| pie filling |
[22 Nov 2009|11:47pm] |
Well, crap. I had something to talk about earlier today, but then I got all lazy and forgot.
Avery and I went to the grocery store this morning, so I don't have to throw elbows in the crowds trying to get to the last can of pumpkin. Because did you hear there's a canned pumpkin shortage? Now everybody's gonna be freaking out trying to find the stuff to make their traditional pie so they don't have to eat that crappy supermarket pie. Let's face it -- store-bought pumpkin pie tastes like a homeless guy's armpit.
I kid, of course. I'm not even making pumpkin pie, and I have three cans in my pantry anyway. Up for the highest bidder!
But we did get stuff for the pies I am making -- apples and strawberries and almonds and chocolate chips. Rhubarb did not exist at the store, so now I have to figure out a) where to find it in the Southwest in November or b) what else to do if I can't. The organic store is probably my best bet -- I hope they have it, because it might be hard to justify driving all the way to El Paso for bitter red celery.
Oh, while I'm here, can I just advise against taking a toddler to the store if you can at all avoid it? Remember how you used to ask your parents for candy and cereal and comic books, whining and pleading and dragging your feet? Turns out it's not as fun to be on the parent side as you might think. I mean, the power to say no is fantastic, but after saying it sixty or seventy times you find yourself lingering in the duct tape aisle.
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| very disappointed in you |
[21 Nov 2009|10:00pm] |
Man, when you get castigated by your father -- or at least someone old enough to be your father who happens to share your name -- it's a motivator to do the right thing the right way.
From the comments of my last entry:
S**t or get off the pot
Man, all I read from you is your reasons for NOT writing.
You have a gift. Don't screw it up.
Get your ass in gear!
Ephraim F. Moya I'm trying to, I swear. And it's frustrating. I want to write, I want to get ideas down in an eloquent and hopefully amusing way. But it's the coming up with ideas part that's killing me.
That's what this is for, honestly. The way I see it, if I can make myself write something -- anything -- every day, no matter how puerile or meaningless, then maybe I'll learn how to recognize a good idea when it comes along and get it down. Plus, with the continued practice and honing of my craft, when said idea needs to be written, I'll be able to, y'know, word it up real good.
On a positive note, I have worked some more in my novel. Up to 5841 words. But, let's be real, if I'm giving up on NaNoWriMo I ought to think in terms of pages. It's just that having a count in the thousands is so much more satisfying than saying, "Yeah, I just hit page thirteen!" I'm a bit stuck, trying to turn a previously underdeveloped scene into something a little bit more interesting while still carrying necessary relevant info, but it's coming along.
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| no one cares what you had for lunch |
[20 Nov 2009|10:56pm] |
Well, crap. I can't just post "today I bought birdseed and a new pot for a plant." This thing would turn into a cheese-sandwich blog then, and already nobody reads it. But I don't have anything else interesting to write about today.
I can't even speak for the weekend. Sed's on call, which means I'll probably see her for about two and a half hours both nights, and we can't make plans around that. Avery and I are thinking about going to see a free Nutcracker thing tomorrow, and afterwards they're doing cookie decorating. But a lot of times when I plan to do something we aren't paying for, it doesn't actually happen, as we get too comfortable and lazy in the house.
Next week is Thanksgiving. At least then stuff will happen that isn't the norm.
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| worker bees |
[19 Nov 2009|09:48pm] |
Dude, it's 9:30 and everybody else in my house has been asleep for an hour. Oh, wait, correction: Angel just wandered outside to pee.
In fairness, it's been a busy day. Sed's on call and grabbing her sleep when she can get it. The dogs had to, y'know, bark at birds and delivery guys. And Avery and I ran a wad of errands that took as long as her normal day at school.
The first part was not technically an errand, I guess -- we went to her new gym class. It was more advanced in some ways (the core exercises I do ... if I don't laze out), and more simplified in others (they don't know forward rolls yet?). I suppose a certain amount is up to instructor prerogative, and today's teacher was actually a sub who usually takes an older class. Avery liked it, still, even though she was a total punk for the first twenty minutes or so, until I threatened to leave if she didn't start listening.
But then we dropped off a donation at her school (they're doing a gift drive), tried to get her H1N1 vaccine (they wanted me to wait until her sniffle is gone), drove all the way to La Mesa for pecans (mmm, local-ingredient pecan pie), got our hair cut (I'm a lot happier with this guy than the last two lazy bastards), and stopped for cold remedies and lunch. Yes, the reality of a kid in preschool has set in, and Avery's been sick twice. One of those I probably gave her, but right now her sniffle and cough is starting to infect me, so I'm pretty sure it's not the same one. Come to find out with the last one that we jettisoned our VapoRub when we moved out of Florida, I guess because it was close to two years old. So I had to get more, because it works frickin' wonders on Ave.
After she had eaten lunch and successfully fended off a nap, Sed got home, and we all lazed on the couch for a while watching a movie. Then it was bedtime. At 7:30.
I suppose this makes up for my having woken up at 7:30 this morning, expecting the child to sleep a bit and to get my compy time, only to have her wander into the kitchen 15 minutes later asking for cereal and Ni Hao, Kai-Lan.
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| read all about it |
[18 Nov 2009|08:40am] |
I am officially a newspaper subscriber again. As of yesterday, I'm getting the Las Cruces Sun-News.
It's funny how no matter where you go, there's a subset of people that hate the local paper to the point of giving it a new name. In Albuquerque, it was the Urinal. In Orlando, it was the Slantinel. (Yes, I used that myself. Sour grapes, maybe.) Paper critics here call it the Slum-News or the Sun-Spews.
