Thursday, June 26, 2008

Sometimes I'm Just a Big Tease

People have been clamoring (O.K., maybe just one person, but still...) for an update to my wedding weekend in Illinois. I have been busy at work and at home since I returned, but I promise to have a full update by Friday night. I'll provide you with a major market teaser to tide you over until then.

You will learn:
  • How an out of town trip for me ended up necessitating a trip to two doctors for TLS
  • Which book I read on the plane trip and whether I enjoyed it
  • How people responded to the news that I've been married for 14 years
  • Quotable quotes from the M.O.B. (Mother of the Bride)
  • How the F.O.G. (Father of the Groom) came to my rescue
  • Why the participants will always associate ketchup with this wedding

Are you adequately teased?

Thursday, June 19, 2008

I've Topped 1,000!

The day finally came, people. I've had over 1,000 visitors to my blog. Of course, that isn't 1,000 different people, just 1,000 times that someone accessed it. I'd say that a good quarter of my blog readership is made up of my relatives (either in-law or by blood), so hat's off to all of you. The special 1,000th reader was from London , England and got to my blog by Googling "Richard K. Morgan" -- from my Readin', Readin', Readin' post. Congratulations Mr. (or Ms.) Random English Dude (or Dudette). This honor gets you exactly nothing but my undying gratitude. TLS tried very hard to be the magical visitor as he was both Mr. 999 and Mr. 1,001. Sorry, hon. In the interest of fairness, I was going to call TLS and ask what his view count was on his two YouTube videos, but I didn't want to depress myself too much.

I thought I'd also show you the world map from my Sitemeter account showing where the last 100 visitors were from. I've gone global!


P.S. In case anyone is interested, TLS and I had a fabulous anniversary dinner last night. We were so stuffed by the time we left the restaurant, but I have a doggie bag full of my entree that has my name written all over it for dinner tonight.

Also, I will be in blog blackout until Monday (or more likely Tuesday) of next week. I leave tomorrow morning for my cousin Brittany's wedding in Illinois. Hopefully I'll have some good stories to tell (and I promise to change the names to protect the innocent if it comes to that).

Later, taters!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Happy Anniversary, TLS!

So, much like my Valentine's Day post, this one isn't really for anyone else but my dear, sweet TLS. To borrow my disclaimer from the last time, there shall be no eye-rolling here today. If you sense an eye roll coming on, feel free to whip on over to CNN or your local news organization's website for some extremely non-mushy fare.

Fourteen years ago today, TLS and I promised to love, honor and cherish each other til death do us part. And with the exception of his "I do-ing" when he should have "I will-ed" and vice versa, the day went off without a hitch* and things have been pretty wonderful since then as well. Can't complain.

TLS, thanks for being the ol' spousal unit! I can't wait to see what the next fourteen years have in store for us.

* Very funny wedding related story that I love to tell. We got married in my hometown, which was not the town that we were living in at the time (or come to think of it the town in which we've ever lived together). We knew that based on the lateness of our ceremony and reception that we'd have to spend the night in a local hotel before heading out of town the next morning. About a month before the big day, I picked out the hotel nearest the airport, a Radisson (for no apparent reason, since we were driving rather than flying back home), gave TLS the phone number, and watched him make the reservation.

Flash forward to the day of the wedding. TLS called me that morning and said that he wanted to go ahead and check in with our stuff, so he was going to call over and confirm that he could do that in the next couple of hours. We also made plans for me to leave my suitcase in the front foyer of my mom's house with the door unlocked so we wouldn't jinx things by seeing each other before the wedding. I offered to get him the number for the hotel, but he said he had it under control. He called back about 10 minutes later and he was FURIOUS! Fury is not an emotion that I get to see often on my husband. He is generally a calm and patient man. Mostly I'm the one losing my mind and he's the one placidly standing by to make sure I don't zing off into the stratosphere. So this little develoment was somewhat unsettling. I asked what he was so upset about and he said something along these lines, "I. cannot. believe. they. LOST. OUR. RESERVATION!!!!!" There was also much talk about how someone, somewhere had his credit card number and what were they going to do about it. I made sympathetic noises and he said that they had assured him that they had a room for us and that he could check in immediately.

