I typically stick to these menu plans really well at the beginning of the week, and not so much towards the end. Last week was no different. I didn't feel well on Friday, so we ended up with the lamest Shabbat dinner of all time: a couple of frozen burritos, thawed in the microwave.

To make up for it, though, I cooked a nice meal on Saturday night. We had broiled steaks with sauteed mushrooms, onions and garlic; baked potatoes; steamed fresh broccoli and cauliflower; and fresh apple tart.

What will I do for this coming week? Here's the plan:

Sunday: I should cook up that cabbage before it goes bad. So tonight's dinner will be some variation on cabbage, potatoes, and bratwurst all cooked together. Also a fresh cucumber and tomato salad.

Monday: Magic Night! Make-your-own sandwich spread of cold cuts, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and buns. Also M&Ms, cookies, lemonade and iced tea. I think I'll set out a bowl of kiwi fruit, too, since I have a dozen of them.

Tuesday: Dinner at Rivendell. Bring a nice tomato & cheese salad.

Wednesday: Knit Night. Toss together a nice chef's salad for a late-night supper.

Thursday: Lasagna; fruit salad.

Friday: Thai mango chicken; rice; broccoli.

Saturday: Beef patties with gravy; mashed potatoes; green peas.

I'm posting this from my daughter's house, which is as yet unnamed. I'm babysitting Eitan the Monkey Boy while his Mommy and Daddy are out for the afternoon. Yesterday this house was filled with people for Eitan's first birthday party; now it's clean and tidy and only the pile of new toys lets you know that anything ever happened. My house would still be in woozy recovery mode, but they are in their 20's and Energetic.

Eitan looks like such a little boy now that his hair's cut, and he's acting more and more like a toddler instead of an infant. He walks fearlessly on his own, squats comfortably to pick things up from the ground, plays on his toy piano, claps hands and sings.

He loves the Kenya song. I've decided to make it one of my signature things for him: when he's with Baba, he knows he's going to hear "Where can you see lions? Only in Kenya!" Today, though, he didn't want to dance to the music. He wanted to sit on my lap, right up close to the computer screen, pat the picture of the dancing lion, clap his hands, and sing along. "LA LA LIAH!", he sang, over and over again. And over and over again. Was the song over? Oh nooooooooooooooooooez! The world was coming to an end! We must hear the song! Lions! Again! Again!

After about 15 iterations, he was ready for a bottle and a nap. Or, at least, I was. But I don't know where my daughter keeps the Scotch. Heh.

Eitan drank his bottle pretty well, but wasn't too into that "nap" thingie. Finally I stopped rocking him and set him down on the floor to play. But he was tired and crabby and not really wanting to play either. He finally fell asleep after a good 45 minutes of rocking, getting down and fussing, then rocking some more, rinse, repeat.

But now I can hardly wait for him to wake up. He has such an amazingly cute smile! And he's so much fun to play with!

Last night's improvised quiche made from leftover vegetables was so good, I want to save the recipe. The only thing I would change would be to add some cumin, I think. And more spinach wouldn't hurt -- I just threw in what I had left over.

( As near as I can remember, this is what I cooked: )

Serves four. Takes about two hours to get on the table, including prep time, cooking time, and the one hour cooling time. It was very good warm; turns out it's also good cold for breakfast the next day....

Mamie
by Carl Sandburg

Mamie beat her head against the bars of a little Indiana town and dreamed of romance and big things off somewhere the way the railroad trains all ran.

She could see the smoke of the engines get lost down where the streaks of steel flashed in the sun and when the newspapers came in on the morning mail she knew there was a big Chicago far off, where all the trains ran.

She got tired of the barber shop boys and the post office chatter and the church gossip and the old pieces the band played on the Fourth of July and Decoration Day

And sobbed at her fate and beat her head against the bars and was going to kill herself

When the thought came to her that if she was going to die she might as well die struggling for a clutch of romance among the streets of Chicago.

She has a job now at six dollars a week in the basement of the Boston Store

And even now she beats her head against the bars in the same old way and wonders if there is a bigger place the railroads run to from Chicago where maybe there is
romance
and big things
and real dreams
that never go smash.

Pop over to my latest post in the ThriftyCooking community on Dreamwidth to leave your suggestions for using up fresh vegetables before they go bad. (You can comment or even join the community using OpenID.)

Even though I ate out last Wednesday, I had already made black bean chili that afternoon. Woof ate some for his dinner, and the rest made great lunches on Thursday and Friday.

But since we were watching reannon's Kiddo on Thursday night, I thought it best to make something small boys would like -- and so we had another night of chili! This was a different kind, though, made with three assorted cans of beans and more sweet than hot.

After getting our haircuts on Friday, Woof and I felt decidedly in the mood for something salty, fattening, and quick. Bucket of fried chicken to the rescue!

Today is too hot to grill. It's past 7:00 PM and the heat index is still 103 F. We wilt, even in our new short do's. I chopped up the leftover meat that was going to be used for scrapple, added it to a pan of sauteed onion, celery, green pepper, and tomatoes, threw in some stock, spices, and rice, and called it Stew. Hi, Stew, good to know you.

This morning we picked up our AngelFood order, so the fridge is full of vegetables and the freezer's full too.

What will I cook next week?

Sunday: BBQ pork steaks, grilled zucchini and summer squash, corn on the cob, watermelon. (Note: if it's too hot to grill outside, cook these under the broiler.)

Monday: Magic Night. Bratwurst with bowls of chopped onion and pickles; melon.

Tuesday: Rivendell Night. Bring a Seven-Layer Salad and also a cucumber salad with dill and sour cream.

Wednesday: Knit Night. Bring matza toffee candy with special toppings. Later, eat up the leftovers from the fridge.

