explained the no phone, but nothing else. So part two is that he went to Arizona last week (for an unfortunate reason) and when he got back on Saturday the airline had lost his bag. And his house keys were in his bag. Now he lives with housemates but the dont get along and kind all sound like jerks. And he doesnt have a cell phone and they dont have a landline. So Sunday he went back to the airport to retrieve his bag at the same time that they were delivering it to his house. However his roomates do not answer the door. So he didnt get it. And then Monday the bag was supposed to be delivered by 3:30. So he waited until 6:30 and then left. When he got home there was a note from 7:15 saying his bag had tried to be delivered (roomates were there, didnt anser the door again). Tuesday he had to work at his internship and so went to work and then walked home. Heidi was supposed to mail him an old cell phone to use in the meantime but he couldnt get into his house. So he walked to his friend's at 44th and Baltimore. His friend never showed up. At this point he had spent all the money he had on him. He called Heidi collect to have her call the friend to no avail (his cell was off). So after waiting for several hours he decided to walk back home. Hence the call to us. So we gave him several glasses of cold water as he recounted his tale. We tried to feed him but he wouldnt eat anything. We let him use our phone to call the airline. They told him to call the courier service. The courier told him to call the airline because they were sending it back to them. So he called them back and they told him to call back. So we waited. About a half hour later they said that that they thought they would probably get it around 9. So we continued watching our movie and hydrating him. At 9 they said that they had it, so we got a carshare Mini and drove down to the airport and he got his bag. Then we brough him to a friend's place (right down the street from Beau Monde ironically (full circle, full circle)). Of course when we get there, is she there. No. But she was on her way. So we gave him money for a cab and wished him luck and told him to call whenever he needed help (even collect). So hopefully things will start working out for him.

In better news, Noah, the guy I work with who's father just died. His wife had their second son on Monday. William "Will" Silas Goodman. 10 lbs, 4.4 oz, 22"!!!!

So far we have some interesting herb poll results. One vote of cilantro as least favorite and 2 for cilantro as most favorite. I really wish I knew who you were! Sigh, oh anonomous voting!

Ok, a pretty easy puzzle today I think. The cleaning crew at the motel always found small change on the rugs. One day they found a pile of coins worth $4.40, with equal numbers of quarters, dimes and nickles. How many of each did they find?

Herb-tastic!

Ok, so now we know your faves, how about the ones you just can't stand? Please leave comments on this new poll! You can vote for multiple choices!

Gluttony

Today is National Junk Food Day. As if America needs a junk food day. I am choosing to believe that Matty and I were simply celebrating a little early this weekend.

We took a train Friday night out to Lancaster. It is a nice ride. I enjoy the train. I wish it was a more affordable and convenient way to travel. When we got to Lancaster, Dan's dad picked us up and brought us to their house. For dinner we had barbecue pulled pork of which I was forced (ok, not forced, but kinda scared into) having two servings, carrots (those are healthy right, you know if I didnt dip them in onion dip), Good's chips (fried in lard, if you notice the nutrition facts part of that page doesnt work) and cole slaw (not for me because they actually remembered that I dont like mayo! We were there 3 years ago!). It was all very good and we had a good time talking to his parents. They remind me a lot of Matty's parents. But more low key. And of course there is less pressure. For dessert there were Rice Krispie treats, brownies, peach ice cream, peanut butter cup ice cream and red velvet cake! So much food!

Saturday morning we woke up early and got ready and then had breakfast. Cream filled donuts from Oregon Dairy (it was angel cream instead of a custard cream. FABULOUS!), sticky buns, and Matty's blueberry muffins. Then off we went for Pottsville. It is about an hour and a half NNW from Dan's parents place to Pottsville. A nice ride. Pottsville is a tiny podunk little town except for one thing. The country's oldest brewery happens to be there. And that brewery happens to make our favorite beer, Yuengling. Just Lager to Philadelphians. The brewery has been in Pottsville since 1829 and at its current location since 1831. It has been continuously operating there ever since. Including during Prohibition when they made ice cream, near beer (.5% alcohol), and a prescription ready 1% porter (for anemia and lactating women). Interestingly, the day after Prohibition was repealed, a shipment of 100 cases of lager (missing 73 of them) arrived at the White House, even though lager takes 4 weeks to make. the brewery doesnt looked like it has really been touched much since the turn of the century, or earlier. It was pretty cool. Recently, the underground caves that had been originally used for fermentation and storage before refirgeration have been reopened to the public which was pretty cool (literally ~50 degrees nowadays). After the tour we got some free samples (I tried the Light Lager which isnt THAT bad, fro a light beer) and went to the gift shop (I got a Yuengling cookbook). After we had sucked up as much lager history as we could we headed back towards Lancaster stopping for lunch at a Cracker Barrel in order to increase the gluttony and country-ness of the weekend. We wanted to eat a local place. However, there were no local places. For miles. On the way back we also stopped at the outlets and did a little shopping. Then back to Dan's parents' for dinner. Grilled chicken, corn on the cob, baked potatos, dinner rolls, cole slaw and watermelon. With all the leftovers from the night before and breakfast for dessert. By the time we left for the train Matty and I had eaten more sugar in those two days that we had in a normal week. It was all SO good but So unnecessary. The train ride home was uneventful. Once we got home we turned on the AC to mitigate the extremely uncomfortable heat and watched I Am Legend. We hadnt seen it before. I wasnt really sure what to expect. It wasnt quite as scary as I feared. I would be interested to read the book because I know some people were a little concerned about the novel to movie transistion. But to anyone who liked The Stand or Children of Men I would highly recommend it I think.