Flash ahead to the post-ceremony photography session. We planted ourselved at the front of the altar and everyone else came and went according to which shot was being taken at the time. During one of the down moments when we were waiting for the next set of relatives to "come on down", I said to TLS , "I can't believe the Radisson lost our reservation." He turned to me with an odd expression and said, "The Radisson, we're staying at The Harvey!"

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Readin', Readin', Readin'

I finished re-reading Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan last weekend. It's a cyber-punk noir novel set in a distant future where a human's consciousness is stored in a carbon "stack" at the base of his or her neck that can be downloaded into different bodies. Liked it (as you might have surmised from the re-reading portion of the opening sentence). Sue me. I like sci-fi, as you might have guessed from the nerd quiz I did a few months back. I had some other books that I haven't read yet, but couldn't seem to muster much enthusiasm for them on Saturday and it had been long enough since I'd read this the first time that it was like it was new again.

I also started I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley. It's a book of essays about Sloane's life in her mid-twenties told with (as Publisher's Weekly says) "sardonic wit". If you like David Sedaris or Sarah Vowell, you'll like this one. Liking it so far.

I just got another shipment from Amazon today. (Don't worry, TLS, I used an Amazon gift certificate.) I got The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga and Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. I also have When A Crocodile Eats The Sun by Peter Godwin in the queue ready to go along with one that a co-worker loaned me today, Philistines at the Hedgerow by Steven Gaines. I'm going to have a plethora of options to take with me on my trip to Illinois at the end of the week.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Can Anybody Hum The Theme To Wild Kingdom?

The other day when we got home from work we were greeted by this visitor on our front porch:



Based on my research (and who knew there was a website solely devoted to turtles native to Texas?), I believe this is a beautiful specimen of a Red Eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans). I'm not sure I've ever seen a turtle this pristine with such amazing shell patterns.

Since he, or more likely she based on her (somewhat large) size, wasn't going anywhere since she'd walked herself right into a corner. Like the great humanitarian TLS is, he picked the turtle up and transfered it across the street to a large field. Of course, that sentence made it seem much easier than it really was. Normally when you pick up a turtle, the head and all four legs get tucked into the shell. You might get a hissing noise if old turtley is in a particularly foul mood (or if you're particularly unlucky, you might get peed on), but our porch visitor stuck out her neck and started "swimming" as soon as TLS picked her up, causing him to put her quickly back down since he was getting raked by those sharp little claws. Luckily, the work gloves were close at hand and she was on her way.

Safe travels, little reptile!

Hey Inertia Girl, Do You Know How To Work The Internet? Apparently Not All The Time.

The post I wrote the other day about our idea for "classic Father's Day gifts" was meant to be an open dialog with my numerous readers; however, apparently when I posted the entry, I did not include the ability to enter comments. How I did this, I'm still not sure. Maybe I should have my internet blogging license revoked.

Of course, I did finally figure out how to do this: strikethrough. I can't adequately describe how excited that one, simple application of HTML code made me. I kept reading other people's blogs and seeing them do it, but Blogger doesn't have a "strikethrough button" which meant that I had to go in search of instructions and that I'd have to face the scary "Edit Html" tab in the publishing section. But I did it. Hooray for me!

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Oh Mighty Fortune Cookie, Give Us Your Wisdom - Part 4

Friday night's chinese food run resulted in this fortune:
Patience is a key to joy.

Hmmm. Patience is not normally one of my virtues, so maybe that's why I'm not often joyful.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

You Call It June. I Call It Buying an Entire Mountain of Presents.

Does anybody else have a month where it seems as if every holiday/event/celebration falls? Ours is June.