Thursday: Savory vegetable custard pie Quiche using leftover zucchini, squash, and corn from Sunday. (I knew there was a word for it! Couldn't remember it when I first posted this, though.)

Friday: Cabbage and ground beef, cooked in the crockpot.

Saturday: Fourth of July. Party at Jo and Adam's house for the holiday and also Eitan's First Birthday! Bring hummus, carrot sticks, tortilla chips, and salsa.

My amazing grandbaby is now a musician. Click for 19 seconds of a cute baby flautist:

Take a look at the listing for this beautiful mansion in Connecticut! Comes complete with four manicured acres, gorgeous swimming pool, three-car garage, just walk inside and put these sunglasses on, ma'am, you'll need them....

A few years back I was reading The Silmarillion and caught myself thinking that "these are great stories but they really need a more modern translation".

Uh, yeah.

But since then I've run into more and more good books that I must force myself to slog through due to their outdated, overly-elaborate writing style. Ivanhoe, for example. Or what I'm reading now, Uncle Tom's Cabin. I would love to see a modern rewrite of this book, with footnotes and endnotes prepared by historians. Already my own Google-fu is falling short. The slave trader offers $1000 for "young, near-white and handsome" Eliza -- what was $1000 worth in 1850's Kentucky? He says she'll make his fortune if he can resell her in New Orleans, and other slavers grin knowingly; I assumed he meant to sell her to one of the city's infamous brothels, but my initial research turns up sources that claim that most of antebellum New Orleans' prostitutes were foreign-born.

(Occasionally I am glad I'm not currently employed. If my current obsession was the sociology of duck-hunting or the domestication of apples, I'd have no problem quietly googling during the day. But it's a lot harder to explain a driving need to learn all about the antebellum sex slave trade. About which there is not nearly enough written.)

What other books could use a good "Living Bible" sort of rewrite?

It's been a fairly boring week so far. I've followed up on a few job leads, learned a new stitch that I'm using to knit up a dishcloth, and started reading Uncle Tom's Cabin. Which is a surprisingly gripping story, but such florid writing that reading is slow going. (Also, Uncle Tom himself is, indeed, much too good and saintly. Fortunately, his enthusiastic evangelism is becoming a little annoying, otherwise he'd be too perfect to be real.)

Last Saturday we spent the evening at the lovely new home of eghost and Jason. We stayed up late playing Arkham Horror with them, lefthand, and their friend Kate. Fun game and good company!

Sunday was Father's Day, celebrated at my Mom's house with most of the family. We also had cupcakes for those family members celebrating birthdays this month. I feel increasingly uncomfortable about not being able to afford to give nice gifts. Grrr.

Our regular Monday night Magic game was especially good this week; lots of close games.

But on Tuesday, nothing happened of note.

Wednesday night knitting was a good time, with lots of new people there. After knitting, I went out to dinner with the group after all. (Thanks, Tammy!) And the Triskells brought me back an Ikea fox from Chicago! This fox reminds me of William Steig illustrations, but does not look like the fox in Dr. DeSoto -- it just has so much character, though. Adorable. (Hugs fox, pets its belly.)

Yesterday was an excitement-packed Thursday. A trip to Penzey's in the morning to buy turmeric and thyme, ended with me buying powdered sumac as well and making my own zatar when I got home. Mmmmm, zatar and olive oil on bread for lunch... I spent a couple hours in the afternoon at my daughter's house admiring my grandbaby's new haircut. He now looks eerily like my Dad. He also has a new word, "clock", which he uses to describe anything on a wall that he likes. He has also learned how to fake cry, which would be a wonderful way to communicate that he's unhappy if it weren't too funny for words. :-)

Last night reannon brought her Kiddo over for the evening while she attended a meeting. I had threatened to set the boy to work hauling trash out of the basement. It was too hot and humid for that, though. So he got to watch cartoons and a movie, punctuated by dinner and much laughter over the word "scrotum". The boy is 10; "scrotum" is the height of sophisticated humor to him. I ought to teach him how to sing the chorus of the Scrotum Song. Of course, reannon would kill me if I did. Hmmm.

This afternoon, bbwoof and I will get summer haircuts. I'm seriously thinking of going very short. Maybe a retro Dorothy Hamill wedge cut?

The second line of this poem popped into my mind last night and I couldn't remember the rest of it. I was sure it had something to do with a sailing ship -- I think my mind was confusing it with "The Wreck of the Hesperus". I couldn't get rid of the poem-worm until I'd looked it up this morning and recited the whole thing.

At one time "Invictus" spoke to me, inspired. Now, though, it seems to be merely an overdramatic statement of a commonplace fact.

We are all captains of our own souls, of course we are. That does not mean we are in complete control of our lives, though. Circumstances, luck, the decisions of others, the unforeseen consequences of our own decisions, they all arrange what happens to us. All we can control is how we react to what's thrown our way.

And, like any good captain, the privilege of choosing how to react is accompanied by the responsibility of taking good care of the vessel. Mine could use a good shake-down, I think.

On the other hand, it's a tenured position, granted for life. Not everybody is so lucky, eh?

Invictus
by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Most of my posts recently have been all about menu planning. This reflects what's been on my mind most often.

See, I'm an inveterate planner. I make lists. I adore timelines. I love arranging events and projects.

And here I am, unemployed, stuck with nothing to plan!

Last time this happened, at least there was my wedding to plan, and then several repairs to the house to research and supervise. This time, bubkes.

So I plan menus. I've prepared an elaborate inventory of the freezer, kitchen pantry, and basement pantry. I track grocery prices. I've performed a Critical Path Analysis for efficiently using up all stored foods by their sell-by dates, as well as incorporating leftovers into future meals.

Yes, I have set up spreadsheets for this. With macros.

Please, please, please, all I want for my birthday is a job that will let me Plan Things!

I need to use up the food in the freezer. How did I end up with so much ground turkey?

