You've got to have friends

My lonely post has been top of the list for toooooooo long. I get it. I just haven't had a whole lot more to say. And Ross is gone again. He left on Monday and won't be back for another week.

The good news is that he will be bringing both his parents back to their home before he returns. His dad has been through a course of radiation and will be allowed back home. And his mom is lucid and gaining weight and strength. They say she can leave the nursing home late next week. Ross will get her settled in and come back here on Saturday or Sunday.

It's pretty great -- and surprising -- that they've both made such a recovery.

When last I wrote . . . I told you about ordering pizza for the Friday night group. Well, they deserve better than that. So I cooked! (I wasn't entirely sure my cooking would be better than Pizza Hut, but I was willing to try.)

Since I don't get Friday's off, I needed something I could make ahead. I was in the mood for black bean soup and I found a great recipe online, along with complementary cornbread muffins.

I made the soup on Wednesday. Fortunately, we have a practically empty fridge downstairs to store it in. I had to make the muffins when I got home for work . . . and I had a meeting that ended pretty late, so I was in the middle of preparations when the first people arrived. Roupen and Shirley began setting the table immediately. (I was worried about doing that the night before, because I thought the dogs would pull everything on the floor.) Todd and Linda came next and finished making the muffins. Anita brought a salad. Donna brought something else. Others came with dessert offerings. Peter and Kristy came all the way from Argentina!! (They just got back after being gone several months.)

It was a more than full house. We kept adding place settings until no more place settings could be added. There were 14 of us!

I think everyone had enough to eat. We were on seconds when we ran out of soup. One lonely, little muffin was my breakfast this morning.

There were dog adventures, too. Soup was spilled and I got a snarl when I pulled a dog away from the clean-up. The door didn't completely latch after I said goodbye to one guest and Slick got out long enough to snarl at a nice dog in our front yard. (I had the presence of mind to yell, "Do you want a cookie?" and he came running back in.) The dog's owners couldn't have been more gracious. I couldn't have been more mortified.

In short, a wacky time was had by all.

I think we'll have to do it again next week.

Photo is by Kevin Dooley. Found on Flickr Creative Commons.

I was a little lonely.

Ross is gone. He's in Tennessee right now to help his parents, who are both ill. He left on Wednesday to visit a client in Atlanta. Since he was partway there, he just went up to Tennessee.

I don't do very well when he's gone. I stay up too late. I'm not very productive.

But tonight our Friday night group rallied round -- even though our chef wasn't here. Ross was cooking for his dad and the nephew who has been taking care of the house while Ross's parents were in the hospital.

I ordered pizza and made a salad.

We talked about a lot of stuff. I think I did most of the talking. When I'm alone here, I talk to myself too much. I hope I got most of it out of my system.

The first night Ross was gone, we had a weird wind storm. Storm may be an exaggeration, but it was definitely eerie -- like Halloween should be. Clouds scudding across a night sky. That sort of thing. I also could have sworn I heard footsteps IN THE HOUSE! This seriously got my heart pounding.

Last night, no wind. But a very quiet house. And then . . . FOOTSTEPS! I start talking (to the dogs, of course) hoping to let whoever it is know there's someone here. Hoping they'd leave. Yikes!

Tonight, I'm busily preparing for the arrival of the group and when I see Slick jump from a chair, he sets it rocking and I hear . . . what sounds exactly like footsteps, unless you know it's the rocking chair.

The photo is from Flickr Creative Commons.

Taste in books

I love books about food.

I have read quite a few backstage at the restaurant books, like Kitchen Confidential, by Bourdain and Heat by Buford. I like Ruth Reichl's memoirs about being a restaurant critic -- especially Garlic and Sapphires. I've also read any number of wine books. Yes, wine is food.

And, of course, cookbooks make great reading. I confess I like the ones with pictures most. But the Best Recipe books that are heavy on explanation are the most helpful for cooking, if you really want to go so far as to try making the recipes you read.

Ross bought me a terrific book for Christmas. It's Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink. (By the way, I'm using my new gecko bookmark in it -- thanks, Nita and Ted!)

Unfortunately, da boyz like food books, too, and ate the cover while I was out the other day. Very upsetting.

Ross and I have spent a couple days now picking books to keep and packing them up for the move to Mexico. We're keeping more than any two people can read in a lifetime. But choosing (or chewing) books isn't always about logic.

