It Started with a Journal

I have been crazy productive this weekend. Well, for me.

The weather's been cold but not rainy, so I finally took the opportunity to clean out my raised garden bed, which was full of weeds and crap from the previous season. This summer I basically did no gardening, unlike the previous summer, which ended up being a good thing since I was away for most of it anyway, and a garden was the last thing on my mind. Besides, it didn't really even start to get warm this summer until August, so it would have been another exercise in frustration. BUT! I've decided I'd like to garden again next season, so in preparation I cleaned out the bed and planted some cover crop, which will hopefully infuse the soil with some nutrients. That is, if the freaking birds don't eat all the seeds; I saw half a dozen of them in/around the bed today, merrily poking away. Hopefully there were just some seeds on the surface that they were eating; most of them should be buried in the soil. Birds don't usually dig for seeds, do they? Wouldn't most gardening be impossible if they did? Then again they do dig for worms... and if a tasty seed should happen to be there... SIGH. Birds!

The other thing is ... I mowed the lawn! Well, the half of it that's considered my "backyard," anyway. It wasn't that long, but I figured I'd do it, as it'd be good exercise and also prevention from it getting as bad as it got before. It remains to be seen whether I will do the other half, which is also dependent on weather.

I also cleaned out my AeroGarden, in preparation for another round of herbs! This time I'm going to try to make my own pods, rather than purchasing their overpriced seed kits. We'll see if that ends up being a big fail or not.

I actually watched last night's Merlin! Though this was because akscully emailed me just saying "oh my." I had to find out whether that "oh my" was "oh my, we got to see Gaius naked" or if it was actually something good. ( Spoilers! )

And finally, I made banana bread with the three overripe bananas I've had sitting around for a week.

/collapses

My reward for all this hard work is that tonight is the first night of Restaurant Week! Poppy is up first. Meeting K in about an hour!

( This is what we ate. )

I have the Merlin S1 and S2 soundtracks. :D My favorite pieces are 1) The Call of Destiny/Titles (from S1; it includes the main titles); 2) Finale (from 02x02 -- includes the first you-know-what); and 3) Lancelot's Heroism (from 02x04). A bit about #3. The reason I started liking Lancelot was this piece of music. Seriously. It just makes him seem so, well, heroic. Prior to that scene, I'd had nothing against Santiago Cabrera (though it still wigs me out that he was Isaac Mendez on Heroes), but the Lancelot character didn't do anything for me. After that scene I liked Lancelot himself a lot more. Usually, I let soundtrack score just kind of carry me through a scene; I don't really notice it as a separate thing. But sometimes, the music will stand out and even while watching I'll be like, "Wow, that is such awesome/beautiful/etc. music." I had such a moment with both #2 and #3.

Last night I went to Bastille with J. It was great. Started with oysters, which were good but nothing stand out. This was followed by a duck leg confit, which was AWESOME. J.'s entree was the agnolotti stuffed with hazelnuts, mascarpone, brioche, and white bean puree. OMG it was so good. Usually vegetarian entrees aren't nearly as good as the meat-based ones, but even I would happily eat that as an entree. Desserts, which we shared: apple terrine with creme fraiche, and pear and frangipane tart with vanilla ice cream. Yeah. The good food endorphins were definitely present last night. Oh! And J. ordered a pinot gris that was so fruity and mild even I could drink it. :P

Then today at lunch (I know, the food train never stops), my team and I went to Wild Ginger in Bellevue, which was also very good. Lunch prix fixes are such a good deal. Started with the beef satay, followed by chicken breast curry, then finished off with coconut ice cream, $15. And if we'd been able to go into Seattle and the much-more awesome restaurants there, it would have been even better.

My tomato plants are pretty much all dead now. I could have pulled them weeks ago if it weren't for me being totally lazy. I still don't really feel like doing it, but I know I should because I should plant garlic. But I'm laaazzzzyyyy. I've moved the little Meyer lemon 'tree' inside, at least.

Wow. I just noticed that viewership for The Vampire Diaries is much lower in the U.S. than the audience of Merlin in the U.K. In fact, Merlin S1's numbers on NBC was higher than TVD, and it was considered so mediocre that it's now airing on Syfy instead of NBC. I guess it's because TVD airs on CW so the viewership is considered good for that network.