Sunday: Dinner was at Mom's house, a BBQ for Father's Day and the June family birthdays. I made a very simple cole slaw and potato salad -- I cheated and bought Kraft bottled slaw dressing, which I used on both. To my surprise, both salads got compliments. Sometimes easy is better.

Monday: Magic night! I think I'll get pizzas from Aldi's. It's been a while since we had pizza.

Tuesday: Chicken Pilaf. Lychee Royale dessert (recipe from back of lychee can).

Wednesday: Knit Night. Don't eat out, save money. Make Crockpot Chili with ground turkey and black beans. (Use the leftover black bean soup, from the freezer.)

Thursday: Scrapple, scrambled eggs, fried apples.

Friday: Chili Mac casserole, broccoli.

Saturday: BBQ pork steaks, potato salad, green salad.

Sunday: Last day of DucKon: volunteering in Ops, watching fun old TV pilot (never broadcast); then lunch with friends, nice long together-time in the car with bbwoof, and a good dinner.

Monday: Enjoying being home again. Trying out the new M10 rules in multiplayer Magic. (Only difference noted -- lack of mana burn makes Priest of Titania BROKEN.)

Tuesday: Shopping at Penzey's with reannon. Getting lunch with her at Schlafly's, and splitting a Schlafly's shlampler. Also, splitting a sticky toffee pudding. Coming home to make a rocking black bean soup with epazote. Late at night, finally getting a twitter account.

Wednesday: Spending time with Eitan and josiosings. Getting to know a couple of newish people at Knit Night.

Thursday: Best Day of Week
Winding yarn at stlrachelknits new home and getting to see how great the apartment looks with furniture in it. Almost getting the hang of winding skeins (it's harder than it looks!). And then.... more Eitan time! Playing peekaboo with Mr. Adorable Baby. Just when it couldn't get any better.... Dinner with ithildae and _quietude_!

Friday: Sleepy day. Making yummy chicken pilaf. Looking forward to the weekend.

bbwoof and I are not used to waking up at 5:45 AM. But that's our schedule for this summer, to accommodate his early-morning Calculus class.

After the first class on Monday morning, Woof came home to quickly dress for work. As he shaved, he called to me, "Apparently, mathematics at this university is dominated by slobs".

"Ah, so you weren't the only guy there who was unshaven, wearing rumpled shorts and an old tee-shirt?", I called back from the kitchen.

There was a pause of two beats or so.

"SLAVS", Woof replied, trying to enunciate loudly and clearly despite his laughter. "The professor last semester was Romanian, and this one is Russian. Mathematics at this university is dominated by SLAVS."

We got in last last night from DucKon, and what a great weekend it was! There will be a write-up later, but first.... what do I need to thaw for dinner?

Monday: Magic Night! The make-your-own sandwich bar was appreciated last week, so I think I'll do it again. Easy to prepare, easy to clean up, and healthy. I'll make some deviled eggs, too.

Tuesday: BAST sandwiches (Bacon/Avocado/Spinach/Tomato); black bean soup with sour cream; cherry cobbler.

Wednesday: Knit Night. Skip eating out afterwards, come home for burritos with black bean, rice, and cheese filling; salad.

Thursday: Eat out with ithildae and _quietude_, visiting St. Louis from darkest Minnesota.

Friday: Chicken pilaf; jello with fruit.

Saturday: Herbed Pork Roast with potatoes and gravy; steamed broccoli; apple tart.

Sunday: Father's Day BBQ at Mom's house. Bring potato salad and cole slaw.

Erin at $5 Dinners is doing a Pace Picante Sauce give-away. Contest ends Wednesday, June 10th at 5 pm EST. Hurry over to post your entries and get a chance to win five bottles of the new Pace specialty salsas.

Two weeks ago I was part of a group of 8 friends who went out to dinner at a local IHOP. It was a mistake.

We get together for knitting and dinner every week, and used to go to that IHOP quite a lot. But after our regular server, Ashley, left them, the service deteriorated terribly and we stopped going. How happy we were to hear that Ashley was back there again!

Alas, the rumor was false. And the service was even worse than before.

The tables were sticky, the rug was dirty. The server brought half our drinks in styrofoam cups because "the kitchen was out of clean dishes". (WTF?) Then she disappeared for 20 minutes. We were finally able to place our orders, only to wait another half an hour with no food and our server nowhere in sight.

I finally got up and told a different server how long we had been waiting, was there a problem? He checked with the kitchen, came back, and said, "It takes a long time to make all those hamburgers". Only two people in our group had ordered hamburgers, and how long does it take to grill a hamburger anyway?

I should add that the place was almost empty, with only three other tables occupied.

After this complaint, though, our food came very quickly. Some of it was wrong, but we were hungry and decided to just deal. (No seasonings on the "seasoned fries", for example, no ketchup brought to the table, and my bacon was so cold it had little bits of congealed grease on it...)

Unfortunately, our server now started to hover. She dropped by much too often, interrupting our conversations to ask if everything was OK and refill the water. She started clearing plates while people were still eating off them! My friend was holding her sandwich in her hand when the server swooped in and took her plate out from under her, plopping another dirty plate down on top of the onion rings my friend had still wanted to eat.

We were then brought a bill for the entire table (no one had asked if we wanted separate checks, so we let that pass), and with the items listed on it in no particular order. It was a bit difficult to figure out which drinks and main dishes went with which person. We walked up to the cashier as a group, still figuring out who had to pay how much.

As one of my friends did her mental arithmetic, I was shocked to hear the cashier laugh at her, saying, "Do you always make your fingers dance like that when you think?"

In the parking lot, Woof and I decided that we should have responded, "If you'd ever try thinking, you might do it too."

They've lost regular service from us and from everyone we speak to.

We finally had the spaghetti last night, and it was good!