Sunday we got up and headed to Primo's for lunch. Unfortunately Primo's are now all closed on Sundays. So since it was hot and I was hungry we went down the street to Potbelly. I hadnt been since it came to Philly but I had in DC. Unfortunately their AC was broken but at least they had fans. Then Matty said "Gelato?" Because we hadnt had enough dessert in Lancaster. I said "No!" So I had sorbetto. Sigh. I cant refuse Capogiro! I had lime and cilantro and black fig. The lime and cilantro was more limey than actual limes I think. It was awesome! And fig! Who knew I liked figs? I didnt. Apparently I do. We couldnt decide that going to University City to see Wall-E at the Bridge was a good idea so we went to the Gallery and bought Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for the Wii instead. Then we went home to the AC and played Star Wars for the rest of the afternoon. For dinner I made a salad (cucumber and pepper from the garden) and a buffalo chicken pizza with Purdue Short Cuts grilled chicken, mozzarella, provolone and Buffalo Bleu Cheese dip. It was awesome. We watched the second disc of Season 1 of Entourage. So far still a fan. Then we played more Star Wars.

Went down to the mouse colony again today. My little runt is still alive. And a fighter! She jumped from the cage today!

Gigantiwords: Fill in the blanks to complete the word below.
_ M _ R _ S _ I _ N _ B _ _

Find four women's names, eash six letters long, hidden in the sentence below. (The letters are in consecutive order.)
The strange lad with an earache loses it, and rants and raves throughout his archery lesson.

Happy National Caviar Day

I really do want to talk about things that other people would actually care about . . . but I am just not that clever or informed or opinionated. Sorry.

Last night Matty chose our meal. I wanted to include him more in the food decisions. He helps cook and never complains and sometimes suggests things. But really it is pretty much me deciding what we are going to eat. So I asked him to pick one recipe to eat this week. He chose Potato Kale Enchiladas with Roasted Chili Sauce from the Veganomicon. And it was awesome. I will say that right off the bat. It was absolutely fantastic. However. It took almost 3 hours to make. The recipe says 1 hour. Maybe if Superman and Rachael Ray were cooking together. 3 hours. Worth it? Maybe. I would even make it again. But I would make the sauce the night before. Oh, and we only roasted the peppers (1 frying, 3 serrano) for 15 minutes instead of 25 and steamed them for 5 instead of 30. And we didnt puree the sauce because we had already dirtied pretty much everything in the kitchen and I didnt want Matty to have a stroke. And at the end we sprinkled with some chihuahua cheese, unveganing it. But it really was fantastic. And I dont think it was just because we were starving.

During the 3 hour enchilada-fest Matty made blueberry muffins. From scratch. From Mom's Big Book of Baking. We are trying to eat more berries. And Matty wanted to bring something to the Kettering's. (I did too. I was planning on bringing a cucumber and some serranos. Of course they are still in my fridge, so that isnt happening.) I tried a muffin. It was very good. Lots of blueberries and a nice lemony-ness.

While we cooked we watched VH1's Greatest Songs of the 80s. I am not sure I completely agree with the rankings. But they were pretty good. After that (we got sucked in) we watched VH1 Rock Honors The Who. The Who are awesome. I should listen to more of The Who. Really. Especially Quadrophenia. Pearl Jam performed (as did Foo Fighters, Flaming Lips, Incubus, Tenacious D and Adam Sandler. You know who is getting old? Eddie Vedder. He is 43. Eddie vedder should not be 43. Am I alone on this?

This weekend we are taking a mini-trip to Lancaster to visit the birthplace of our favorite beer. We are taking the train and staying with Dan's parents (the Ketterings, back to the muffins). It is hotter than hell in Philly. Hopefully it will be cooler out there.

Changeovers: In each row, think of the six-letter answer to the clue on the left, then remove its last letter to make the five letter answer to the clue on the right.
1) Moon indentation ______ Wooden shipping container _____
2) Soft color ______ Glue _____
3) Like a cheapskate ______ Bee's defense _____

If you are on a bike

GET OFF THE FUCKING SIDEWALK

Happy Yellow Pig Day!

It is also National Peach Ice Cream Day. But that is much less interesting!

Last night we went to El Vez for Sips. I do not understand people who go to Sips, at El Vez, with ALL those people and insist on wearing giant full backpacks on their backs trying to get to the bar. Take the bag off! You are hitting people with it! It is ugly! I know you have to carry lots of stuff with you. But now you are here. Take it off!