OMG I just found out that the German DVDs of Roswell have the original music!! I was on the German Amazon site all ready to buy the DVDs (now that I have a region-free player, I should take advantage, right?), when reason came back to me and I realized I could try to find a torrent first. I did find one, where a Russian fan took a VHS audio track and put it together w/ the Russian DVDs, which has an English audio. *fingers crossed* OK, some background here for anyone who is utterly confused about why all this is even necessary, but is still for some reason reading this...

When Roswell originally aired, they used a lot of popular music to make the 'soundtrack,' as many CW-type shows do. Well, a lot of that music became inextricably linked with scenes from the show. To this day, Roswell's music is the best I've seen on any show. Their music selection committee rocked. Anyway, so it was a HUGE part of the series, at least as far as many fans (me and Jade included) were concerned. However, when the DVDs were put together, they didn't have the money to pay for all the copyrights for all the music/songs they used in the original airing. They paid for/kept a handful of the REALLY, REALLY iconic songs (like Dido, which was used in the credits), but otherwise everything else was changed. (The biggest one for me was Linkin Park's "With You," which opened the Dupes episode.) It's such a huge disappointment that I haven't even been able to watch through the episodes since the final season aired. In fact, I kept all my old VHS tapes on which I had taped all the original episodes, because they had the 'real' music and I couldn't bring myself to toss them. But now, finally, I might be able to!

I'm trying something new, y'all: sugarless coffee. Not sugar substitutes, which my taste buds abhor, but lack of sugar, period. It's embarrassing how much sugar I need to put into my coffee. I'm like Umbridge with her tea.

I figure it's a matter of adjusting my taste buds. If I drink sugarless coffee more regularly, then I'll get used to how bitter it's supposed to be, and less sugar will be required to make it taste sweet, when I feel like putting sugar into it. Fewer calories, too!

I don't think I can stop adding milk/cream to my coffee, though. That's where I draw the line.

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I started watching Dr. Who! I'm on disc 4 of S1. ( Random spoilery commentary. )

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My library system needs to get with the program and start offering a hold-on-holds function. It's really annoying to put different seasons of a TV show in the queue, then have them come up out of order (alternatively, I could put a later season in my queue after viewing an earlier season, but then that means I might have to wait a realllly long time), or have a dozen things become ready at one time, etc. The King County library system has it, it shouldn't be that hard to implement this functionality!

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Had a lovely time yesterday with the D/G gals (minus poor sick Elle). We tried doing a potluck for the first time, and while it totally worked out, I think next time we do it we'll have to be a little less blase about who is bringing what. LOL.

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OMG, speaking of the D/G gals, I was showing them my little garden and bemoaned how it's the end of the season and haven't gotten any zucchini, haven't even seen any female flowers, period, they've all been males so far and they've all died off w/o having a female to fertilize...

Well, I went out in the garden this morning and saw that two flowers were open, and one of them was a female!!!!! Yippee!!!! So I plucked the male one and used its little pollen wand to fertilize the heck out of the female. I hope it was enough. There's a teeny tiny zucchini there, and I want it to grow!

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I got a new haircut! It was looooong overdue. That's when I tend to get my haircuts, btw. When it's way, way, WAY past time for me to get one. I had what I call "tabula rasa hair" in that it was so long and had long outgrown any style that you could do just about anything to it. Anyway, I guess it's just one of those things that I feel like it's a big waste of money unless there's some obvious change or something. And paying $75 for a proper salon cut is even more wasteful to me.

Enter Tippr. I purchased a voucher a few months ago for a haircut at the Gilt Edge Society, a salon in Belltown (right near Tom Douglas's restaurants, actually). I really liked Cadance, the gal who cut/styled my hair. She was way hipper than me with her multitudes of tattoos and bleached pageboy cut, but she was super cool about my more conservative preferences in terms of my hair, while being very helpful about what might look good on me and a style that required very little maintenance (I don't have the time/patience in the morning to spend on my hair). She did ask me to use some serum on my hair in order to protect it from the heat of the hair dryer, but she didn't push any products on me. I told her I had serum at home from the last time a stylist convinced me to buy product (that I never used), and she just showed me how and when to use it.

