Jeez Louise

up, chuck!

So, this medication that I’m taking has the delicious side effect of total nausea and a bit of dizziness. I’ve been laying around on the sofa all day, kind of feeling a bit seasick.
This might help on the weight-loss journey, except for one little thing.
When I’m nauseous my body is like “Put food in me in case you barf! That way it won’t hurt!”. So Rob has been so kind as to bring me a nice bowl of rotini.
Multigrain rotini, but still.

Literati

Reading for me is essential to having a brain. I taught myself to read when I was 4, and haven’t stopped. I read cereal boxes when Mom wouldn’t let me have books at the table.
And hoo! I used to be a total Reader of the Smart Books. Dostoevsky. Shakespeare. Moliere. Alexandre Dumas and I were totally homies, back in the day. I do still read these, although probably not with the frequency I did when I was being graded on my knowledge of them. They fall open to familiar pages, underlined passages (yeah, I did that too - although most of these are underlined because again - notoriously cheap- I bought used books) and I read for a few minutes and then I’m inevitably called to do something else so I put them back on the shelf.

Even when I was in university though, I needed what I term “brain candy” books to help me relax at the end of the day. The Idiot is fine morning reading, but when you’re trying to wind down and sleep? Not really. I think I’ve blogged before how I had one book - I think it was a Harlequin Historical, something like that- about this girl marrying this guy she didn’t know to get away from her abusive stepfather, then he moved her to the Outer Banks and left, and somehow they ended up falling in love after seeing each other three times. I read that book every night before bed for an entire semester during university. It was simple, it was romantic (and believe me, when you are at a university where there is a 6:1 ratio of girls to guys, you certainly need to take romance where you can get it), there were silly parts; it was alright. I probably had it memorized - even now I can call up specific passages in my mind, and with my terrible memory, that’s saying something.

So lately, my ‘brain candy’ has been the Southern Vampire series of books by Charlaine Harris. These are the books that the TV show True Blood is based on; there are 8 in the series so far and they have all been really good. Nothing super-scary, but so, so good. Oh, and there’s sex all up in there. And telepaths. And, eventually, fairies.

Okay now I’ve made these books sound insane. But they’re good. I promise.

Now you; what are your “brain candy” books? Are there any that you can read over and over again? Please tell me, because I’m nearing the end of Book 8 and I bet Ms. Harris is going to take another 2 years to write the next in the series.

PPH

No one ever hearts me- well, aside from my lovely husband. But today? TODAY? Splendor! Which Box hearts my blog!

Seriously - I am probably inappropriately excited about this, but for months (years) now I’ve been feeling very obscure so knowing that I have more than four people reading (Which Box makes #five) is kind of a big deal to me. More than the time when I was 9 or 10 and a friend told me that she and her family were going to take me with them on their Disney Cruise. Then a few days later when I was at their house I mentioned it, and her mom was like “What are you talking about? We don’t take Disney cruises. We’re not even going on vacation this year!” (sad, I know).
So! Without further ado- did I mention that being hearted also included being tagged for a meme? Here we go:

This might be even better than two thumbs up!

Rob is watching that show that is based on the Terminator movies. It’s in its second season right now, but he’s watching the premiere (we download the majority of our TV watching. Cuts down on the commercials. I mean, I’m getting annoyed with the commercials on regular TV. Oh, but you know me, I’m crotchety. I’m annoyed with everything. Was at the store the other day and it’s not Hallowe’en yet, but they have their Christmas stuff out. And this morning on TV I saw no less than three Black Friday ads - isn’t it weeks until US Thanksgiving?). Actually right now he’s on the second episode, he just told me.
I asked him how the show was so far:
“Well, it doesn’t make me want to pound nails into my dick”.
My husband, ladies and gentlemen.

Brrr

It’s really getting colder around here. Last week it was probably 15 degrees (C) every day; today I don’t think it broke 10. It’s extra windy and the leaves are about all gone from the trees. Very Halloweeny weather. Our neighbours have put outdoor furniture covers on their patio furniture. I’d consider it, except our outdoor furniture consists of two folding chairs and a folding table, so maybe we could just put it all in our basement for the winter. Not that we’ve ever done that, either. Last year we left it out all winter. It survived, although it did get icy.

It’s hard to believe that it’ll soon be November… then December… then 2008 will be over! It’s such a strange thought to me.

Musical Musings

I had Rob make me up a mixed CD the other day. Songs from when I was a little kid - 7, 8 years old. So from the mid-80s. I played it in the car today and every single song brought back a memory. Sure, so some of the songs were shmaltzy (Hello, Lionel Richie) but they at least had lyrics and melodies and… stuff.

I’m trying to think of songs that came out when say, my oldest nephew was 7 years old. Here’s an example of what he can look back on:

It’s called “diamond rings“, by X-Presidents. It’s 8 minutes and 23 seconds long. And if you listen to say, the first 20 seconds, you know what’s going on for the next 8 minutes and 3 seconds.

But I? I have gems like THIS on my CD:

Please respect the Power of the Mullet.

Rising up

I’m just sitting here, trying to wake myself enough to actually go get in the shower and get ready for work. It’s not boding well. And then, from the next room, Rob starts blasting this song:

I’m a little afraid. But dang, I’m getting in the shower now!

Soup

Alright, so, if anyone is actually still left reading this after my cinematic endeavours… I will now attempt to bore you to tears with my mad soupmaking skillz!

I mentioned yesterday that I’d baked a ham. Well, although Rob has been putting a dent in it, there is quite a bit of that ham left. I’m not a huge ham fan, and didn’t want to still be eating ham in two weeks, so I decided that I would make at least some of it into a soup. I made my mom’s mom’s split pea and ham soup. Which, although I don’t love ham, I love this soup. And since no one else will eat it (Rob has an aversion to peas, to put it lightly), it’s all mine!!!!!

So… here’s the recipe (sort of).

Take 1 lb (about 1 package, if you get the 450 g. packages, which is what we have here) of dried split peas. I have never seen it done with anything but the yellow ones, but I suppose if you wanted, you could use the green ones. Put them in a bowl and put cold water on them. This is just for cleaning them - because sometimes? They still have like, pebbles and sticks in them. The sticks/pebbles/whatever usually float to the top. I’ve never found any, but it’s how I learned to do things and you never know what might happen. Then strain them out in a colander or whatever.

Next take the peas and put them in a pot. Cover them with about 8 cups of water. Boil it up. I let it get to a boil, then I put it on simmer for like… an hour. Check on it now and then (I set a timer to go off every 10 or so minutes). At some point after the first 10 minutes, I threw in the big honkin’ bone from the ham. If you don’t have a ham bone, you can just put in some cut up ham. After about half an hour the peas should be totally mooshy and actually not look pea-like at all anymore - they’re all just a thick liquid. That is good. Take the ham bone out. Cut the ham off it and put it back in the soup. Give the bone to your dog (or the wiener dog across the street from you). If you like onion and celery and carrots, then dice up some onion and celery and carrot and put them in the soup. Keep it simmering (and keep stirring it every once in awhile) for the next half hour, hour. Put in some pepper. I don’t add salt because ham is salty enough. About halfway through I ended up putting in another 2 cups of water because it was thickening up like crazy.

Then eat it up!

We should all know where our moms are (or, Part Three).

Yeah, I have no idea where this is going.

Part Two

Yeah, why IS he Waustralian now?