We met a pair of twins, Charlotte and Erin. They were very funny. Erin works for Project HOME so Matty talked to her. Charlotte is a teacher. So I talked to her. It was fun. They were drunk. I might have been drunk.

Then we went home for dinner. We made Summer Squash Ribbons with Basil, Oregano and Lemon. It was awesome! I had never had raw zucchini before and was a little skeptical. But it was a definite success. I served it with Italian bread. Mmmm . . .

I went down to the Mouse Colony today for the first time. Since my mouse tech is leaving soon I will be taking over the whole L1 side of the lab. Awesome. That includes taking care of our mice. So I got to go down and meet them and play with them . . . yes . . . play with them . . . for awhile. The little ones are so cute. There is totally a little runt that I want to take home as a pet. How would Matty handle that you think?

Word Ladder: Make your way from SHOE to COAT in only four steps, changing one letter at a time to make a good English word at each step.
S H O E
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
C O A T

I got Ronned, he Ronned me . . .

So last night I made one of the strangest things I have ever made. Well that might be going far seeing as I have made my own sausage. But it was pretty weird. So for dinner I made Aji de Gallina, or Peruvian Pepper Chicken, from Viva la Vida, my latin cookbook, which I got from Beta. Now the recipe called for aji amarillo, which we couldnt find (ok we didnt look, just assumed we couldnt find) so we replaced it with cayenne as the recipe said. And Matty was tricked into buying queso chihuahua instead of queso blanco. So I am sure those would have changed it quite a bit. But either way it was fantastic. Very tasty, great texture, very filling. It was great. I served it over texmati rice. It was really good. The weird thing is the sauce. So first you poach chicken in water. While you are doing that you make the sauce. So in a food processor you mix evaporated milk, cubed queso blanco (or chihuahua in our case), the aji (or cayenne in our case) and a sleeve of saltine crackers. Yeah. Weird. I know. I was freaked out too. But they add a really nice texture and depth and saltiness. You saute onion (I used yellow instead of red, I suck at following recipes) with tumeric and then add the sauce, shredded poached chicken and some of the poaching liquid. And then you cook for like 10 minutes and it is done. It is awesome. Let me know if you want the recipe. But it is weird to make.

While eating we watched the second disc of Undeclared. Still not as good as Freaks and Geeks, but enjoyable. This disc includes appearances by Adam Sandler; Allen Covert; Will Ferrell; Samm Levine, Natasha Melnick and Sarah Hagan from Freaks and Geeks; Kyle from Tenacious D; and David Krumholtz from Harold and Kumar. Oh and the post title is from an episode.

Is anyone else sick of hearing about McCain's apparent military-awesomeness and Obama's lack thereof? I understand McCain has military experience and Obama doesnt. I just dont understand how that makes him a better president except for the fact the majority of our energy and money is going into a war. I mean, wouldnt a better president be someone who is less interested in the military and more interested in say . . . the economy? I just think it is time that we stop electing people president because of their military record. Because if they fought in a major war, that means they are old (Obama was 14 when the Vietnam War ended, McCain was 5 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Pearl FUCKING Harbor). And if their military record is so great, fine, make him Secretary of War, err Defense.

Puzzling Prices: In the vegetable market, the prices are set according to the owner's whim. An apple costs 15 cents, lettuce costs 17 cents and a pear costs 9 cents. According to this system, how much will asparagus cost?

Happy Tapioca Pudding Day!

So do you all know that most of my titles are links? I realized yesterday that at least for me, they look the same as other titles. So I thought maybe some of you dont know? Well, now you do. Click on my titles because most of them are links!

So I got a bill (hopefully the last) from KCI, the wound-vac company. Apparently I forgot to pay my last bill. Ooops. So they want me to send them a check. I dont use checks. Who uses checks anymore? So they have a number to pay by credit card. I might as well get Southwest points for the bill right? So I call the number and the first person:
Me: "Hello, I have a bill which I would like to pay."
KCI1:"What kind of bill?"
Me:"A bill from KCI? . . . . . . Hello?"
And I get transferred, apparently.
Me: "Hello, I have a bill which I would like to pay."
KCI2:"I dont do that."
Me:"Ok, did I call the wrong number?"
KCI2:"I will transfer you."
Ok . . . .
Me: "Hello, I have a bill which I would like to pay."
KCI3:"Are you a provider?"
Me:"No, a patient."
KCI3:"Please hold."
Okkkk . . .
KCIcomputer:"We are unable to take your call at this time, please call back."
Why would they list that number ON the bill saying "If you want to pay by credit card, please call x?" I mean, has no one ever actually called that number to pay by credit card before? So I tried again today, got transferred twice and was then told to leave a message. What the fuck?