On our celebration itinerary for this June:
Father's Day (an oldie but goodie)
The birthday of Youngest's youngest, Kidzilla
TLS's parent's anniversary
Our anniversary (numero 14, thanks for asking)
My cousin B's wedding
Middle's 40th birthday

I am officially in gift buying fatigue. We did come up with a great idea for a Father's Day gift for TLS's dad. We want to get together a gift basket of all the cliched Father's Day gifts from our childhood days, but I need some more suggestions. So far we've gotten: Old Spice, a tie, and soap on a rope. (And yes, you can still buy soap on a rope. In fact, there is an entire website, http://www.soaponarope.com/ - natch, where it seems there is every permutation of S.O.A.R. known to man.) Does anybody else have any 1970's era memories of buying your dad some cheesy gift?

Thursday, June 05, 2008

What Says Summer More Than Homemade Ice Cream? - EDITED TO INCLUDE PHOTO AND RECIPE

So the other day in this post, I told you about our exciting, oh-so-cosmopolitan life and the berry picking therein. I kept thinking that there must be another way to use those plump, juicy, beautiful blackberries and finally decided that I'd make a simple blackberry syrup (basically pureed blackberries and a little sugar strained through a sieve) and swirl it in a recipe for homemade peach ice cream (with peach chunks!) that I made for the first time last year. Well, actually, it is technically a frozen custard rather than ice cream, but you get the gist. I tried making it the weekend before last and I don't think that I simmered the custard base long enough since even after more than an hour in the ice cream maker, it never froze. Not to be daunted, I tried again last night and, finally, success. Of course, I must give credit where credit is due and say that even though I wasn't sure it was going to gel, TLS always believed and helped coach that custard base into gorgeous, creamy ice cream. I'm going to try and post a photo of it tonight along with the recipe.

Fresh Peach Ice Cream with Blackberry Swirl

For blackberry swirl:
1/2 cup fresh blackberries
sugar to taste

place blackberries in food processor and puree until almost smooth. Place puree in a sieve placed over a mixing cup and and strain, pressing with rubber spatula to extract as much pulp and juice as possible. Sweeten to taste.

For ice cream:
1 cup sugar
3 large egg yolks
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup whole milk
2 1/2 cups mashed pitted very ripe unpeeled peaches
3 tablespoons light corn syrup

Whisk sugar and egg yolks in medium bowl. Bring cream and milk to simmer in large saucepan; gradually whisk into yolk mixture. Return to same pan. Stir over medium-low heat until custard thickens enough to leave path on back of spoon when finger is drawn across, about 6 minutes (do not boil). Pour into large bowl; mix in peaches and corn syrup. Chill uncovered until cold, at least 1 hour.

Process custard in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Pour blackberry puree in at the very end of the freezing process. Transfer to container; cover. Freeze.



That's Me, The Reading Machine

Started and finished Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein last night. Yes, I truly am a reading machine. It's a sickness, but one that I have to say I enjoy. (TLS keeps saying that our house is going to sink to the center of the earth due to the weight of all the books in it, but I think he's just being cranky.) Liked it. It was one woman's journey through infertility and ultimately becoming a mother. I have a feeling that I connected to this book in much the same way that one of my friends connected with Eat, Pray, Love, which I liked but didn't particularly "get". I'd been in Peggy Orenstein's shoes, thought her thoughts, and felt her emotions. Of course, she managed to snag the holy grail of fertility. And me? Not so much. Maybe there's a place out there for a book with my observations. Hmmmm.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

I Should Have Thought Of This Before

I have often tried to conjure up the names of books I've read in the past--with varying levels of success. Being the college educated person I am, I finally came up with the completely obvious brilliant idea to put the titles of the books I've read in the blog. I doubt I am going to do much, if any, literary criticism, as I'm not really good at breaking a book down into things like themes and such. You'll probably only get a liked it/didn't like it blurb and a one sentence idea of why/why not.

Finished today:
A Thousand Splendid Suns ** by Khaled Hosseini (author of The Kite Runner) - Liked it. It made me glad that I lived here, with TLS, rather than in Afghanistan during the 90's to the present. (It truly sucks to be a woman in much of the world.) A one-hanky read; have one handy.

** Current month's bookclub book