Snowmygod

The snow just stopped.  Maybe 15 minutes ago.  And the sun is out.  Our total is somewhere around 30 inches, maybe a little more in places.  Definitely more in the corners of our yard.  When we were shoveling this morning, the sidewalks (which were a little lower than the yard) had 24″ of snow.  We spent a couple of hours shoveling the driveway and part of the sidewalk, mostly to make sure we could get the car out if we really had to.  Tomorrow we’ll tackle what fell after we quit, the rest of the sidewalk, and we’ll try to dig John’s car out.  If he can swing it, I really think he should work from home on Monday.  The roads will be terrible.  We had a plow come through sometime last night, maybe early this morning, but none since then.  Our street has at least a foot of snow.  Snow snow-snow, snow-snow-snow.  I’m tired of it.  And it’s way too deep for the dogs.  The first thing we did today was clear a path on the deck, clear the deck stairs, and shovel out an area in the yard so they could get around.  They can blaze their own paths from there, although they really haven’t this time.  They’ve stayed under the deck overhang, where the snow isn’t as deep.  Mark asked for pictures (apparently, he needs proof – Hi, Mark!), so here they are.  Maybe it’ll all disappear overnight.  I’m ready for spring!

Snow depth on the bench around 9:30 last night:

Snow depth on the bench as of about 9:30 this morning (through the sliding glass door with snow on it):

Snow depth on the bench around 4:45 this afternoon:

The back corner of the yard yesterday afternoon (3-ish, I think):

The back corner of the yard around 4:45 today:

My flower bed, buried:

An evergreen in the neighbor’s yard, yesterday:

Same evergreen, after the snow stopped today:

Out the front door this morning:

The driveway, before shoveling:

John shoveling the driveway:

The house, after shoveling (and the buried mailbox):

The neighbors, also shoveling:

And Roxy, peeing in the clearing we shoveled for her:

You’re welcome.  🙂

So yeah, we have lots of snow.  We came in from shoveling around 11:30 or so, showered, and then had breakfast even though it was after noon.  Hot chocolate (of course), cereal (Wegman’s version of Lucky Charms), and muffins.  And we watched a little TV.  Since then, I’ve been messing around on the internet, and John has been stealing cars and beating people up.  Seriously.  Oh, yeah, and we’re drinking champagne that’s been in the fridge since New Year’s.  It’s better aged.  🙂

Not the right time

So…apparently a giant storm is headed our way (meaning home, not San Francisco) and is expected to dump a ton of snow (possibly more than in December) on us on Friday and Saturday.  Margot got our tickets changed to tomorrow, so we should be home not too long after midnight tomorrow night.  I’m kind of relieved.  I think I would really like San Francisco, but I’m not on vacation and I haven’t really had time to enjoy myself.  Marjorie and I were talking about this yesterday.  Most of the time, we can’t even tell we’re in California.  We could be in any city in the country.  So since there hasn’t been any time to really sight-see, I’m just as happy to be going home early (thereby ensuring I’ll actually get home, as opposed to be stranded somewhere because of the weather).  And I’m really tired today.  This class, even though it hasn’t been stressful, is really taking a lot out of me.  I’m standing ALL day, and I just want to rest, maybe take a bath, and go to bed.  After we finished with the class today, we did a little work to prep for tomorrow, and then we had an early dinner.  We went to an Italian place we could see from the window of the classroom and split a pizza.  Good pizza, and it was just enough food.  We asked the waiter if there was an ice cream place or something like that nearby, and he directed us to a gelato place around the corner.  SO good.  I had butter pecan.  Delicious.

So tomorrow, we’re going to check out of the hotel before class and leave our stuff with them, and then when class is over, run back to the hotel, change into travel clothes, and hop in a cab to the airport.  We should have plenty of time to make our flight.  And we’re already checked in (online check-in FTW!), so we don’t have to worry about losing our seats.  AND we’re in economy plus!  Still middle seats, though.  Oh well.  I’m seated right behind Mavis, so I told her she’d better keep me entertained or else I’ll kick her seat the whole flight back.