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More car stuff...

AAA. I've never needed or wanted AAA, but now that I have the clunker it's probably a good investment, just because of the towing alone. I kept putting off getting it, though, and it's a good thing, because the other day Allstate Roadside Assistance cold called me and wanted me to try their service for $1.99/2 months, which has basically everything AAA has, except for the maps (which I don't need/use) and the discounts (again, don't need/use). So I'm covered for the next 2 months, woot. And after that I can cancel and join AAA if I want.

When I bought my Lexus I was told that I would have a little certificate waiting for me as a gift from the dealership. Family members and I have purchased a number of new cars over the years, and that's never happened. A car dealership, give something back after milking you for all you're worth? Hah! So I had pretty low expectations. At one end I was thinking, maybe a $25 gift card to Starbucks. At the higher end, a $100 gift certificate to a restaurant. They called me the other day to say that it was ready, so I picked it up at the same time I got my new plates. A $150 Visa gift card, so I can use it anywhere. :O How unexpectedly awesome. I have to say, I am pretty impressed with this dealership.

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TV Show Meme, Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale.

I'm going to go with the season 1 finale of Alias. I don't want to get into details and spoil it for anyone who hasn't watched, but I will just say that it was awesome (much like Alias S1 itself).

I can confirm that an almost-perfect Americano for me at Starbucks is a tall Americano, filled HALFWAY, with a shot of vanilla syrup. It makes more sense to buy a tall ($1.90) than a short + shot of espresso ($1.60 + $0.65). "Almost" because I still haven't figured out how to make it as hot as I want, since I need to add cream. Still, the balance of the coffee flavor was wonderful.

I have figured out how to keep my machine-drip coffee at work warmer, though. I fill my mug with hot water and let it sit for a few minutes, then I dump it and get my coffee. Pre-heated mug! Though now that I think about it, I could probably achieve the same thing by nuking the mug in the microwave for a minute. >.>

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My cousin LOVES qormeh sabzi, a Persian lamb stew that's filled with herbs. Unfortunately, there are like, NO good Persian restaurants in the Seattle area (same with Shanghai dumpling restaurants). I'm thinking of making this recipe for her, but never having had it myself, I would have no idea if it was any good or not. And I don't know if I would like it myself anyway, because dang, that is a heck of a lot of herbs. 4 cups packed fresh parsley, 2 cups packed fresh cilantro, 1 cup fresh fenugreek, 2 cups fresh chives -- for 1 lb of stewing meat! Crazy!

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Yesterday I made pesto. I was supposed to do this like 3 days ago, and I've been lazy, so by the time I got to it my fresh basil in the fridge was starting to go brown. :/ So I tossed those, then went to the garden and harvested more, plus some chocolate mint, and I decided to pull up one of the garlic bulbs! It's a tiny bulb, lol. Basically it consisted of two fat cloves. Which means I have a yield of +1 clove, since I had to plant a clove in the fall. LOL. That makes me giggle. Anyway, back then I had no idea which cloves were best suited for planting and now I do know, so I can just laugh at myself and move on. The two cloves of the bulb were so fat and juicy though. Very pleasing. I used one of the cloves in the pesto. I still haven't tried making pesto with walnuts yet, because I still have some pine nuts left.

It was soooooooooo good. I made a variation of my favorite meal ever, substituting fresh basil with pesto, which was spread on toasted sourdough, then layering on fresh mozzarella and sliced tomato, with a dash of balsamic vinegar and salt. I really think that if I were forced to eat only 1 kind of meal for the rest of my life, a caprese sandwich is what I'd choose.

( Pics of the harvest! )

In about a week I'm going to harvest all the garlic, because they're ready, which means there's going to be 6 squares empty in my SFG. Someone on gardening linked me to this, which is brilliant! I didn't know what to do with those empty plots -- plant something else (but what, given our cool/mild climate)? leave empty? treat with compost? Now I have a better idea. Maybe I will attempt the Swiss chard that I keep failing at.