Last night I decided to make Indian. So we had Black-eyed Peas in a Spicy Goan Curry (a black-eyed pea stew) and Crunchy Cucumber Salad with Crushed Peanuts (to use some of our homegrown cucumbers). The stew had onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cayenne, cumin, coriander, the peas obviously, tomato, coconut milk, cilantro and lemon juice. It was very good. We had some issues with the coconut milk though. I do not use a lot of coconut milk because I am not a huge coconut fan. But I dont mind if it isnt too much. So the first can we bought was dented so Matty couldnt open it. So he just punched holes in the top. And the top of the milk was solid. Like . . . lard I guess? But we couldnt mix it up (and werent sure if we wanted to) because we couldnt get the lid off. So Matty ran to the store, luckily only 2 blocks away and bought another can. This one was also solid on top. We mixed it up as best we could and used it. Is this normal? Do we just not know anything about coconut milk? I have bought it before and it was liquid. Like milk. Soooo . . . yeah. But anyway the stew was very good. The salad had cucumber (obviously), serrano (also from the garden), peanuts, lemon juice, salt, sugar, cayenne and then a mustard seed tadka. It was also very good. Nice and fresh with a little kick.

A statement about someone's smarts is coiled in the grid below. To spell it out, start with an "S" and move to an adjacent letter in any direction. All but two letters will be used. All others will be used exactly once. The enumeration is 3'1 3 6 3 5 2 1 5 4
F R E C H A P
N E N H A Y P
O R F F O M E
S E Y R T A L
S H S H O X X

Puzzling

For your puzzle-ness

They Might Have Said: A simple substitution code has been used to conceal a "quote" with the enumeration 6 3'1 4 2 2 7. Work out the code to decipher the original words.
Humpty Dumpty:
16-12-5-1-19-5 4-15-14-20 3-1-12-12 13-5 1-14 5-7-7-8-5-1-4

Odd Man Out: Which of the words below is least like the others? (The difference has nothing to do with vowels, consonants or syllables.)
PLANES PAIRS MORE AVENGE EVINCE EXTRACT HASTEN

Herbalicious

Hey, so there is a new poll! This comes from something that Matty and I were discussing over lunch this weekend. What is your favorite herb? By this I mean, which herb do you enjoy the taste of the most in your food? Please leave comments and let us know why! Thanks! We will be discussing least favorites and spices later.

EDIT: I am sorry I meant to let you choose more than one, but now that someone has voted I can't change it. Please feel free to leave comments about all your faves!

Happy National Nude Day

Well let me see. Friday, Matty read my blog with the rant about him not drinking and then had Joey grill him a bit about not drinking and so he gave up the not-drinking thing. Which I am pretty happy about. I will try to help him learn when to stop drinking, but him not drinking at all is simply not the answer. We had dinner at Sidecar and then walked Tank. I wish I could just rent a puppy every now and then. I know I cant have a dog. We travel way too much and we would have to move. But I really like dogs. After walking Tank we went home and watched The Kite Runner. I thought it was fantastic. Sad but not horribly depressing. Like, I cried but not too much.

Saturday we went and walked Tank again and then checked out our garden since we forgot to water on Monday. We had 4 cucmbers ready to pick (hence the picture)! Another one will be ready later this week. And there are SO many chilis. And there are 3 peppers but they arent reddening at all. There was one ripe cherry tomato which I promplty ate and there are 3 strwberries working their way to ripeness. We then went to Marathon for lunch. We could not decide what we wanted, to we figured Marathon would be perfect. I really like Marathon when I am hungry but not craving anything. After lunch we got smoothies and then we walked up to Fairmount for the Bastille Day festival. It was cute. We were there early (around 3ish) so we were too early for the main events. But it was cute. Would have been good if we were hungry but we had just eaten. And it was SOOOO hot! Ugh. So after some wandering we stopped at Trader Joes and picked up some frozen fruit and some dinner things and headed home. Con Air was on, whish is one of my guilty pleasure faves so we watched that. We made frozen margaritas (mixed berry and cantaloupe) which were very good and had chips and guac and salsa and chicken nuggets for dinner. We headed out for Absinthe for Norah's birthday but got sidetracked along the way and never ended up making it unfortunately. One of these days I will try absinthe.