Anyway, I really really really want to come back here on vacation and do all the touristy sightseeing stuff and eat at all the fantastic restaurants and just hang out.  But right now, I can’t wait to get home.  I’d much rather be snowed in with John (and the dogs) than stranded away from them.

Ode to a hot fudge sundae

I am SO full.  We got out with daylight to spare today (and the rain held off for the evening), so we decided to head to Ghirardelli Square and the surrounding areas while we could still see some stuff.  We made definite dessert plans (hello, hot fudge sundae at the Ghirardelli Ice Cream Shop) and just needed to find a place for dinner.  Again.  We headed for the water (less than a block away) and walked along Jefferson Street and eventually (okay, it didn’t take that long – there were signs) figured out we were at Fisherman’s Wharf.  So naturally, we had seafood.  We basically picked a restaurant at random and ended up at Tarantino’s, which was very good.  We were early (6-ish, maybe a little before), so there was no wait, and we got a table overlooking the boats in the marina.  I had prawns and scallops sauteed in all the delicious stuff (wine, garlic, butter, etc) with vegetables and rice.  SO good.  I called Mom and Dad during our walk back to Ghirardelli Square (and listened to the everyday drama of finding the other phone so they can both be on the line (I know I make fun of you, but I love that you do it that way.  I just wish you’d have the phone handy!)), but was, you know, forced to hang up on them because the banana hot fudge sundae was twisting my arm and marching me through the door.  Man, that was good.  But huge.  And I couldn’t finish it.  Madeline couldn’t finish hers, either.  She got the one with peanut butter topping AND hot fudge – they brought her three spoons.  Hm.  Maybe she could have finished it if she’d used all three.

I did well today, in class.  If I may say so myself.  No major screwups, no belligerent students (unlike yesterday, but I didn’t have to deal with them.  Myrtle did.), and when I misspoke (happened a couple of times), Mona was there to rescue me.  I wasn’t nervous at all, though, so that’s pretty cool.  🙂  I don’t think tomorrow will be much different.  Hope I didn’t just jinx myself.

Looking for dinner

I remembered why I don’t like to exercise at the gym.  Hotel gyms, anyway.  They’re HOT.  Freakishly hot and humid.  But I’m not about to go for a run by myself, in the dark, in a city I don’t know, so a treadmill in the rainforest it is.  We did go for a quite a nice walk last night, though.  Martha’s phone died Sunday night, so we walked to a nearby Verizon store and figured we’d look for a place to eat near there or on the way back to the hotel.  We saw surprisingly few restaurants at first, but we kept walking.  Ended up at Union Square (I think), found a sketchy street, turned around and headed east (I think – no, it was north) for a while, found ourselves in Chinatown, dismissed one restaurant because it was empty and smelled weird, found a really steep hill (the first one we’d seen!  very exciting), and tried to find our way back to Market Street.  We did, eventually, and we turned east again, but within about three blocks we realized we’d gone too far east on California Street (maybe in Chinatown?  nope.  Again, that was north.), so we turned around on Market and found our way back to 2nd Street.  California was the hilly street.  We had dinner at a Thai place less than 2 blocks from our hotel (it was really good and we were really hungry) and then crashed for the night.

I think tonight we’re either going to find one of the French restaurants Evelyn recommended or head somewhere famous and touristy.

Today is my first teaching day, so I have to hurry up and get ready.

Fuzzy attack

I was attacked by my sweater today.  I wore the new beige/ecru/other neutral color one I got for Christmas (Thanks, Pat!) – it’s really soft, and it fits nicely – and I realized about halfway through the day that my pants and my coat (which I have to wear most of the day ’cause we’re spending a lot of time in the freezing cold training room) were getting fuzzy.  By the end of the day, I looked like I’d been attacked by a lint trap.  So now I have to find my lint brush/tape thing and clean up.  But it’s okay.  You know why?  ‘Cause I’m having kimchi for dinner.  Ooh, I think the rice is done.