Hmmm, now what?

Monday: Magic Night tonight. Set out a spread of cold cuts, cheese, and pickles for make-your-own sandwiches.

Tuesday: Edited: No Dinner at Rivendell this week. Chef Salad, using the leftover cold cuts and cheese along with some of the lettuce, other salad veggies and hard-boiled eggs intended for the Rivendell salad.

Wednesday: Knit Night. But I'll skip eating out with the group this week, since we spent unbudgeted money at DieCon last weekend, and there will be more expenses at Duckon this coming weekend.

Edited: We're leaving early for DucKon, and I still have lots of lettuce to eat up. Another big dinner salad tonight!

Thursday: Edited: Leaving tonight for DucKon. Pack fruit and sandwiches for the road.

Friday and Saturday: Away at Duckon

On Sunday, Woof and I decided to drive down to Gallagher's in Waterloo to try their family-style chicken dinner, after reading a glowing review of it in the weekend paper.

Unfortunately, about a thousand other people had decided the same thing. They'd run out of chicken by the time we got there. (But all was not lost -- read Woof's write-up of the evening for details of the very good Chinese buffet we discovered instead.)

Woof caught sight of a small games shop in Waterloo with a "Magic: the Gathering" sign in its window. We plan to go back there in a few weeks, probably on a Saturday afternoon, to check out the Magic selection and enjoy a Gallagher's chicken dinner.

On Monday, I watched Eitan in the afternoon. At 11 months, his personality is just blossoming. He flirts -- says "hi", grins with both dimples showing, and tilts his head at an adorable angle. He calls the ceiling fan "fishhhhhhhhh", calls all toys "bah" and "balhhh", and has an insanely cute laugh that sounds just like the "coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs" bird.

He is not allowed to play in the bathroom with the oh-so-interesting toilet. He toddled up to the bathroom door and pushed on it, but it was shut. So he stood there patting on it with his left hand while madly waving at me with his right hand. I gave him my hand. He put it on the door, as clearly an adult's magic touch was needed to open the portal to the place of wonders! Fortunately he is still young enough to be easily distracted. I rolled his large green ball past him, and he toddled after it, laughing like a loon.

On Tuesday, I discovered Literal Videos. These are addicting. I have spent much too much time evaluating them for you, and have decided that Total Eclipse of the Heart is the best, but almost all of them are worth watching.

Also, dinner at Rivendell!

Today I made chocolaty crunchy matza toffee cookies with bits of candied ginger on top, for my daughter to share with the staff at Planned Parenthood. They need all the comfort and encouragement they can get. And tonight is Knit Night. The plan is for the Tribe to go to Harry's Bar & Grill for dinner later on; they're supposed to have live music on the patio. I hope it will stop raining by then.

Oh, man, this is great -- Harry James wailing on the trumpet, Benny Goodman hitting impossibly high notes on the clarinet, and the Drum God Himself, Gene Krupa. Wait for 1:53, where Gene goes absolutely crazy on the drums. How does he DO that so fast?

"Ever wish songs just sang what was happening in the music video? Well now they do..."

It's the Beatles' Penny Lane. Sung with words that describe the video. I started laughing out loud at "Horse Montage! Horse Montage! The Horse Montage!" -- and couldn't stop.



And now I kind of want a Horse Montage tee shirt.

( Monday )

( Tuesday )

( Wednesday )

All that's on the list for Thursday and Friday so far are packing the dinners.
Edited to add: Also babysitting Eitan on Thursday morning, and weeding the flower beds.

Will we ever eat the spaghetti? It's been bumped off the menu at least three times now (last weekend we fussed around and grazed on leftovers one night, instead of cooking). But I am cooking the meat sauce now, because I have faith, friends, faith that one day it Will Be Eaten.

I do not have such great faith that I'll find room for it in the freezer. I stocked up this morning on the local supermarket's loss leaders: ground turkey at $1/lb, and turkey salami at $1/lb. (Came home with 10 pounds of each. Wish I could have bought more.)

Here's what the menus are set at now:

Monday: Chicken egg rolls with sweet & sour sauce. They were good. I'll have to do that again.

Tuesday: Dinner at Rivendell. Bring a chopped salad.

Wednesday: Knit Night, eat out with friends.

Thursday: Shakespeare Festival. Bring an elegant picnic on the grass: spinach quiche, fresh cherries, apple tart, cheddar cheese, iced tea, wine. (And everything is already completely ready except for baking the tart. Woot!)

Friday: Woof is working at Die Con this weekend, as the judge for the Magic tournaments. I'll play in the Booster Draft this evening.

Bring a brown-bag dinner: Salami sandwiches, hardboiled eggs, pickles and olives, celery sticks stuffed with cheese, chips, cookies, iced tea.

Saturday: More Die Con, from early morning to midnight. Take a repeat of yesterday's lunch, and get dinner at a restaurant somewhere.

Sunday: Woof will be done at Die Con at 6:00 PM. Sunday night, we eat SPAGHETTI! (Wish me luck on this....) and not just spaghetti, but a full meal of spaghetti with meat sauce, garlic bread, broccoli, and jello with fruit.

I am heartsick over the murder of Dr. George Tiller, gunned down as he volunteered in his church on Sunday morning. This is the latest incident in an ongoing terror campaign, conducted by religious fanatics, against women and against the physicians who fight to protect women's health.

Do I take it personally? You bet I do. I have a daughter doing her practicum at Planned Parenthood, where ignorant whackos line up every day to try and intimidate women getting affordable Pap smears, STD checks, prescriptions for birth control, even well-baby checkups.

I am also a fertile woman. And I cannot imagine the nightmare of being 24 weeks pregnant and learning only then that my baby has a birth defect incompatible with life -- compounded by the horror of realizing that I will be forced to carry that baby to term, go through full-term labor to deliver an almost-dead baby, watch that baby suffer in the NICU for hours, all because religious terrorists would murder any doctor brave enough to perform a third-trimester abortion.

