out of the frying pan...
...and into the deep fryer!!
Leah got me a deep fryer for Christmas, so our arteries are hardening as we speak. So far we've experimented with fish and chips and fried chicken, and in both cases it's like a miracle to watch whatever it is we drop into that oil turn into, like, real fried food! Golden and crispy and everything. Wonderful. The only problem I have now is, what do I do with all the gross chicken-saturated oil? I suppose I could reuse it, but after it was heating for three or four hours and cooking fried chicken and chips for ten people for our giant (for us) New Years fête, it is rather darken than it started out. About the color of good-quality maple syrup, in fact, which I think is not what you look for in your canola oil.
The other awesome Christmas present from Leah serves, I suppose, to counteract the fryer. She got me a pair of snowshoes, and so I wouldn't feel lonely out on the trails, she also bought one for herself (and wrapped it up under the tree, natch!). Of course, the snow has been melting away since Christmas, but we still got some good use out of the gear already walking the dog through the trackless wilderness across the street. I anticipate many more wonderful snowshoe miles to come!
There were lots of other great things about Christmas (and New Years too, probably) but I forget all of them.
post-Christmas decorations
I was walking Rascal this afternoon when I noticed a curious object in a neighbor's lawn. I guess it must have been one of those giant inflatable snowglobes, but if so it had clearly been borne down by the actual snow which fell the other day, because now it stood as nothing more than a foot-high mound protruding from the icy surface. In fact, it looked alot like a piece of ice itself, the surface lumpy and mottled with snow. And inside? A red-suited figure lying sideways half-buried in snow. I guess that's what Santa does now, hibernates or something, that the season is over. It's certainly cold enough: I don't think it got much above 15° today. It may freeze our noses shut, but on the other hand it solidified the snow up nicely so now we can walk through the woods with ease!
this year's "end of christmas" post
We took down the tree, and all the Christmas treats are eaten up. The twelfth day of Christmas has passed, as have the potential 13th and 14th days now. Along with Christmas, we seem to have moved out of winter as a whole: today it was too hot to wear even a sweater in the middle of the day. The snowpack is melting fast. It's time for St. Patrick's Day!
what once was lost now is found
The snow's miraculous melting has revealed all sorts of things strewn about the yard. I'm happy to see Rascal's toys: we've been missing them for a month, and resorting to throwing old-fashioned sticks for him in their absence. Less exciting is the layer of deer poop. And it's all the digested leaves of my very own bushes!
Stupid deers.
only outlaws will have pies
It's just like Prohibition, only worse! The city of Boston is moving towards a ban on trans-fats, the latest bugaboo of the self-righteous nanny-staters.* It's true that trans-fats aren't the most healthy food choice, but they make fried chicken crispy and pie crusts flakey! In other words, without them your life may be longer but will it really be worth living? I don't think so.
Luckily, they're only planning to ban their use in restaurants, not in home cooking (not yet anyways!). While I'm pleased to imagine underground pasty clubs where the chefs still use lard in their crusts, the ban won't affect me because I never eat out in Boston if I can help it. Still, it's the principle of the thing. They can have my Crisco when they pry it from my cold dead hands! (which will actually be pretty easy at that point, because of the grease and all...).
*Complaining about the nanny state makes me feel so dirty inside. I'm not a conservative, I promise!
a lot of folks.
I still occasionally visit the webboard that brought me onto the internet. I did this evening, and a thread caught my eye: the premise was the creation of album covers based on text and images randomly selected from Wikipedia and Flickr. The results are delightful. My first try is after the jump. It came out alright; I'd totally buy it, based on the cover alone. The music is kind of alt-county Americana, I think.
assult and battery
I had to write that title, I just had to. Leah\'s battery died when she was at the gym this afternoon, and despite the efforts of a number of helpful fellow gym-goers with jumper cables she was unable to get it going again. Luckily she has a husband who\'s home all day! Also, I can pretend to know what I\'m doing with the auto repair. It only took one new battery, a bag-full of tools, and two scraped knuckles; now the machine is running like new. It also helps that we have an auto parts store about four minutes from our house.