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I'm about 70 pages into Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and I'm still wondering what the plot of this book is going to be. We haven't even met JS yet. This is reminiscent of when I was trying to read The Lord of the Rings and after like 120 pages the hobbits were still in the Shire (I gave up at that point).

This weekend I basically chilled. But not literally, because it was in the 80s here and I was in the garden a lot and went walking at Lincoln Park.

The garden... is doing well now that summer has finally arrived. Many little tomatoes have fruited, and now I'm worrying about why none of them have changed color yet (the ones of decent size -- primarily cherries -- are all still hard and green). It might be a case of giving the plants too much water. I've read that tomatoes like infrequent, deep watering, so I've been watering them deeply once a week. But maybe even that's too much. It's so sad that at most I will have 1 harvest of tomatoes, when others around the country just get harvests throughout the summer. Sigh.

I also went to Trader Joe's and they had their tall basil 'starters' for $1.99. I bought 3 of them, figuring that at this point in the summer, there wasn't any reason to hold back, as my little basil plants, while doing well, are just not going to give me an abundance of basil. The TJ plants are HUGE -- which isn't necessarily good. They're very leggy rather than bushy, but whatever, they were $1.99. I planted all 3 of them out into the bed, and I worried that they hadn't been properly hardened off so might wilt/die in the sun, but so far they seem perfectly fine. I also gave one of them a good trim, which yielded a huge amount of basil (and the plant is still quite bountiful), which I'm going to turn into pesto tonight.

Speaking of pesto... wtf is up with the price of pine nuts? $15 for 6oz? Granted these were organic, but un-organic ones are not that far off in price. Did pine nuts replace gold as the world's most precious substance and I missed it? I don't know how/where it's harvested, did that somehow become more difficult? This reminds of me when avocados were like 3 for $1 and suddenly it was 1 for $3.

I made one of those bacon meatloaf explosion thingys and I wasn't a fan. Basically you lay out strips of bacon, press on some seasoned ground meat and vegetables, roll it up like a cinnamon roll, and bake in a loaf pan. I thought it might be good in one of those guilty-pleasure ways, but I didn't much like it at all. I've now dumped the leftover roll into my crock pot with tomato sauce, mushrooms, and some other random stuff, and hope it will turn into a decent spaghetti sauce. We'll see when I get home tonight. Fingers crossed!

Since I'm blathering on about food, I might as well mention that I am in love with the almond croissant from Bakery Nouveau. It is unbelievably awesome.

Finished Victory of Eagles, Temeraire book #5. It was sooooooo good! So far I've loved them all except for book #3, which was okay but not as good as the rest. ( A few spoilery comments. )

TV Show Meme, Day 13 - Favorite childhood show: The Wonder Years

I loved little Kevin Arnold and Winnie Cooper and Kevin's bullying elder brother and all of them. Even though it's hazy now -- I can't remember a single episode with any real clarity -- I remember that every one was able to make me laugh AND make me cry. It was just that kind of show. It's a travesty that it's not out on DVD yet, because I'd love to watch it again and see if it's as good as I remember.

It's currently 60°F and rainy, and I'm wearing a tank top, skirt, and flip flops, but I'm not even going to bitch. After hitting the 90s in the last few days, I've decided that this is better. I mean, if it has to be one extreme or another, I prefer this. But what I would love even better is a normal Seattle summer, where it's just gorgeous and perfect for 3 months. The good news is, it looks like after today, that's exactly what we'll be getting for the next 10 days -- 70-75°F the whole time. Squeee!