And I am a grandmother of a beautiful, intelligent, healthy grandson. A boy who I hope will grow up to be as compassionate and courageous as Dr. Tiller was. A boy who I hope will never know the agony of watching a mother, sister, wife or daughter suffer through a hopeless pregnancy. A boy who deserves a world in which ALL people have the right to make their own moral choices. A boy who should live in a world in which all children are as wanted and loved as he is.

I chose a picture of my grandson for this icon, because I believe so strongly in working to create that sort of a world for his sake.

There are 137 pages of condolence entries in Dr. George Tiller's guestbook. Join me in making an entry there. Join me in pledging to support reproductive freedom of choice.

There are two shows that I really want to go to this month:

The Merry Wives of Windsor, presented by the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival
May 20 - June 14, 2009

Performances 8:00 nightly, except Tuesdays
Green Show entertainment begins at 6:30
Free in Shakespeare Glen in Forest Park

This is a great slapstick comedy that's not performed nearly often enough. And it's free! In the park!

I will bring two folding chairs, a blanket, a quiche, an apple tart, and a bottle of wine. I'm thinking this coming Thursday will be a good night for it. Who wants to join me?

And then there's:

Everything in the Garden (by Edward Albee), presented by Stray Dog Theatre
June 4 – 6 / 11 – 13 / 18 – 20, 2009

Performances are Thursday – Saturday at 8pm.
The final Saturday performances are at 2pm and 8pm.
$20 Adults / $18 Students & Seniors

This is practically a Zoole family production. My brother and his wife Jen are both acting in this 1960's-era dark comedy. The artistic director of Stray Dog is my brother-in-law Gary Bell. It's being performed at Tower Grove Abbey, just a mile from my house.

Besides, it's a modern comedy of manners about money, sex, murder, and bigotry -- what's not to like?

Most times I mourn the closing of a small neighborhood business, done in by the economy, WalMart and the internet.

But sometimes I can only shake my head and wonder how such a poorly-run place stayed open in the first place.

There's a yarn and needlecrafts store about 30 miles from my house that's been running a going-out-of-business sale for the past two months. Today, in fact, is its last day in business. Earlier this week I decided to make the long drive and check it out.

I arrived 15 minutes before opening, and looked around. There was a large "SALE" banner over the door. But I didn't see what I'd expected to see through the windows. Instead of being almost empty and picked-over, the racks looked full. On the other hand, the displays in the windows were singularly unattractive: a stretched-out sweater in some godawful '80s color drooped beside artificial flowers sporting a thick coat of dust; spools of thread formed an untidy heap; dead plants littered the corners with brown leaves.

I waited in the parking lot until well past the posted opening time. Finally, I tried calling the shop number. I got an answering machine that told me how to send a fax to this number; the tape was full so I couldn't leave a message. Disappointed, I went on to my next shopping stop.

I was in the car about to head back home when I got a call from an unfamiliar number -- it was the yarn shop owner, who'd seen my number on her caller ID and didn't recognize it. She said she was just opening the shop (nearly an hour late), and I should come on by. This was well and good, except that she didn't stop at that. She wanted to talk about what she'd done over the holiday weekend, a subject that held absolutely no interest for me. I practically hung up on her. But I did go back to the store, looking for bargains.

It's hard to say what hit me first when I opened the yarn shop door -- the two excited small dogs, or the horrible odor. The place reeked of cheap, over-sweet disinfectant, much like a pink block of deodorizer in an elementary school restroom. The mild underlying doggie smell was nothing compared to this.

The reason why there was still so much stock after two months of sales was partially because the rock-bottom sale price was... all of 30% off all yarn and thread. No discounts on books, patterns, or notions. (And the original price of the yarn was about 10% more than what I'd pay for it at Knitorious anyway.)

The owner followed me about, talking nonstop (ugh), and trying to direct me to her more expensive items. There was actually one unusual and attractive yarn that I was interested in -- a slubby, handspun, chunky alpaca in beautiful colors. After the discount, it was still too expensive for me, I sighed. The owner said she'd decided just that morning to move some yarns to 50% off, maybe the alpaca could go at 50% off, how many skeins would I need, what did I want to knit with it?

Maybe a sweater, I said.

Oh, no, don't make a sweater, the owner told me, because "you're too fat to wear chunky yarns".

I did not buy the alpaca.

There was an overflowing rack of sock yarn, boxes full of more yarn at its base, with a "50%" hand-written sign taped to the top. Some of it was very pretty. I picked out several colors and took them to the counter. I'd have to air them out thoroughly once I got home, but I didn't want to have driven 30 miles for nothing.

Cash only, the owner said. I should know that a store that's going out of business wouldn't accept debit cards or credit, she said.

I use my debit card for everything and rarely have any cash on me. I did, however, have about $8. This was just enough for 2 small skeins of an attractive blue wool (just enough to make one pair of socks). I stubbornly emptied my wallet to buy it, even though the owner was rude and the place stank.

Then I drove home with the windows down, trying to blow the bad smell out of my hair. I've aired out the yarn; it was from one of the just-opened boxes so it hadn't soaked up too much cheap deodorizer and eau de chien, but it doesn't have that nice fresh woolly smell either.

I saved $8 on yarn I don't really need, and got insulted too, spending $3.75 on gas to do so. I think I'm done with bargain hunting for a little while!

From fortysomething:

1. What kind of week have you had?
2. If your boss asked you to work overtime today what would you say to him/her?
3. What are your plans for tonight and/or the weekend?
4. If you were given a gift card for $5,000 what would you spend it on this weekend? (Be specific!)

