Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

It’s reached the point in the year where frozen berries in the morning smoothie are no longer just a tasty addition (fruit! vitamins! flavor!), but a necessity (cold!). Better tasting than adding ice cubes, but still good at bringing the temperature down, post-workout.

I’m trying hard to be stoic about the fact that I live in an older building with a combined either-or air system that hasn’t yet changed over to cooling, despite 90 degree temps over the weekend and the next two days. I’m trying, but I daresay not succeeding terribly well. Let’s hear it for unseasonably warm temps after unseasonably cool temps. Not that I’ve run the heat in the past month, but hey. It’s made sleep somewhat elusive, as it does every year when this happens (and it does happen every year, which is why I’m trying to be stoic; I’ve had to deal with it for a decade now, so you’d think it would be easier). Hopefully the run this morning and a swim this evening will help with that tonight.

Speaking of the run, on my run this morning I saw: 1. lots of pollen; 2. the sun rise over the Washington Channel; and 3. a Decepticon sticker on the hood of a parked car.

I have a love-hate relationship with pancakes. Love to eat them, hate to cook them. Or, rather, I always feel inadequate when cook them. I’m just not terribly good at the whole flipping them over part. At least not when cooking more than one in the pan, which is a necessity if you’re ever going to get done in time to actually eat the things while they’re still hot. This morning’s batch ended up with two cakes that only made it half way over before they fell off the spatula.

Part of it this morning was a new spatula I’d picked up this week, one coated in silicon rather than the usual plastic ones I’ve had. I discovered that the plastic ones were melting on the end (ewww!), and I really didn’t want to suck in more plastic than I probably already do. I’m pleased to report that the silicon spatula did not melt. So far. Even if I’m still not fully up on the whole flipping thing with it yet. Maybe I just need a larger pan. I definitely need a new pan; the one I have now is cheap, and slightly warped (I doubt that helps much with the flipping).

But even slightly folded, the pancakes were still quite yummy.

Another reason it’s good to keep a clean kitchen: so when you drop 1/2 the coffee you just ground, and don’t have enough to grind more, you can reasonably assume you won’t make yourself sick as you scoop it off the counter and throw it in the pot anyway.

I must be mellowing in my old age; I went to a Superbowl party at a neighbor’s apartment, actually watched large segments of the game, and didn’t hate it. Made veggie chili which was well received, even if it was a last minute “OMG, I totally forgot that I need to cook something for the party and what can I scramble together out of the cabinets” type affair. And hey, I got rid of some of the five gazillion tomatoes I have in my freezer courtesy Mom & Dad’s garden.

Not looking forward to another week of 9 am meetings, but you do what you’ve got to do. At least I have a core training class to look forward to tomorrow evening after work.

Despite my declarations that I would be holed up inside my apartment until Wednesday morning, I did wander out into DC today to grab lunch with Chris up in Columbia Heights. Our first choice of restaurant was packed to the gills with a line out the door (at 1 pm, mind you), and the second choice had a 45 minute wait. We took the 2nd choice and zipped over to Best Buy to waste some time (setting a phone timer so we would know when to wander back). Got in relatively quickly after we returned, and had a perfectly nice lunch (not-quite-screaming-but-just-occasionally-fussy-baby notwithstanding).

The city is just abuzz. I haven’t seen it this packed in ages, and everyone is just full of this energy surrounding the inauguration, it’s wild. The Metro was busy, but not insane. Lots of “Is this our stop? This is our stop! Quick, get off the train!” type conversations going on, but for the most part folks were getting tickets and getting through the stalls pretty quickly and not being obnoxious about getting in and out of the cars and generally not being in the way. I am, however, glad I’ll not be going anywhere near Metro tomorrow. As busy as it was today, with 8 car trains and all of them relatively busy, tomorrow will promise to be a madhouse.

I’m glad I went out today, it was neat to see all these folks who are so excited to be here.

Had Chris over today to help me cull my clothing collection. 20-odd T-shirts went out, as well as polos, button downs, and others. Much space was made in the drawers and in the closet. All in all, four paper grocery bags got filled with neatly folded clothes. Also found some items I shall offer to my brother for his daughters (blankets our grandmother made, etc.) so perhaps they’ll get use rather than taking up space in my closet which could be better used.

As an enticement to come play fashion critic, I offered lunch. The menu, from The Voluptuous Vegan, was pomme frites, a roasted garlic and herbes de provence aiolï, citrus and cucumber salad, and a provençal stew with couscous. Was tasty, though the pomme frites could have been better (they kept sticking to the paper, making it difficult to turn them when needed).

Finally cleaned up all the dishes (thank heavens I was cleaning as I went along or I’d never have had room for it all), and inventoried and bagged the culled clothing. Relaxing now with a glass of the pinot grigio I opened for use in the stew, and enjoying not having any more dishes to clean. It did push home the need to replace the blinkin’ dishwasher, though – doing that many by hand was trying, and not good for my hands (yay eczema).