I hope John’s day got better.  He had an appointment this morning, but when he got to the doctor’s office, he found out that they canceled the appointment because the doctor had a death in the family.  They left us a message yesterday (or maybe the day before).  Neither of us has been checking messages, mostly because we’re lazy, so we totally missed that.  John checked this morning and found something like FIVE messages.  We had one from the doctor’s office, two recordings from CVS telling me to pick up a prescription, one from a recruiter, and one spam recording message.  So he was a little annoyed.  He has to reschedule (two weeks away!) AND he wasted a morning and was late to work when he didn’t have to be.  So his day didn’t start well, and he has class tonight, so unless something good happened at work, he doesn’t have something like kimchi for dinner to cheer him up.  Poor guy.

Changes

I spent several  hours today setting up 6 new versions of my website.  You’re looking at version #1 right now.  And I’m including a screen shot of it at the bottom of this post so we can all still see it when I switch to the next one.  I’m not even really tired of the original version, but I thought I’d test a few new ones and see if I (or we – you have some input) like them better.

So this is what I’ve been doing for the last 5 hours or so.  We slept in (’til about 10:30) ’cause we stayed up late.  We watched Adaptation and then had to follow it with Modern Family ’cause the movie was so weird we needed to cleanse our mental palates with something light and funny.  And easily understandable.  It was after one before we went to bed.  We got up late, watched the first two-hour episode of Caprica while eating breakfast, and then we set up on the dining room table with our laptops again.

I was supposed to go to the grocery store today, and when I have to stop there on my way home from work tomorrow, I’m going to be really annoyed I didn’t do it this afternoon.  But right now, I’m very happy I didn’t go.  All we have to have before dinner tomorrow is stuff for breakfast (we have plenty for lunch), so when I go out to pick up dinner for tonight (yeah, we don’t have tonight’s dinner here, either, so I guess what we really have to have is breakfast AND dinner), I’ll swing by the Giant right next to the Indian place (’cause we’re having Indian for dinner – yay!) and pick up some cereal.

Then we’re in for the night.  And I’m getting pretty hungry, so all of that is happening very soon.  After I shower.  We did one of those lazy Sunday things and rolled from bed to couch and breakfast, and from there to the dining room and our laptops.  Didn’t shower, didn’t get dressed.

And Roxy just threw herself at the sliding glass door, so I should go let her in.  Enjoy the new site (and let me know if something doesn’t work)!  I’ll leave it this way for a day or two and then switch to the next one.

Life is hard

I’m so conflicted!  I’m home, with probably at least an hour before John gets home, and I can’t decide how I want to spend my time.  I want to curl up in the papasan chair in my new cozy library and read my book (it’s really good, but sometimes a little dry), but I also want to mess around on the internet and visit all my sites and blogs.  Wait!  I might be able to do both.  Read now, surf later.  After dinner, John will probably want to play his guitar or work on the book database he’s building for us, so while he’s doing that, I can climb into bed with my laptop.  Problem solved!  I’m off to read.

One side note, totally unrelated: we’re out of broccoli and I want to have a salad with ravioli tomorrow night, so I went to Bloom after I got home.  They’re closing!  Everything is on sale, and they’re not restocking the shelves.  And apparently this has been going on for a while, because the store is half-empty.  Meaning no produce.  So I couldn’t get broccoli or lettuce or anything like that.  But I found this Green Giant potatoes and green beans steamer thing, so we’ll try that with salmon tonight.  I’ll have to get my salad stuff from Wegman’s tomorrow evening.  I know, fascinating.  I’m done with you people.  All critical and stuff.  Good day!

Mmmkay…

My day started with a broken nail.  Is that not the saddest thing you’ve ever heard?  No?  Fair enough.  The day improved after that inauspicious beginning.  It wasn’t a great day, but it was okay.  With very little stress.  I seem to be having a string of okay days.  Actually, my day started at the doctor’s office with blood work.  I drank a ton of water this morning just to make sure blood would actually come out of my veins this time (even though I know I did that last time), and sure enough, no problems today.  Even with a new person wielding the needle.  It was quick, it was easy, I chatted with my doctor for a little, and I was at work by 8am.  Then I broke my nail.  And I spent much of the rest of the day sprinting to the bathroom (three full glasses of water in about 45 minutes will do that, and I drank some coffee this morning, AND I drank more water after that), which is at the other end of the building from me.  But I left work just after 4, so it was all worth it.