1. It's been an emotionally draining week.

2. YES PLEASE! I would love to be able to earn some money.

3. Tonight? Make soup if I can get up the git-up-and-go to do so. For the rest of the weekend, I think a lot of sleeping is in order. I would also very much like to get out of the house and go do something fun with just Woof. Maybe the zoo, or the art museum.

4. Heh. It depends on where the gift card is from, of course. If I were given $5,000 that could be spent anywhere, but had to be spent this weekend only, I'd pay off the credit cards.

If it had to be spent on something new, not paying an existing debt, I'd use it as the down-payment on a new furnace and central air-conditioning.

But if it absolutely has to be spent in stores, I guess I'd buy a big freezer and half a cow. Then I'd spend the remaining money at the supermarket on groceries, household cleaners, toiletries, and so forth.

In Israel the rains have ended, summer is drying the fields, and it's time for the early grape harvest to begin. The winter wheat, barley, and lentils have already been gathered. (With modern irrigation, there's a second crop started by now.)

Here in Missouri, it's been hot and raining every day for the past two weeks. The air is heavy with humidity.

Shavuot starts tonight, the Festival of First Fruits, one of the three harvest festivals of ancient Judea.

Tonight I miss the desert.

Tammie sent us home on Monday with two over-sized bags full of leftovers. I've changed our meal plan a little, to accommodate the leftover bounty as well as this week's sales at the grocery store:

Thursday: Spinach quiche; asparagus; chopped salad; cherry-lemon cheesecake.

Friday: Chicken, corn and potato chowder; cheese and crackers.

Saturday: Spaghetti with meat sauce (using leftover meatloaf), garlic bread, broccoli, apple cake.

Anthropology nerd humor at its finest.

Today is an eat-up-the-leftovers day. Woof made fried rice for our lunch, using leftover chickeny rice from Friday and leftover broccoli from yesterday. With fresh salsa on top, so good!

Here's the plan for the rest of the week:

Monday: Memorial day! Take a chopped salad and a 3-bean salad to our friends' house for the barbecue. Maybe make a Waldorf salad too?

Monday Magic Memorial Madness will take place this evening -- and I have 6 boxes of frozen egg rolls all ready to heat up and serve, too. (Hmmm, probably need to make or acquire some sweet and sour sauce....)

Tuesday: Tuna-mac casserole with peas, jello with fruit.

Wednesday: Knit Night, eat out.

Thursday: Shavuot tonight: hummus and olives with pita and veggie sticks, spanokopita, lemon cheesecake.

Friday: King Ranch chicken casserole, mexicali corn, chocolate toffee matza crisps with bits of candied ginger on top.

Saturday: Spaghetti with meat sauce (use leftover meatloaf), garlic bread, broccoli, apple tart.

As soon as Woof gets home from work, we're heading over to my daughter's house to watch Eitan for the evening. Baby time! Yay!

We never did get to the fish last weekend; we had too many delicious leftovers on Friday to finish up.

On Saturday we helped friends celebrate their new apartment with pizza from Racanelli's. Mmmm, New York style pizza, very very delicious indeed.

We ended up going to the Ren Faire on Sunday -- a gorgeous day for the fair! Sunny, barely 70 degrees, and lots of friends to meet there. After the fair there were errands to run, and we ended up too hungry to go home and cook. Applebee's to the rescue! (Lackadaisical service, but then, where else can you go for a sit-down meal at 10:30 on a Sunday night?)

Here is the plan for this week -- will I stick to it? Heh. Wanna bet?

Monday: Magic Night tonight! I'll serve bratwurst, and I'm making both banana bread and apple pies. (Bought too much fruit this week.) It ought to go quickly.

Tuesday: Dinner at Rivendell. I'm bringing a cold green bean salad -- no, make that a Seven-Layer Salad. Selena's made two strawberry-rhubarb pies to bring as well.

Wednesday: Knit Night, eat out with the knitters.

Thursday: Crunchy fish fillets, baked potatoes, tossed green salad.

Friday: Chicken baked on a bed of rice, green bean casserole, jello with fruit.

Saturday: Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli, apple cake.

Sunday: Leftovers.

One good thing about being unemployed is that it's forced me to rediscover the public library. I now have fifteen -- fifteen! -- books checked out! And five more on reserve.

A really good thing about library books is that you do eventually have to give them back. There are a fair number of classics, books that I know I should have read or have always intended to read, that I've never been able to get through. When I check them out from the library, they can't disappear onto a back book shelf. They sit on top of the buffet in the dining room, demanding to be read.

So I've read them. And some are good, actually.

Also, at book stores I always wander around picking up lots of interesting-looking books, but let myself buy just a couple. At the library, I can take anything that looks good, and then just bring it back. Genius!

Here are the guest books I have sitting in my dining room now, waiting to be read. Which should I read next?
( Read more... )

(Yes, I know that's just 13. I've already read Knit Two and Ivanhoe, but haven't returned them yet.)

I wanted to share with you all that Rachel at Dyeabolical Yarns is having a moving sale now through Friday at 5PM CST. If you write "I like to move it, move it" in the 'message to seller box', you'll get a 23% discount.

I love Dyeabolical's handpainted and kettledyed yarns. I don't know which colorway to get, though -- another skein of Derbygirl, the awesome Firefly, or some of that eye-popping cotton slub?

Or Cordovan -- it doesn't look like much in the skein, but I think it would make awesome socks. I need some non-colorful sock yarn so I can try out some stitch patterns that get lost with self-stripers and eye-popping brights.

crossposted to knitting

Sunday: I made two apple pies this morning and took them to the Mother's Day brunch at my Mom's house. Tonight I'll make the chicken fried rice recipe from the NPR website, and also stirfry the as-yet-unused bag of shredded cabbage with hot peppers and garlic.