Sunday we got up and lounged a bit and then headed to Azul Cantina for brunch. The reviews I have been reading are not good and so maybe I am just way too easy to please. But I was pretty happy with it. Was it the best mexican I have had? No. Was it good? Absolutely. I had a blood orange margarita ont he rocks which was very good. Matty had a mango and vanilla margarita that was also very good. We started with some chips and guacamole. The chips were awesome and the guac was very good. Very simple, reminds me of the guac at Mixto. Then we split an order of pulled pork enchiladas (the sauce was fantastic, the pork was a little lacking but it was tasty) and chilaquiles (awesome! definitely the winner). I will go back, definitely for brunch and I want to try dinner too. then we started awandering as is our style. We headed down to South because Matty wanted a Thin Mint Blizzard from Dairy Queen. Which they dont have at the South Street DQ apparently. I had my heart set on a Blizzard though so I got a Mint Oreo one which was very good but huge! Way too much. I wish the small was about half its size. Matty went to Rita's and got a Birthday Cake water ice. It was weird. We also stopped in Got Game and Game Stop looking for Lego Star Wars for the Wii for me and some fun cheap DS games to take on our trip with us. We have been downloading DS demos from our Wii. We will probably pick up Crosswords DS. I was playing Trauma Center: Under the Knife last night which is pretty fun too. Then we walked over to the Delaware and hung out for a bit and then checked out the Hispanic Fiesta at Penn's Landing. Again I kinda wish we hadnt eaten becaus ehte food looked amazing. We went to the Goya booth as they were handing out free samples of mango or guava wafers (which matty likes) and pico de gallo and chips and juice (mango for matty, passion fruit for me). And then we tried to win Goya hats but instead both won a free Goya Product - cans of Goya Cocktail with Clam. It is like clamato. Eww! Really? Not a good prize! Oh and another thing we have noticed recently at both this and the 4th of July Street Festival. Stonyfield Farms handing out free two packs of yogurt. Now maybe it is because I am not a yogurt fan. But when I am at a street festival in 90 degree weather with 80% humidity the last thing I want is yogurt. But I guess that is just me. On our way back home we stopped at the Second Bank Museum. I had just been discussing with a labmate how we never do any of the historical stuff int he city. So we stopped in. It is interesting. Mostly a portrait gallery. Worth a stop in sometime. We stopped for a rest in Independence Square and then stopped at the gift shop at the Lights of Liberty. It is amazing what you can buy with Philadelphia stamped on it. We then headed home after a stop at DiBruno's for some pepper shooters and pepperoni and at Food and Friends for some blueberries and cheese. We sat outside in our backyard for awhile, enjoying the weather after a long day wandering. I talked to my mom who went up to my godparents' family beach house for the weekend. My grandfather is home. They decided since they couldnt find anything wrong with him, he might as well go home. And since he could walk a flight of stairs he didnt need the rehab facility. So that is good. We ordered dinner from Gianna's (Primo Portobello white pizza [portobello, spinach, onion, sundried tomato and feta] and a Steak Italiano [provolone and rabe]) and watched Jackass Number Two. As awful as it sounds it was pretty funny. Ok, it was really funny. funnier than the first and slightly less uncomfortable. I feel dirty just saying that.

Ok, then, there is our weekend. There will be another post soon with puzzles and a new poll!

Clam cocktail-worst prize EVER

This mornings harvest

Happy National Cheer Up The Lonely Day

So just a quick update. My grandfather's angiograms came back clean. Which is good. But that means they have no idea where the bleeding came from. So that kinda sucks. But hopefully they would have found something important. So they are sending him home. Or possibly to a rehab place for a few days to get his strength back.

Last night we had pan fried polenta with leftover sauce and sausage and peppers.

So following last Thursday night Matty has decided to take a hiatus from drinking. He does this periodically. Instead of just learning to drink less or more responsibly or whatever his goal is, he just stops drinking for an indeterminate amount of time. Which is awkward. Because we usually get to see our friends during the week at happy hours. Which might in fact mean we or our friends have problems, but whatever. Now I dont like drinking if Matty is there but isnt drinking because I get really self conscious. And I dont like going to happy hour and not drinking. I mean it is happy hour. I swear to god we are not alcoholics. Really. So far this week we have passed on two oppurtunities to go out with two separate groups of friends. I assume we will once again tonight. And last weekend every drink I had I felt bad about at my own barbecue. Now I am all for Matty drinking less, on occasion. But I do not want him to stop drinking. And I dont think that he drinks too much on all, or even most occasions. But it seems like he is all into this whole all or nothing thing. So I either need to get over it and 1) be perfectly happy not drinking those extra calories and be happy sitting in a bar drinking water or 2) learn to drink without him or 3) wait it out. But I dont see why I need to change because HE thinks HE has a problem and this is the best way to fix it. Which is totally selfish and shit. I know. But that's how I feel at the moment. It is kinda like his dessert thing. He refuses to have anything "desserty" except on Sundays. Which is fine, whatever he lost like 3/4 of his body weight, great. Except that sometimes, there are times when I think there should be an exception. Like if his birthday is on a Saturday and his mother bakes him a cake. He should have a piece. Or if someone comes to dinner and brings Miel Patisserie tarts that cost god knows how much or a Thursday, have some. It is polite. Ok, now I am ranting.

Find the word int he bottom row that best completes the following sequence"
STAND ABSENT EFFORT NOTICE _____
a) ARMY b) AGAINST c) DELAY d) FORGET

GraphJam Catchup

more graph humor and song chart memes

Pundit Kitchens Catchup

Catching up with some Pundit Kitchen. New love is failblog.











I HATE Lou Dobbs.

Puzzling

So my grandfather had his angiograms. Of course he has to wait for a doctor to look at them, so still waiting on results. He was there for over 5 hours, for a 2 hour test. But otherwise, no more news there.

Last night we made mac and cheese. Rotini pasta, cheddar and pepper jack cheeses, some chipotle powder for good measure, chorizo and salsa. It was uber yummy.