Dinner tonight: stir-fry with broccoli, mushrooms, and chicken, sauteed in olive oil, a little soy sauce, and minced garlic.  SO hungry.

Catching up with myself

Some things I meant to talk about and kept forgetting about:

  1. I finished Pope Joan a couple of days ago.  Really liked it.  It was one of those books Mom sent me.  She usually sends good ones (there have only been a couple bad ones), but for some reason, I resisted this one.  I’ve had it for several years, but never wanted to read it.  Never had a reason not to read it.  I wasn’t being rational.  It’s good historical fiction.
  2. I started reading Anathem, by Neal Stephenson.  This is another one I was putting off.  Partly because it’s huge and in hardcover.  Huge is never a turn-off for me, but huge and hardcover makes it hard to carry around (and I do tend to carry my books wherever I go).  Now that I have a short commute and absolutely no possibility of reading at work (not that I ever did that…), I won’t be as tempted to carry it around and I can just read it at home.  I’ve really liked everything else Neal Stephenson has written, and I’m enjoying this one, too.  Except for one small thing.  It really is a small thing, ’cause it’s not keeping me from enjoying the book.  It’s just a minor annoyance.  Science fiction and fantasy authors, fantasy in particular, have a tendency to make up words.  They think it’ll help the reader immerse herself in this alien/fantasy world.  Sometimes they’re right.  When it’s done well.  Often, they’re wrong.  Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, in their introduction to the novel Nightfall (a book I LOVE), addressed this directly.  They pointed out that this story takes place on an alien world, and while they could make up terms in an alien language to use when referring to hands, shoes, dogs, etc, they’d rather just write hands, shoes, dogs, etc and save the reader the confusion.  That’s the way I prefer it be done.  Make up a word (or merge a couple of words to make a new one) when you need to refer to something that doesn’t have an equivalent in the real world, but otherwise, stick to English.  Makes sense.  And it makes for some really good writing.  (I wish I could have met Isaac Asimov.)  Neal Stephenson, in Anathem, seems to be going too far the other way.  He seems to have made up words where it’s not really necessary to make them up.  It makes me work harder to figure out what’s going on.  I shouldn’t be confused.  I’m sure (really, I am) that once I get past the learning curve here, I won’t notice it, and I’m equally sure that the payoff for all this work will be worth it ’cause I’ve read his other books and they’re always good.  But generally, don’t make me work so hard to decipher what should be English!  Last I checked, English is my first (and only, but I’m working on that) language, and I’m pretty good at it.  Carol Berg, in the two books I just read by her (Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone) is in the middle.  She made up a few words where necessary, and they worked in the story, but then she’d make something up completely when referring to units of measurement.  Why?  I don’t know.  But I’d be reading along, everything’s fine, and I’d stumble across “quellae” when she mean inch or mile or something.  (Yes, I’m aware there’s a big difference between an inch and a mile, and in context, there was no confusion.)  Why would she do that?  She said horse when she meant horse, wagon when she meant wagon, monk when she meant monk.  Why not mile when she meant mile?  Or league?  Why those words and not other basic words?  But again, I really liked those books.  The stories and characterization were well worth the occasional stumble.  But it could have been better!
  3. Apparently, I was just itching to talk about that.
  4. We watched Grace is Gone Saturday night.  What a depressing movie.  John Cusack is in it, which is why I DVR’ed it in the first place, without really looking to see what it was about.  John (my John) warned me that it was sad, but Saturday was kind of a sad day for me anyway (no particular reason – I was just blue), so I figured it was better to watch a sad movie when I’m already sad rather than make myself sad on a happy day.  Oh, I cried.  And then I cried some more.  And then I was like, “Why are you doing that, John Cusack?”  And then I cried some more.  And then I made John (my John) promise he wouldn’t die.  Did I just give something away?  Nah.  That’s in the description of the movie.  Stupid movie.

Salmon tonight, with horseradish cream sauce (courtesy of Wegman’s, naturally), broccoli, and mashed potatoes.  Apple noodle kugel for dessert.  Unless I have a banana nut muffin instead.  Tough choices.