Monday: Magic Night¹! I'll serve mini pizza rolls with italian tomato dipping sauce; one of the other guys is bringing a vegetable tray with ranch dip; and I might make more apple pie (just because).

Tuesday: Dinner at Rivendell². I'll bring a Pasta House salad³, and also a 'Nilla 'Nana Cream Pie⁴ to celebrate Woof's last day of class this semester.

Wednesday: Knit Night. I eat out with the knitters, Woof grazes on leftovers.

Thursday: Last week we had dinner at Rivendell on Tuesday instead of at home, so I wrapped the shepherd's pie in foil and stuck it in the freezer. Tonight we'll have that shepherd's pie. Also harvard beets and green peas.

Friday: Crunchy baked fish fillets, baked potatoes, mixed steamed vegetables.

Saturday: We're going to the Ren Faire today and will surely sample the delicious fair food. I'll make broth and BLT sandwiches for dinner.

---

1:We host a multiplayer Magic the Gathering gaming group every Monday night.
2:We have friends who call their home Rivendell. They have fallen into having a group of people over for dinner and knitting and socializing on Tuesday nights. I will bring a salad every week.
3:The Pasta House is a local restaurant chain that serves a never-ending bowl of salad. You can get limitless refills on this mix of torn romaine lettuce, sliced artichoke hearts, sliced red onions, grated parmesan cheese, minced garlic, oil, and vinegar. Mmmmmmm.
4:Vanilla wafers, bananas, pudding and whipped cream. Doesn't get much better than this.

Last Wednesday there was a new person at Knit Night -- a woman from Australia, in town for a few days on a business trip, who found out about our weekly stitch'n'bitch through the St Louis forum on Ravelry.

We shared a common geek culture! She likes Firefly, she fills in the ends of Monty Python jokes, and, oh oh oh, she has MOO cards! I can't tell you how happy it made me to know that Cathy from Melbourne and I both use cute personalized business cards from the same geeky company in London.

And yet, the internet isn't making the world completely flat. Cathy joined us for dinner after Knit Night. We went to a place that serves breakfast all day, in addition to dinner foods. Of course, we ordered weird exotic food like "grits" and "biscuits & gravy" and "toasted ravioli". She took pictures of everything!

I am still feeling all warm and fuzzy. Thank you, internets, for bringing Our Kind together from all across the globe.

So, I'm in love with an Israeli pop/world band called The Idan Raichel Project. It's made up of a guy named Idan Raichel who writes most of the music, and an international group of performers who sing it. (Most of them are immigrants to Israel.)

Here's one, with video from a documentary about the group's first African tour. The singer with the voice like a silver bell is Cabra Casay. She was born in a Sudanese refugee camp where her Ethiopian Jewish parents were waiting to go to Israel. This concert tour was her first trip to her parents' home country, so the words are especially poignant.


( Click for translation from the Hebrew )

Woof came home for dinner at lunchtime today, since he has to work until 9:30 tonight. We just had some yummy chicken pilaf. I've posted the recipe over at Dreamwidth's thrifty cooking community. It's delicious, inexpensive, and easy to cook (especially if you have a crockpot).

I'll be glad when this semester is over. His schedule has been awfully hard to live with, for both of us.

I want a Sleep Mode option for voice-mail. This is what I mean:

When you activate Sleep Mode on your phone, all calls go directly to a special voice-mail message that gives callers the option of pressing 0 to exit voice-mail and actually make your phone ring.

I would record the message to say, "You have reached Becky Zoole. I am asleep now. If this is an emergency, you may press 0 to make my phone ring and wake me up. Otherwise, press 1 or stay on the line to leave a message. Thanks for letting me sleep!"

If a caller presses 0, the call proceeds exactly the same as any other call -- in other words, if I pick up the phone there will be a conversation, but if I somehow sleep through the ring it will eventually go to regular voice-mail.

Here is why I'm thinking about this:

Woof's in finals week and is severely sleep deprived. He works full time plus overtime, and is taking two kick-your-ass evening classes. He got behind at the beginning of the semester, when Jennie was in ICU. It's been a hard slog to catch up. This week he's been up into the wee hours every night, studying and writing papers.

I was up with him until 5:30 this morning, as he finished a major project. We both fell into bed at 8:30 this evening. And then our phones wouldn't stop ringing. Geez louise, asking my opinion about a campsite is not an emergency I would want to wake up for! But there was no way my friend could have known that she was waking me up at 9 PM.

Yes, we could have turned the phones off. But we both want to preserve the "wake me up for emergencies" option. Woof's employer sometimes needs to call him at odd hours for odd emergencies. My grandbaby is sick, and I'm worried about him. If a friend or family member needed someone to help fix a flat tire in the rain, either one of us would gladly get out of bed for that too.

I finally got up after the last call, unable to fall asleep again even with so little sleep in the last 72 hours. I've been up for 3 hours. I'm still kicking around on the computer at 1 AM trying to get sleepy again. And I really, really want Sleep Option mode for my cell phone.

And now... a book meme, ganked from reannon:

1. What author do you own the most books by?
( Read more... )

33. And ... what are you reading right now?

Ivanhoe, Bowling Alone, and On Food and Cooking.

Stephen Coonts' Deep Black: Arctic Gold is the book I carry in my purse, in case I get stuck somewhere. Bill Keith wrote it.

There are a few products and websites that I get very enthusiastic about and want to go out and tell everyone about. Igigi is one of them.

If you are a woman who wears a US size 12 through 32, then Igigi is the place to go to buy dressy clothes and work outfits. I found Igigi when I was looking for a wedding dress that would fit my, um, voluptuous figure without looking like a sack. Igigi makes clothes that are attractive, high quality, and really look GOOD on large women! I've bought most of my work clothes from them ever since.

The only drawback to Igigi is that it is a little pricey. The clothing is very high-quality, so you are getting good value for your money. But it's like Vimes' boots*, you have to have some money first in order to save money.