Got the boys on their way just now. A quick, but fun visit with them.

When they were on their way here yesterday I asked Kelrick which cuisine he’d like, and got back an enthusiastic “Indian!” in response. Dragged them up to Adams Morgan and one of my favorite restaurants, Jyoti, where we all managed to quickly inhale a good appetizer sampler and the three dishes we ordered. Kel couldn’t stop raving about how much he loved the food – seems it’s difficult a) to find good Indian food in Houston and b) to get suthunuhs to go eat it when you can find it. So that was a lot of fun.

Next we wandered through Dupont and past the 17th St strip to Halo where we were confronted with the frou-frou drink menu from heck, compounded by the bar tender from heck (there was a modicum of attitude there, which his cheekbones, while impressive, did not warrant). Kenny and I ended up getting the blueberry lemonade, which was something of a production (they crush the lemon and blueberries in the glass in front of you), but which was very tasty and sweet. Kel had a blueberry vodka and 7. Thankfully for all involved there was couch space, which we grabbed, and as the alcohol took hold we slowly started commenting to each other on the crowd (I so love being gay just for that little bit of gay cattiness among friends). Brian and Fredo showed up after a bit, with a couple friends, and a little more talking was done, but the three of us were starting to feel a bit worn out by that point, so we got our 2-4-1 special refills and once those were done relinquished the couch to the other boys and caught a cab back to my place.

The plan this morning was for a 5:30 wake up, but a car alarm at quarter to 5 killed that, and when they heard me wander up to the bathroom shortly thereafter they went ahead and started breaking down the spare bed. Got ’em set in the moving van, and they’re off. I’m debating going back to bed, but it’s so warm outside that the apartment is a bit uncomfortable for sleep (and the downstairs neighbor must have been smoking cigarettes – had to light a candle in the bedroom this morning to try and kill the odor; yuck, but at least it wasn’t pot). Cooling the place down first with some cracked windows, then we’ll see about more sleep.

Took a sleep aid last night, and for the first time had a bad reaction to it. Woke up groggy this morning, went in late, and by noon I hadn’t really woken up, despite coffee, so I went home and napped. Oh, and while on the way to work I managed to leave my badge at home, so I returned to get it rather than go through the rigmarole that work inflicts upon you when you forget it. Nothing like walking back and forth to Metro twice. Totally not my day today.

Once I got up, I did go swim this evening, doing a mile once all was said and done. Felt good to get moving again, and I think it worked the last of the stuff out of my system. What a mess. Won’t be using that again any time soon, which is a shame, because it had worked okay before.

On an unrelated note, if clementines were more readily available, I’d eat more fruit on a regular basis. Love those things, was happy to see them at Safeway on the way home from the pool.

All in all a very good Thanksgiving day. Was nice and quiet for most of it. The store this morning was uncrowded and uncharacteristically quick to get out of. The cooking went well, and I took the better of the two batches of cupcakes with me (made 2 dozen). Unfortunately I’ve broken a ring on my icing piper, so it was slathered on by spreader rather than piped nicely, but they did fine.

Side note: I really, really want to make the margarita cupcakes I found in the cookbook while flipping back to the buttercreme frosting recipe.

The dinner itself was fantastic. I took a zucchini risotto as well as the cupcakes (the mushroom selection stunk, so zucchini it was). The bird came out perfect, which the host was rightly proud of. He also thoughtfully saved me a batch of potatoes sans butter/milk, which was much appreciated. The other selections were equally tasty, with lots of good vegetables.

Some Wii was played, and I set Jon’s Wii up (he hadn’t played with it since he’d moved – in June). Next thing you know he’s going to be getting messages via the Wii from a certain someone who will have him registered here shortly. Bwhahahaha. We did warn him what the blinky blue light on the front means now, too.

Got the kitchen cleaned up just now after getting home, so no mess in the morning. Off work early tomorrow, and will plan to stop by the gym after that, swim, and hand in my receipt for the new shoes & lock. Wonder how they’ll do the credit.

Got the news that early registration for the Nation’s Tri opened for DC Tri Club folks, so signed up for that tonight. Hopefully with the stretching I’ve started doing on my feet will keep the PF under control, and keep it from recurring, and I’ll be able to do the race this time around.

Picked up replacement shoes (shower and gym), as well as a new lock this evening. Both pair were on sale, which is always good even when someone else is paying. Still, the replacement costs is going to be almost as much as they make from me for a year’s worth of locker rental fees.

Quiet night. There are happenings around town, but I got home from the shopping, laid down for a quick nap and woke up an hour later feeling pretty cold (for no apparent reason), so I stayed in and behaved myself. Earlyish morning tomorrow to pick up some last minute food needs for tomorrow night’s dinner, then it’s some cooking and some time spent in Crobuzon (aka my town in Animal Crossing: City Folk) before I zip down to Alexandria.

Friday in the office should be nice and quiet (I hope!). I’d like to get filing done and clear a ton of shit off my desk.