One observation I have to offer: they make it alot more difficult to get at the battery in a hip sporty 2002 Jetta than they do in an elderly Subaru wagon.
formulae
Tonight we're taking care of Freckles, our former roommate Ashley's Saint Bernard. Which reminds me. The other day we were walking in the snowy woods with Ashley and Freckles and a gentleman on skis stopped to comment. "Where's his barrel?" he asked. Ashley was able to tell him "he already drank it" without even a pause for thought, having heard the same inane question about 500 times before. Of course, the gentleman could very well have asked the question without thinking himself; surely he didn't imagine he was the first to utter it.
dream
Don't just remember Martin Luther King Jr. one day a year, even if that's the most often he is noticed in these pages.
oh, the pain of it all
I know it's boring to talk about my personal suffering here, but OH IT'S HARD TO THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE!!!!1
Last Thursday I got kicked in the mouth (well, kneed) and it bled. It reminded me of my younger days; I haven't had a bloody lip in a long time! Who could have expected, however, that a simple cut could turn into a festering wound that would cause near-unbearable pain and prevent me from sleeping or even thinking clearly for days and days?! Well, maybe it's not quite that bad. But it certainly is annoying.
Gods and Ends
Oh it's so nice to post in a blog that isn't governed by the malfunctioning devil-work of Moveable Type!!!!!!!!
All that's to say that my work work has really ramped up recently (as it has for Dan, but he'd never let on). Also I've got this pesky MBA thing to finish up this semester... oh to not think of my life as separated into discrete intervals known as semesters!
And poor Dan really does have a festering wound on his lip, but he refuses numbing medication. I've heard tell that there is a balm in Gilliad, but that sure seems like a long way to go!
Rascal too is having problems, albeit with the other end. His anal sacs needed to get squeezed out again, and his tail is all bitten raw near the butt, but our medicine can't be persuaded to squeeze up out of the bottle. Stupid Gravity. If only Huckabee becomes president, he'll bring and end to this God-less gravity talk. I mean really, things are just drawn towards the earth because it's the center of God's love over which Americans have dominion. Obviously.
sedentation
I've been doing alot of sitting around lately. Even though I'm getting paid for it (or will be getting paid for it, if I ever remember to bill the clients), it still feels like I'm being unproductive. At least Rascal is kind enough to take me on a couple of walks every day. Leah too.
On the plus side, it's ever so nice to be making a website from scratch rather than fighting with Movable Type and all this predesigned templated nonsense. Also no rebuilding! And in the process I'm learning some fun new things that will no doubt later find uses on the squibix web and this very blog!
home cooking
One thing I did manage to do today was bake some bread. I also cooked kind of a tomato-bean goulash for dinner. The combined fragrance was wonderful; it smelled more like pizza than pizza itself!
shell-shocked
Around Christmas time we received a big bag of peanuts, which we're still working our way through. The only problem with these peanuts is, they're still in their shells. Certain individuals, including some friends of ours, are happy to eat them whole, but I just don't think that's tasty. So we shell them. Naturally, both Leah and I have been heard to remark, "if only there were some way to get peanuts that were somehow pre-shelled..."
Well, now we have them, and I have eaten many peanuts. It is a dangerous thing to have your wishes come true.
underdressed beavers
I celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Lego brick today by staying in my pjs all day. Leah almost managed it too, but she had to go out this evening so real clothes were required. Why didn't we get dressed? Was it pure laziness and indolence? On the contrary, we were good little home office workers and spent the whole day slaving over a project (and in Leah's case, listening to people fight on a conference call). I literally sat down in front of the computer first thing after getting up, and didn't even manage to go outside for a little fresh air until almost four (or eat anything until quarter of two—but the cold pizza was well worth the wait).
Sadly, I had no opportunity to build anything out of legos in honor of the occasion. A week or two again I set up a lego table in the spare room, but I haven't yet found any time to take advantage of it. Who would have though: so much staying at home and so little playing!
field testing
My hiking boots have been revealed to be completely waterproof, keeping my feet warm and dry even as I wade through muddy, ice-choked water. If only I could have found this out without having to chase the dog through the woods and swamps of Bedford for half an hour this morning.