Goodbye year.

What a wacky couple of weeks it's been.

First, it snows. Then it snows a lot more. We STILL have some piles of it in the 'hood. Snow meant some short days at work, because I didn't want to be stuck in the dark trying to get home. I've never seen roads like this. Until now, anywhere I've been that gets a foot of snow that lasts a week also has snowplows.

I've also had two short weeks at work. Three days last week and three days this week.

You'd think that would mean I wouldn't get much done. But with no one else there, the days seemed a lot longer. I even filed today.

We also had company -- my big brother and my niece's family. That was delightful. And it made the same long days go by very quickly at home.

I should probably reflect on the year 2008 at this point.

This year, we took a risk and lived in Mexico for three months. We learned a lot about what we want and don't want our lives there to be like. We also learned how much our boyz enjoy traveling . . . which led us to consider the whole RV idea. And that idea has not left our heads.

We also took a spectacular vacation in Croatia, Albania and Greece. While we were out of the country, the U.S. financial system verged on collapse. Ross and I are still standing. But we may not be taking any more spectacular vacations for awhile!

I'll also remember 2008 for the presidential election. I don't remember any phenomenon quite like it. The idea that we weren't choosing between Dull and Duller this time was really electrifying. I got addicted to some political web sites, when for the past several elections I've been avoiding that stuff.

In the business world, 2008 turned out to be a nightmare. That's what I read about all day long.

For me, however, this year was a good one. I hope it was for you. I wish you an even better year in 2009 -- and may all your resolutions come true!

The photo is from Flickr creative coomons.

Blizzard!

Okay . . . I'm exaggerating. But just a little. It snowed. All. Day. Long. Crazy, huh?

Ross had a "procedure" this morning and I had to be there to take him home. So at 7 a.m. we drove to Fremont in the snow. Then we came home around 9:30 in the snow. The office was open, so I drove downtown in the snow. I wasn't very happy about the accumulation, so I drove back home at lunchtime in the snow.

I think it's done snowing here for a little while. But it looks like snow for Racine tomorrow.

My brother arrives here tomorrow. We'll have a nice white, wintry welcome for him!

In other news: I'm very sad to say that I'm coming down with a terrible cold. Bleh.

Fingerless mittens

I thought I invented this. But I looked it up and lots of web sites showed up. So that's deeply disappointing.

Last week I was very cold at work. Mostly my hands were freezing. I drank coffee all morning and tea all afternoon, just to have a hot mug of something to hold on to.

I tried everything.

My mouse pad has a wrist rest. It feels like someone stuck it in the freezer for a week. So I thought about putting it in the microwave . . . but, on second thought, that seemed like a bad idea. Carcinogens? Fire alarms? Forget it.

I read about a heated mouse. That, at least, would keep fingers warm. But I didn't order it and lost track of the site.

I complained to Holly the receptionist about my problem and she said, "Fingerless gloves!" But that seemed a little restrictive. Typing is my livelihood, after all.

I know some people who wear leg warmers on their arms. (Yes, Zoompop, I'm talkin' about you.) But my arms were fine. It was my wrists and hands.

My mom used to sew wristbands into my new jackets for winter -- and that was wonderful. (Thanks, Mom!) So that provided some inspiration.

Then I remembered, when I got cold on our trip, my sweetie bought me a very nice hoodie in Dubrovnik that has little thumbholes in the sleeves. I incorporated that into my design.

I put all those ideas together (except the heated mouse and the coffee) and I got the incredibly original invention in the picture which has already been invented by many other people.

Before I realized how many other people were already doing this, I was thinking about starting a business (if I could just think of the clever name). I figured out about how much I'd have to charge. Let's see . . . at my hourly rate . . . that's about $594/pair. Plus materials . . . $594.72. Oh, don't forget shipping and handling. We're up to $598.22.

Any takers? If you need them before the weekend, I'll need to add a $50 rush charge.

HO-HO-SNOW!

We got a nice accumulation of snow last night. The dogs seem to LOVE it. I assumed it would keep them from smelling stuff, but apparently it isolates and highlights the new smells. Mmm-mm.

So we had a very fun walk this morning, checking it all out. Thank goodness my new shoes seem to be very "grippy." Falling on my butt is no doubt entertaining for those watching, but I hate it more than almost anything I can think of.

Here's a photo of Ross's truck under the snow. (Is the house across the street really that color?)