We watched the first 4 episodes of the first season of Entourage. It was from Matty's queue. Neither of us are sure why it was there. It wasnt bad. I dont konw anyone who watches it so I didnt really know what to expect. But it was entertaining. We will at least watch the rest of the first season.

Scramble up. In each row, think of the five-letter answer to the clue on the the left, then add an "H" to the letters and rearrange them to make the six-letter answer to the clue on the right.
1) Pie serving _____ Sculptor's tool ______
2) Last Greek letter _____ Tribute ______
3) Hill-sharer with snowboarders _____ High-pitched scream ______
4) Perfume _____ Hardly perfume ______

Sousa. What other common five-letter names or words contain the letters USA in a row?

Different Strokes. How are the words on the left different from the words on the right?
tangle garble
bring take
his hers
clock watch
praise revere
never always

Letter Swap. Deduce the secret five-letter word from the clues. For instance, the word WRITE shares three letters with the word RIGHT.
The secret word shares 3 letters with BOUGH and shares 3 letters with CHARD.

Read Me. Decode these two related words or phrases.
WELL
VILLAGE

Lost Letters. Can you find another word, besides AFFAIR that contains the the F and I as shown below?
A F F A I R
_ F _ _ I _

Lost in Translation. These movie quotations were translated by computer to another language, then back into English, with surprising results. What were the original movie quotations?
May be your strength.
Designate usual suspect as circle.
It is the failure to transmit what which we have here.
I am the lunatic, this does not think probably will already be taken with!

Happy Sugar Cookie Day!

So a quick bit of update. Last night we made a pizza with some leftover sausage quick sauce and leftover turkey, salami and proscuitto.

My grandfather was bumped from having his cerebral and lumbar angiograms yesterday. Too many people having heart attacks in Boston apparently. Hopefully he will have them done today. So in addition to the blood they found around his brain, he also apparently has a pocket of blood at the base of his spine. So when they did the spinal tap, there was blood in the CSF. And they are trying to figure out where all this blood is coming from. My parents went up to see him and my mom said he looks good. A bit bored. His headache has lessened a bit and his back and leg pains are down to more dull throbbing than stabbing. My grandmother is getting him up and walking which is good. He has been in a hospital bed now for 3 and a half weeks. He does not seem to listen to doctors. Dont know why. But so whenver they tell him anything he ignores it, so he cant really tell anyone what is going on. But otherwise he is eating fine. He likes the food from the visitor cafeteria better than what they feed him, so he makes my grandmother bring him dinner every night from there. They have ice cream. His favorite. He is trying to work through the 12 flavors they have. So yeah. That is all on that.

For matters of privacy I will only say that I have another friend with a close relative in a hospital in bad shape and I am worrying about him too. You know who you are. You know you can ask for anything. Especially dinner.

Oh and to explain the most recent poll. On the sidewalk of the South Street bridge there is a giant pile of horse-shit that I get to walk around twice a day. And so I was wondering what was correct horse etiquette. I always say that the only things on the sidewalks should be pedestrians (and their dogs), wheelchairs and strollers. Granny carts. Maybe runners. No roller skates. No rollerblades. No bikes. But what about horses? I mean does it fall into the same category as dog or bike? If it is like a dog? Shouldn't you ahve to pick up after it? If it is like a bike, shouldnt it not be on the sidewalk? I dont know. I will just be happy when I no longer have to deal with it daily.

A more light-hearted puzzle for ya:
Justin is twice as old as Martin was two years ago. In two years, Martin will be four-fifths of Justin's age. How old are Justin and Martin now.

Long weekends rock!

We need more of them. Really. And longer. Maybe 4 day weekends and 3 day weeks? please? We had a fairly but not really busy weekend.

Thursday we went to a cocktail hour/party with gorgeous views of the city from the roof and tequila. Which lead to me getting mad at Matty. And lead Matty to stop drinking for awhile.

Friday we walked up to the Festival on the Parkway. I found out that while Dr. Pepper and coffee may be ok for me now, Mountain Dew is not. We got smoothies and sat in Rittenhouse then went home and watched the Twilight Zone marathon, ordered a chicken parm pizza and then watched the John Legend concert and fireworks on TV since it started to rain. Earlier in the day we watched the first disk of Undeclared. It was ok. Not as good as Freaks and Geeks. John Legend was great. I am not really a fan, but he is very talented. We also saw one of the openers, Russell Thompkin Jr and the New Stylistics. They were AWFUL. Simply AWFUL. He, Russell Thompkin, Jr., sings like he is making fun of someone who sings too high. AWFUL. The fireworks were probably pretty good. However the coverage sucked. They had one good camera angle and 4 awful ones and they just kept cycling through them. Sigh.