So I am very very excited about the Igigi Sale of the Century. Take a look at those clothes. See the sale prices? From now until next Tuesday, use the coupon code SALECENTURY when you order any of these, and get an additional 75% off. So, the burgandy and purple dress that I've been salivating over? It's not $142 any more. It's not even the incredibly low but still unaffordable sale price of $56. It's only $14! Even in my unemployed and frugal state, I can pay $14 for a well-made, comfortable dress that I can wear to work next fall and look great in.

Check them out. If you've never bought from Igigi before, be sure to do the "My Shape" exercise first. The great thing about Igigi is that they understand that women of size come in many different shapes and proportions. They design clothes specifically to look good on different body types; find out how they define your body type and go from there.

Remember to use the SALECENTURY coupon code when you place your order. I'm so excited about this!

* Terry Pratchett Discworld reference; basically that expensive boots last for years, so you end up spending less per year than you would on buying cheap boots every year or so, and your feet are more comfortable too.

We live on Winnebago Street, and our house is sort of like a hobbit hole, if you look at it sideways and ignore the fact that it is above ground.

So, of course, we have named it WinneBagend.

I plan out the menus ever week and post them here. This three purposes:
* It forces me to plan ahead, so I can save money.
* It lets Woof know what to expect for dinner.
* When it's six o'clock and it's been a hectic day and we're hungry and OMG I don't know what I'm going to make for dinner, I can just check and see what I posted earlier when I was sane.

Here's what I'm planning on this week, incorporating a couple of thrifty meal ideas from NPR's "How Low Can You Go" series:

Monday: Magic Night! Six friends came over to play Magic: The Gathering with us. I served meatball sandwiches and banana nut bread still warm from the oven. Geek Heaven.

Tuesday: Cottage pie, green peas, cold canned fruit.

Wednesday: Knit Night. I'll eat out with the knitters and Woof will scarf down the leftovers.

Thursday: Chicken pilaf, cole slaw, jello with fruit.

Friday: Soup, leftovers.

Saturday: Moorish chickpea and spinach stew on rice, with fried eggs.

Sunday: Bring apple tart to brunch at Mom's house this morning. For dinner, make chicken and corn fried rice with lemon spinach.

When my daughter Jo was a toddler, she used to let me know what she wanted by opening and closing her hands, vaguely pointed in the direction of the desired thing, and chanting "Iwa! Iwa! Iwa!"

I've been looking at yarns and patterns, flexing my hands and muttering "Iwa Iwa Iwa -- oh, and Iwa this one, too".

I went to the Schoolhouse Press website to think about ordering the revised and expanded Baby Surprise Jacket pattern. A couple of editors have taken Elizabeth Zimmerman's classic, and supplied numbers and gauges for knitting it at any size, from infant through child sizes and on up to adults. It includes instructions for various different necklines, collars, hoods and pockets, too. I want to knit one for Eitan.

But what I really really want is what I saw at the bottom of the page: the pattern, and yarn, for the gorgeous "Near Solstice Lace Shawl".

It would be a bear to knit, 600 stitches wide on size 0 needles. The suggested yarn alone would cost about $70. But, oh, it's so pretty! And the shawl's triangular, so it decreases and can only get easier as you go along.... Look, look, see, see, it is a pretty thing:



IWA!

Hey, lookie here, it's a crosspost from my Dreamwidth journal to my LJ! Woohoo!

I'm beckyzoole on DW, just like on LJ. If you friend me at either good place, feel free to add me to your reading list at the other one.

I have discovered how to make me exercise: drop me off someplace so I have to walk home.

Woof came home for lunch today. Afterwards, he dropped me at the library (at my request), where I returned some books and picked up the ones I'd had on reserve. I have 15 books checked out now and I am not allowing me to place any more books on reserve until I've read at least ten of them.

The library is just half a mile from home. Somehow I never think to walk there. Walking home felt good, for more than just the stretch-your-legs value. It's a beautiful spring day today.

I discovered a little Vietnamese grocery store on the way home. It has no sign and is poorly lit, so I'd never known what was in that storefront. A bag of mixed frozen seafood is just $3 there! (Yes, it's probably pretty poor quality seafood. But, y'know, we're 650 miles from the nearest ocean here, so "poor quality seafood" is a relative term.)

I stopped at Aldi's, too, for milk and bread etc. My arms were tired by the time I made it home; next time I'll have fewer books to carry, though.

I'll have to do this again. But for now, coffee!

This week the gas people came to replace our gas meter, and the cable guy replaced our modem.

We had dinner at Rivendell last Tuesday, and Woof still needs to take it easy with his diet, so the menu reschedules:

Thursday: Chicken pilaf, jello.
Friday: Soup, salad.
Saturday: Cowboy Beans, fruit sherbert.
Sunday: Slow-cooked pork butt roast, roast potatoes and carrots, broccoli, apple tart.

Last week Woof did indeed eat many hotdogs, with salsa. But that was not the only thing sustaining him. I cleaned out half a dozen Sonic bags from the car this morning.

And now his tummy hurts. Imagine that.

What will we eat this week? Well....

Sunday: A hobbit tea party! We're eating things that Bilbo served at his unexpected party, like seed cake and scones and apple tart and salad and cold chicken and pickles. Also, tea.
Monday: Magic Night. Either meatball sandwiches or cold cuts.
Tuesday: Chicken pilaf, cole slaw, jello.
Wednesday: Knit Night. I eat out with the knitters, and Woof grazes on leftovers.
Thursday: Meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, fruit cobbler.
Friday: Tuna noodle casserole with peas, green salad, cake.
Saturday: Pot roast, potatoes and carrots, broccoli, apple pie. (I haven't bought the roast yet -- it might end up being some other roast-type meat, depending on what's on sale.)