My vegetable garden is soldiering on, even though they're all like WTF from this insane weather that has a 30° difference from day to day (much as we all are). A few more little tomatoes are peeking out, and I saw a little bee near the tomato flowers yesterday. Pollinate your heart out, little bee! I've started to pinch my basil plants, but my lesson learned from this year is that I need way more basil. Pinching a few at a time doesn't really give me enough to work with, it's not enough for pesto, and once pinched, it doesn't keep well. With more plants, every time I pinch I should have enough to make pesto, at least. The carrots are getting super crazy leafy, except when I dug down to check on the carrots themselves, they're PUNY. I guess my soil isn't loose enough for them. Seriously, the leaves give the impression that they must be huge; they're just making a whole lot of noise over nothing. The birds keep getting to my strawberries before I do. They think the netting is a joke and are laughing at me behind my back. The garlic leaves seem to be dying down, but not as much as K.'s; it'll be awhile before they're ready to harvest. The little zucchini plant is doing well, it's now surpassed its predecessor, but it's not big enough to develop flowers yet. I bought a little jalapeno pepper starter, and it's insanely greedy for water. If I don't water it daily, it droops. O.o Finally, after a second bout with the neighborhood cat, I've moved the catnip indoors to my office, which door I am keeping closed so Jaime doesn't wreck what's left of the poor thing. I don't know if it will fare well inside, and if it doesn't I guess I'll move it back out and just hope that the darn neighborhood cat doesn't succeed in killing it entirely.

I have like four or five story outlines going right now. This is exciting because it's been awhile since I've had that many story ideas clamoring to be written. The difficulty is in concentrating on one of them; I'm not good at multi-tasking when it comes to writing. If I try to write two stories at once, they both suffer. I just need to let one of them take over. Unfortunately, the one that's calling out the strongest right now is also the one I don't have all the answers for, plot/story wise, so I can't start writing until I have all the answers, that's just how I work.

C.'s 5th birthday party on Friday was fun, though dealing with little kids -- even peripherally -- exhausts me. The Molly Moon's truck gave out ENORMOUS scoops of ice cream, HOL-EE. In pictures the scoops are like half the size of the kids' heads. Maybe it was partly due to the fact that a photographer from Seattle Weekly was there (K. had to ask all the parents if it was okay with them that he take pictures of the kids with their ice cream), and little kids with giant ice cream cones make for better photos. I also made these mini sugar donut muffins (idea from romanticalgirl), and they were an huge hit. I wasn't there when they broke them out, but D. says that kids were double fisting them and cramming them into their mouths. He also said that he tried to hoard some of them from the kids because he liked them and wanted to eat them later (shameful).

Jaime's food problem

Still a total piggy. He eats all his food, and if Talis doesn't immediately eat his, Jaime will go after it, especially if there's any wet food in it. After all the reading I did about how dogs like to eat cat food because it's more strongly scented, I totally thought I was going to have the opposite problem -- the typical problem of getting my dog to stay away from the cat's food. Instead, Talis is as picky as ever, and I have to keep Jaime from eating dog food. SIGH.

The cool thing is that I was at Trader Joe's and their canned cat food seems to have all the good ingredients that Wellness has, but is much more reasonably priced -- $0.59 for a 5.5oz can (a 12.5oz can of Wellness costs about $2.50). I bought a few cans and will see if Jaime likes it, though I can't imagine he won't.

My dad complained about how I wasn't treating Talis fairly because I wasn't giving him the good wet food that I was giving Jaime (he's a dog person through and through, and Talis is definitely his favorite grandpet). I explained how I had tried wet food on Talis before, and he just wasn't into it, but to be fair I had never tried giving him the good stuff, i.e., Wellness. So I bought him a can of Wellness, and as per the usual, on the first day he ate it up and enjoyed it immensely. The next day? He didn't want to have anything to do with it. I ended up giving it to Jaime (I only mix in a tablespoon or two with his dry cat food, so it's not like it's really bad for him, as he'll get his taurine as usual).

Also, I have to admit at this point that I tasted both Jaime and Talis's cans of Wellness. >.> And it actually does not taste bad at all. Mushy, yes, but it doesn't taste like crap -- it tastes like real food. I can totally understand the people who are down on their luck and eat pet food now. Of course, you can get canned human food for cheaper than a can of Wellness, so they're probably not eating Wellness. Plus you can get fast food these days for really cheap that tastes better than pet food.