Saturday we got up early and got a car and went to the Grays Ferry Pathmark. This is totally my favorite supermarket in the city right now. They sell my tomatoes! fairly good selection, good prices, not too super ghetto. So we got food and then went home and prepared for our 5th of July BBQ. We made chipotle barbecue chicken breasts (fantastic!), a toasted walnut tabouli-style quinoa salad (ehh, I wasnt impressed, but others were), vegan red velvet cupcakes with vegan cream cheese frosting and blueberries, burgers, dogs, chorizo, corn on the cob, asparagus, homemade salsa (pretty happy with it) and we debuted our homemade pickles which were a big hit and we will definitely make again. For drinks we had lager, of course and then a variety of fun Goya nectars to mix drinks with. Guanabana, strawberry, apricot, pear and passion fruit. Our favorite drink of the night - Sauza gold, nectar of your choice, Sauza margarita mix, tonic water and a few blueberries. We also had an ambrosia salad contributed that was a big hit as well. It was a nice time, though the grill was really smoky for some reason and it was very hot and humid.

Sunday we went to brunch at Devil's Alley. I had their skillet baked chili and eggs which is awesome, served with tortillas and salsa. And fried green tomatoes. Matty had the barbecue chicken salad sandwich. Then we picked up some groceries and headed home. We watched Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock? which is about a lady who may have bought a Jackson Pollock at a thrift store and has to go up against the art community to get it authenticated. It was interesting. We made nachos with the leftover barbecue chicken, corn and salsa. And played Boom Blox. I still love Boom Blox.

So I mentioned earlier how my grandfather was in the hospital because he got sick in Lithuania. Well he has recovered from that and was going to be sent to a rehab facility to get his strength back. The day before he was supposed to head there he started complaining of some leg pains. So they checked for blod clots (there were none) and then did an MRI looking for a pinched nerve. They didnt find anything until they got to his head. Where they found some blood. Not active bleeding. But blood, like he had been in an accident and had a fairly major head injury in the last week. Which he hadnt. He had been in the hospital. So doctors were concerned but not freaked out. This was last Wednesday. Since then he has had developed a headache. And has had 6 MRIs, has seen a dozen different doctors, has had a spinal tap which reveled some blood which worries the docs. He is scheduled for a cerebral and spinal angiogram today. He had some other tests yesterday but he didnt know what for. My grandmother is the bulldog, my grandfather just sort of watches and pays attention. So he didnt ask and they didnt tell him I guess. I dont know. My parents went up there last night (they were away all last week). No one seems to be freaking out, but it seems like A LOT of people are working on him. A LOT of tests are being done. And no one has any ideas. Which of course worries me of all people. I yelled at him last night, told him that I was supposed to be the medical oddity. Not him. Sigh. So that is that.

Bought our flights for our sailing trip in August! Yay! And for our trip down to Miami Labor Day weekend for EJ's first birthday! Yay!

Find a six-digit number in which the first digit is one more than the second digit, the second digit is one more than the third, the third digit is one more than the fourth, the fourth digit is one more than the fifth and the fifth digit is one more than the sixth. The sm of the fifth and sixth digits equals the first.

Martha was buying supplies for a Fourth of July barbecue. She spent half of what she had plus $5 for beef, then half of what was left plus $5 for vegetables to grill and one-third of what was left plus $10 for soda. She had $10 left for plastic utensils. How much did she start out with?

We've removed all the vowels from a well-known proerb. Can you put them back where they belong?
T H B S T T H N G S N L F R F R

What two seven-letter words that are anagrams of each other can be used to complete the sentence below?
The pretty glass _______ fell off the girl's foot, tumbled off the bridge and disappeared under the ________.

Some Body to Love: Each definition below applies to a word that begins with the name of a three-letter body part. Can you find all three words?
1) Military fleet ______ (6 letters)
2) Premature _____ (5 letters)
3) Bawdy in speech ______ (6 letters)

stumble this!

So I just downloaded and installed Firefox3 and decided to check out StumbleUpon too. And it seems like it could be interesting. So you should check it out. And add me as a friend. And . . . yeah . . .

things i have learned and things i cant

1) Good lord I need to learn when to stop drinking.

2) I need to learn how to effectively bite my tongue.

3) I can keep a grudge for a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy long time when someone does the slightest thing to me directly.

4) I dont know how to stop being friends with someone when they havent done anything directly to me. Even when they have hurt my friends. Even when people I trust (but who hate said person) have innumerable stories about how this person may in fact actually be a bad person. In the true sense of the word bad. Even when my continuing acquaintance (honestly, is that how you spell that? seems like too many a's) with said person endangers my actual friendships with other people.

So I guess my questions are? Is it fair to require friends to have or not have other friendships? Is it fair to require friends to not stand up for friends in their absence? Is it fair to stop being friends with someone based on how another person perceives (truely or falsely) that person's actions without having first hand experience? How do you stop being friends with someone? Do you just stop talking to them, ignoring them? Or do you actually say "I am not going to be friends with you anymore"? And lastly, is this really a Tuesday happy hour/night discussion?

Happy Creative Ice Cream Flavor Day

It is also of course the first day of July. Can you believe it? And of course National Television Heritage Day.