The gewurtztraminer is attacking!

I’m in the middle of cleaning out the fridge and cleaning up the kitchen, dining room, and family room.  I pulled the gewurztraminer out of the fridge and put it on the counter, planning to pour it out.  This is the one from New Year’s Eve that we didn’t like.  Had an odd finish.  Aftertaste.  Something.  Whatever it was, no one liked it.  Anyway, a couple of minutes ago, the bottle was sitting on the stove, and I was in the dining room.  I heard a small POP, and then I saw the rubber Rabbit wine stopper (try saying that five times fast) fly through the doorway into the dining room.  I assume it heard that I was planning on pouring it out and decided to strike first.  I don’t want to find out what its second plan of attack is, so down the sink it goes.  For future reference, this was the Fetzer gewurztraminer.  I don’t recommend it.

The band is practicing in the basement (so I get to sing along to “Drive” (originally by Incubus) and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” (Green Day)), and I want to have the island cleared off and the kitchen clean (at least) before they come upstairs, so I gotta go.

End of big day

My big day went fine.  Nothing particularly exciting, but that’s totally okay.  It was busy and full of new stuff, and I think my head is going to be stuffed with information that I need to retain and be able to explain to others, but how can that be bad?  Before it gets boring, I mean.  🙂

Oh, I lied.  Something exciting DID happen.  I got a Blackberry!  I have a brand new Blackberry Curve, and I don’t know how to use it.  🙂  It came with my email set up already, so I don’t have to worry about that, but I don’t even know what the number is OR where to find out.  I’m reading the manual and going through the tutorials.  I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.

I’m making salmon for dinner, and unwrapping the white paper packaging reminded me of how much I love the people who work behind the counters at Wegman’s.  Sunday, I had a funny conversation with the fish guy after he convinced me to buy this salmon instead of that salmon (better quality and cheaper, since it was priced by weight and not by piece) because my wearing a Boston College sweatshirt without ever going there reminded him of the time he wore a Sharks sweatshirt (not because he’s a fan, but because it was comfortable) in Pittsburgh and got snarled at by someone who was decidedly NOT a Sharks fan.  His joke in reply (“What are you, a Jet?”) went over the other guy’s head.  Anyway, he was a big guy, broad shoulders, big gray mustache, very loud.  A few weeks ago I got into a 15-minute conversation with the guy at the kosher counter.  I was buying kugel (potato and noodle) so I could check out their recipes (they make a delicious apple noodle kugel).  He talked about his mother’s kugel recipes, then latkes, then matzo balls, then about his grandkids, and how he’s a little annoyed (but in a good-natured way) that he’s expected to cook for everyone at home all the time when all he does all day at work is cook.  But his grandson asked him, so he did it.

I’m cooking and John’s home and I want to play with my new Blackberry.

Update: Roxy had another seizure just before 11pm.  I should have seen that one coming.  She’s had two seizures in one day that last couple of times, too.

A little nervous

Not a lot nervous, but it’ll be interesting to see how well I sleep tonight.  I had my nails done today and managed to screw two of them up before I even left the salon.  Good timing, actually, since it was easy for my manicurist to fix them.  And I love my manicurist.  She was nice, we were able to have an actual conversation, and it wasn’t a big deal when we weren’t chatting.  Comfortable silence.  I will definitely see her again.  Assuming I make manicures a regular thing, which is not a given.  But I really do like how my hands feel now.

Tacos for dinner, so gotta go cook.