My Garden

I've had my first "harvest" -- five strawberries that ripened during our warm last few days. Unfortunately the birds had gotten to 2 of them. Still, they were very pretty (and yummy). :D I see a few more baby tomatoes -- yay! I think it'll be another 2 months before they actually resemble anything I can eat, though. Some of the garlic scapes are starting their second loops, but I'm still trying to hold out until they all have at least one loop before I harvest the scapes. However it occurred to me today that I could harvest the scapes at different times, so as to stagger the actual harvesting of the garlic heads... but that might be a bit ambitious for a first-time grower.

Reading

I've started Empire of Ivory, the fourth book in the Temeraire series. I don't think I mentioned when I finished book 3, Black Powder War... that's because it was pretty unmemorable. Not nearly as good/interesting as the first two books.

I'm also reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but it's slow going because I find it hard to keep the unfamiliar names of people and places in my head. I'm lame like that.

TV Show Meme

Day 05 - A show you hate

My answer to this one isn't going to make me very popular, because everyone and their mom seems to like this show. Actually, it's a tie, but most people seem to like them way more than me. Anyway, my answer? It's a tie between all reality shows and True Blood. I hate them all. Reality shows I find vile in general. Not only are they totally lame (and I personally don't find them the least entertaining), but they are KILLING good TV. Why should networks fork out the cash for a great drama when they're getting the same ratings if not better with a cheap reality TV show? It's a travesty to me that so many people watch them. I weep, WEEP, for the days when they were rare and not a dime a dozen. Now I can only depend on HBO for quality television.

As for True Blood... I just don't get the hype or the love. I watched both season 1 and season 2, not because I enjoyed it, but because I was doing it for someone I loved and wanted to be able to share it. Well, that reason no longer exists. So I can let fly the fact that I think it's total dreck. The characters are super annoying, the storylines are trite and, in the case of season 2, a total mess, and the vampire thing has been DONE. And BETTER. (And no, I am not talking about Twilight.) There is not one thing about it that makes me want to tune in week after week to watch it. And yet, it seems to be universally liked. I guess this is just one where I am not in touch... I just don't get it, why it's compelling to so many people. The one thing I will give it is that I think the show has fine actors. They are, however, wasted on these characters and this show. I even tried to read the first book, thinking that it might explain the furor over TV series... but what I read of the book was even worse than the show, which is saying something. Seriously, after Twilight and True Blood, I feel like all I need to do is write some vampire dreck and I will catapult to overnight success. :P

Now y'all hate me for dissing all the shows you love... but I had to be honest.

Strawberries! So many strawberries are suddenly developing nice color in my tiny little patch, it's awesome. And today I saw, for the first time, A TINY LITTLE TOMATO!!!! Eee! Here's hoping this decent weather holds out. It's not super warm today but at least the sun is out. I haven't been able to take pictures recently but I'm going to soon. Right now I'm still trying to decide if I should just cut my garlic scapes now or not. Most of them have one loop, and I wanted to wait for them to develop two loops, but it's slow going.

Got my car back from the body shop today with its repainted door. Looks good. But then, it looked good the first time too, and the darkening of the color didn't happen until after a few months. Hopefully I'll get a good deal on another car this weekend and then I can just turn this one in.

On the pet front, things are going better. They're definitely at least tolerating each other at this point, even if they don't play or anything. I am getting a bit stressed about Jaime's eating habits, however. In that, HE WON'T STOP EATING. He constantly wants food. He's a cat food fiend. I really wanted to free feed him, but I can't because he just eats everything I give him in a short amount of time. At first I was feeding him 1/2 cup dry cat food (with 1-2 tbsps of wet cat food) twice a day. The vet thought that 1 cup of food was a lot for him (he's 10 lb, 10 oz, which she says I want to keep him at). I was just going off of what it says on the package, which is 1/2-1 cup of food for cats between 10-14 lbs. But the package also recommends free feeding, to put that much food in the dish once a day. If I did that, Jamie would be done with it in a few hours and then be starving the rest of the time! I've cut his food down to 1/3 cup, twice a day (for a total of 2/3 cup per day), but he polishes it off very quickly, even when I don't put any wet food in the dish. So I don't know what to do. I don't want to put him on a path to become obese, which leads to other health problems, but neither do I want him to go hungry (he's always meowing for food). The other stressful thing is that if he eats like this, I don't know if I can go out of town for a couple of days and just leave him a pile of food. He'll probably just eat it all on the first day and then starve the rest of the time! Have any of you cat owners ever experienced this with your kitties? What did you do?