Ok, so let me see, last Friday in honor of Liam being here and to celebrate it being summer we decided to have a barbecue. Nothing fancy. Just a couple of people, some homemade burgers and sausage. Hot dogs. Pasta salad. Lager. It rained just as Matty lit the grill but stopped shortly after most people arrived. It was lovely. The rain helped cool it down some and dropped the humidity a bit.

Saturday we had brunch at Sidecar and Sue met us and then headed up to the Manayunk Arts Festival. The weather quickly got over the cooler/less humid thing. It was HOT. But there was free bottles of water, Snapple, Nantucket Nectar, vodka to be had so it wasnt that bad. The National Pork Board was there with The Other White Meat Tour handing out free pork. The Egg Beaters truck was there handing out . . . . yes! Hebrew National Breakfast Sausage links. Because what else would the Egg Beaters truck be handing out? The sausage looked like little mini hot dogs. Which isnt really what I want my breakfast sausage looking like. But tasted good. We stopped at Mugshots for some tasty smoothies and air conditioning. Our Arts festival outing was cut short by a downpour and so we decided to head back to the city. Of course it stopped raining before the train got there. Sigh. On our way back home we stopped in the Market at the Comcast Center. And to check out the giant-ass TV. It is pretty nifty in there. Fancy-pants and all. But another DiBruno's which makes me happy. And maybe my Center City working friends will have a nice new place to have lunch. Then home for some Mario Kart. Then over to Dan's for his non-work friends housewarming party. I made a taco dip. Because everyone loves taco dip. And we had a variety of grilled yummies including grilled marinated pineapple which is delicious. And frozen mocha cheesecake. Mmmmm . . . frozen mocha cheesecake. We also got to check out his brand new giant television with his brand new HD satellite TV and brand new Playstation 3. It was pretty spectacular. Matty and I need a new TV. An HD TV. Though honestly the receiver/satellite thingy is fucking enormous! I had no idea! See, I am not kidding when I say that we cant get as dish. The dish is bigger than our backyard for Christsakes. But it is very very pretty. We played a little bit of Metal Gear Solid 4, Lego Star Wars, The Simpsons Game and Ratchet and Clank. Metal Gear was the epitome of games I cant play anymore. Really pretty but way too hard. Lego Star Wars was cute, I hate the camera control (or lack thereof), but I kinda want it for the Wii now. The Simpsons Game looked cute but nothing spectacular and same with Ratchet and Clank.

Sunday Liam needed to be at the train for 9. Matty got up and walked him. I went back to bed. Once we finally roused ourselves we went on a cold cut search. We wanted good (but not ridiculously expensive) Italian cold cuts. We ended up at Trader Joe's. On the way I got myself an iced coffee. A real one! With caffeine in it. And it didnt make my sick! Yay!!!!!! When we got home we made ourselves Italian hoagies. Herbed turkey breast, proscuitto, genoa salami, hot salame, provolone, hot cherry peppers, heirloom tomatoes. Mmmmmmmmmm . . . . with leftover pasta salad. Delicious. We finished the last disc of Weeds while we ate. I am so curious about this season now! I wish we had Showtime! Then we took a walk up the dog park and bought some kosher salt. Because when we got home we made pickles! We had two huge cucumbers on our monster plant and so we decided to try our hand at pickling. We went with a basic kosher recipe because I am not a huge dill fan, dont like sweet pickles and dont own a pickling crock or jarring equipment. I think they'll be ready tonight. Last night we had to replace some of the water because it was WAY too salty. I will let you know what happens. We watched Darjeeling Limited while we ate leftover hamburgers for dinner. The movie was good. Better than Life Aquatic. Not as good as Royal Tenenbaums. I would recommend it to Wes Anderson fans. Maybe not to non-fans.

Last night I made a quick red sauce with Italian sausage, msuhrooms, red peppers and onions and we had Spinach and Ricotta raviolis from Trader Joes. Really good. Highly recommend. We also watched the last disc of Freaks and Geeks. A great show all around. Too bad it wasnt popular when it was actually airing and only had one season. Next up is Undeclared.

This morning I got my MRI results back. Apparently I strained my peroneal tendon. So I have some exercises to do. Plus ice and advil. Yay!!! This is very very good. Also I have gotten my credit card, bank card and health insurance card back.

In other news, I just found (yesterday) out that on July 21st my grandfather was admitted to a hospital in Lithuania with a (probably bacterial) infection which has not been identified. He was evacuated to Boston last Thursday and is at Mass General. He appears to be recovering slowly and will probably only be there a few more days. They still do not know what he had. My grandmother called my parents (who are on their boat) Saturday night. A week after he was originally admitted! I love my family but they drive my fucking nuts sometimes.

What two eight-letter words that are anagrams of each other can be used to complete the sentence below?
Flute player Sally found the winsome leader of her outdoor ________ band to be ________ and planned to ask him out on a date.

Supply the missing number.
30 6 6
5 11 4
7 18 5
4 5 ?

Place the same three-letter word in each blank below to make four different words.
CANTE___
HAT___
SAC___
SH___