Hooked and feeling good about myself

I left the house today to go to the Ann Taylor at Reston Town Center, and as I passed my reflection in the windows of the other stores on the way, I was pretty happy with how I looked.  I was wearing my black boots with jeans, my black peacoat with my big green scarf, my new cute earrings (bought in Easton with Jess last week), and my fabulous new haircut, and I felt fantastic.  That lasted until I got home and ate brie and crackers AFTER my lunch of sushi and gyoza.  The brie and crackers were totally unnecessary.  But my earrings and haircut are still fabulous.  🙂

Hooked.  Overall, it was good.  We got there and mentioned to the hostess, while asking her to take a picture of us, that it was our anniversary.  So she seated us, and our waitress showed up a minute later, breathless and apologetic because she was afraid we’d been sitting there for several minutes before she noticed.  It had only been about one minute or so, so we let her off the hook.  🙂  1st good thing: bottles of wine are half off on Mondays.  It was a Monday.  2nd and 3rd good things: we each ordered a cup of soup.  Lobster bisque = fantastic.  She-crab bisque = really good.  John ordered scallops over pasta.  I think he really liked them.  The bite I had was very good.  Sadly, my mussels were just okay.  John tried a couple and got some bad ones.  (He’s fine.)  Mine were all fine, but the sauce they were in didn’t do much for me.  We decided to skip dessert and take the rest of the wine home (screw top), and when our waitress came back with the check, she had a bag that said “Happy 9th Anniversary” on it.  The bag had our bottle of wine and a free chocolate torte!  So she got a big tip.  🙂  And we had dessert when we got home.  Very good torte.  So those were good things 5 and 6 (4 was John’s entree).  We’d go there again.

Home again, home again, something something

And also, happy anniversary to us!  John and I were married nine years ago today, which makes me feel old, and at the same time, makes me think, “HOLY CHICKEN MARSHMALLOW BALLS (tm Dooce) we were so young when we got married!”  That might not have been the exact wording of that thought, but you get the idea.  And I like that phrase.  🙂

I just came back from my first pedicure in….well, more than two months for sure.  I don’t remember exactly when I last pampered my feet.  It was definitely before we became, ahem, monetarily challenged.  My new job starts in exactly one week, and I need nice-looking feet.  Well, I don’t need them, but they sure make me feel more prepared.  I’m putting my manicure off until this weekend (I really do need nice-looking hands) because a whole week would give me way too many opportunities to screw up my nails.  No one at work will actually see my feet until summer when I can wear sandals.

I have a very busy (and short) week.  I need to buy clothes (yay for after-Christmas sales!), get a haircut, fill out paperwork for my new job, prepare for New Year’s Eve (clean and shop), and get as much filing done as possible.

Anyway, so today is our anniversary.  Maybe I’ll remember my camera and manage to take a picture of the two of us at dinner.  ‘Cause we’re going out to dinner.  We’re going to Hooked, a seafood place I’ve been dying to try ever since our buddy Jeff first told us about it.  It’s been at least two years since he told us about it, and there’s no good reason why we haven’t made it there in that ridiculously large amount of time, but – look, we’re going there tonight, so back off, okay?  🙂  They have mussels.  I love mussels.  I’m having mussels for dinner.  Yay!

Kimchi!

I don’t feel like I did enough today, and I think it’s because I didn’t run.  I got out and ran some errands (bought a new thermostat, got the oil changed in my car, had copies made of the house keys for the new pet sitter (who we’re meeting tomorrow)), so I was at least, you know, active, but I feel like a slob.

Dinner, while delicious and healthy (kimchi, rice, lettuce wraps), was painful.  I have a cut on my thumb, just under the nail, and the rice vinegar and soy sauce in the kimchi hurt a lot as it ran over my hands.  Which happened with every bite.  John eventually gave up on the lettuce wraps and just ate rice and kimchi with a fork.  Next time I’ll make sure we have chopsticks.  This is the second time I’ve made kimchi (using Mark’s recipe – good recipe, Mark!), and it turned out pretty well.  John has already eaten most of the non-spicy batch I made for him.

Tomorrow Jess is coming over, and we’re going to see the Canadian Brass Christmas concert at George Mason.  John surprised me with tickets for this concert last year at the Kennedy Center.  He’s pretty good with surprises.  And the concert was great, so I’m very excited.  And Jess is coming over!

Fortune cookie

Almost forgot.  We ordered Chinese for dinner tonight.  My fortune says,

“If you wish good advice, consult your mother.”

John’s answer,

“Betty, where can we get good advice?”

Smartass.

(His fortune said, “Spirit guides accompany you.”  He didn’t have anything funny to say about that.  And you know I can’t be funny on command.  Help?)