Since my dad arrived the day before, we have so far had Chinese food and Fatburger, lol. Their cajun chicken sandwich is actually quite delicious, and my dad really enjoyed his mushroom swiss burger.

TV Meme, Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season)

I think it's pretty obvious that I'm going to say Glee. I just love it. Okay, the season finale was bad, but in general, this show makes me Smile with a capital S. The storylines are pretty trite and many of the characters are annoying, but for all that, it's almost always fun and frequently brilliant. I generally like the music they feature and I love that they're getting super talented guest stars. My favorite character is, of course, Sue Sylvester, because no one can touch Jane Lynch. I'm glad the show's already been picked up for two more seasons; it's so rare that a show I like doesn't need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to get it renewed that I am a little afraid Glee is going to start becoming a show I won't like (aka, if they do more episodes like the season finale).

In the category of things that make me really effing pissed off:

(Cutting this so that my vitriol doesn't accidentally bring you down.) ( If you click, it's on you. )

In the category of things that make me happy:

1) Seeing the D/G gals this weekend, or possibly the next, we're still sorting it out. slitherhither, inquiring minds want to know, will you be joining us?

2) I went to Matsu Sushi two nights ago for dinner. I was craving Japanese food, and I decided to indulge myself. It is SO good there. The sashimi is so fresh, and the tempura is good, too (Rikki Rikki has the best batter though). The assortment of veggies is top notch; usually places just serve the same 3 or 4 veggies. It totally hit the spot and was worth every penny. I'm thinking of taking my dad there, even though he'll probably balk at the cost. (Not that it's SO pricey, but sushi in general isn't cheap.)

3) The Groupon yesterday was $10 for $21 worth of food at Fatburger. I was on that like white on rice. I'm like, if I have to live in this depressing place, I'm going to stuff myself to the gills with Fatburger, it might make things a teensy bit better.

4) I received my Stieg Larsson books and have started The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

5) Talis and Jaime snuggling up next to me without fighting.

6) Dog.com selling packages of 240 rawhide chew sticks for $9. Talis LOVES those things and goes through them like candy. I let him go at it because he loves to chew and it's good for his teeth. Still, it's not cheap. A package of about 100 sticks can go for like $13 even at Target! And I haven't even found them at Wal-Mart at all. So yeah, getting that deal online was awesome. Obviously I should have looked for them before.

7) Finally, at long last, finding Bob's Red Mill dry buttermilk powder (at the Redmond Whole Foods). I've been looking for it for ages, because it's brilliant. Now, whenever a recipe calls for buttermilk, I don't have to actually go out and buy buttermilk, which is usually wasted after I use the cup of it or whatever that I need for my recipe. Now I can just make however much buttermilk I need each time, at least until it expires (about 2 years, but can be kept in the freezer for even better freshness).

( Glee finale spoilers. )

Things have improved a bit on the doggie/kitty front, though I fear it's one of those things where NO ONE is really happy and everyone's getting a bit of the shaft. Talis still isn't happy about Jaime being around and probably feels like I am transferring my affection; Jaime is in a totally new environment with a housemate who threatens him at intervals; I'm stressing out about how to make them both feel loved and happy. Still, we had a good night last night so I'm hoping that will continue. ( A few cute/funny photos of Jaime sleeping. )

I have now used my Actifry twice. Once to make French fries, and last night to make these Korean-style crispy, sweet, and spicy chicken wings. Verdict: the Actifry does NOT duplicate the texture of deep-fried foods, as much as I wish it did. It more... emulates it. It does crisp things up, however it's more like oven crisp (but more evenly done). Still, for the little effort it takes to make something and with only 1 tbsp of oil, it's worth it. YMMV.

Finally, I was super productive yesterday. I made trellises for my square-foot garden with the nylon netting I bought online! I am pretty proud of myself. Now all I need is for the sun to come out and have some plants grow big enough to use them. I am going to try to transplant my indoor seedlings this weekend. ( Pictures of the trellises! )