The main criticism seems to be the lack of content. Today's edition has three sections, a total of 24 pages. Yesterday's had two and 20. People want more news in their newspaper, especially old people who have retired to Las Cruces from a larger city and are accustomed to the New York Times.
But the thing is -- OK, well it's twofold. First, Las Cruces is tiny. The mayor has some kind of a campaign to get everybody in town to do their census report next year so we can break 100,000 residents. A town this size can't support a behemoth international newspaper, even though it's paired up with the mighty El Paso Times. (Which, by the way, you could get delivered here if you wanted it. I decided to go with the Sun-News for now, and later if I feel like I need more paper I'll get the Times.)
The other thing, the bigger issue in today's business climate, is the Internet. There's free news 24/7, breaking as it develops. TV changed the game a bit, but even with TV news you had to wait until 6 or 11 to see what was going on. Even with CNN, there's bullshit like Nancy Grace in the way of the actual news. Plus TV doesn't make you read. The Internet is a lot closer to the traditional newspaper experience, and more and more of us are going here to get our big news. (If you can call the ongoing saga of Jon and Kate "news.")
Without that subscription money coming in, a small paper's business model can't support a giant staff of wire feed readers, copy editors, and layout designers it takes to fill up a NYT, to say nothing of actually hiring staff to constantly cover things somewhere else. The only way it can survive is to give you the stuff you can't get online -- intensive local news. This is especially true in a town like Las Cruces, where even our local TV news is from El Paso.
I know it's passe, reading a newspaper on actual paper. But there's something cool and traditional about it. And honestly, I don't think having a physical paper will ever truly die. It seems like everybody in the industry who's tried to predict the future of the newspaper has at some point talked about how the paper will print itself in your house. Which would be great, because then I wouldn't have to go out to the driveway in the cold in my pajamas.
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| hoop-de-doo |
[17 Nov 2009|11:59pm] |
As a sports fan, I want to raise a kid who, if she doesn't like sports herself, at least understands the rules and the appeal to her dad. I've taken Avery to soccer games, volleyball matches, and baseball games on multiple levels. But finally, today, she went to her first college basketball game.
The Lobos were in town, playing the hated Aggies. I've always been a Lobo fan, one of those guys who bleeds cherry and silver, and basketball has been my favorite since I was a kid. My dad took me to games, and I want to do that for my kids. The difficulty with that, living in Las Cruces, is the risk that you raise kids who not only like sports, but root for New Mexico State. Can't have that. So we went to the UNM game.
I'm pleased to say that my first experience in Pan American Center did not end in a shaming of my hometown heroes. The Lobos won, and almost hung 100 on the Ags if not for one missed free throw and lack of a foul near the end. The $11 seats, though, were pretty unkind to my butt. Next time we'll sit in the chairback section. That's where the other Lobo fans were, anyway.
That's not until next year, though, that they'll play again here. What to do for more basketball without cheering for Aggies? Well, at least there are three high schools in this town. And of course there's the women's game. There'll probably be more Lobo fans than Aggie fans for that one. I'll feel more at home.
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| little-rature |
[16 Nov 2009|09:04pm] |
Hey, I actually wrote in my novel today!
The problem is I've written this before, and so I feel like it's sort of a waste to do it again. This is my issue with being an actual writer, I think. You have to rewrite, you have to edit, and you have to clean up your prose. It's not art, at least not beyond the original conception. It's a craft, and it can be improved.
I feel like I have a good story here. That's what's keeping me going, keeping me from just discarding it and doing something else. The trick is making others want to read it, making them care that I have a story to be read. But more importantly, if I leave it as is, it's not the story I want to tell. So cleaning and refurbishing is the key.
I'm up to 5612 words. Forget NaNoWriMo, 2010 is going to be NaNoWriYear at this point.
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| queer career |
[15 Nov 2009|10:53pm] |
Something I never thought I'd say at work: "Don't put the turtle in your nose!"
Denis Leary was right -- toddlers are like drunken monkey midgets on acid.
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| ok, so pie list |
[14 Nov 2009|10:13pm] |
Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie
I read back through this recipe, and realized that the instructions were choppy and incomplete. If I remember correctly, what I did last time was made the second pecan pie recipe, only I put a shot of bourbon into the sugar mixture, then spread chocolate chips over the bottom of the crust, put pecans over that, then poured in the syrup and baked it off. That's what I'm gonna try this time around, anyway.
Peanut Butter Apple Pie
I ate a granny smith last week that was absolutely amazing, and then I remembered seeing this recipe and realized I had to do it.
Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie with Almond Crumb Topping
Both Sed and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sarasaid suggested strawberry-rhubarb independently, so I decided to look into it. I've never been a huge fan of it, but when I saw more than one recipe using a streusel, the idea jumped several notches.
Bananas Foster Cheesecake
I have a slightly picky eater to please in my sister-in-law -- she doesn't like the traditional pie spices. Last year she ate chocolate cream pie from a mix, and I can't have that again. Technically, the recipe I posted isn't exactly what I plan to make -- besides not having the foster part, it looks too big for a pie pan. But I figure I can cut it down, and then make a rum-caramel sauce and swirl it in prior to baking. This one I'll have to test.
I also might make a marshmallow-topped sweet potato pie, because it's easy and I feel like I should take something to my uncle's house. (All of the above I planned for my mom's.) I made this one a couple weeks ago, using a can of potatoes and subbing brown sugar for the white, then throwing on a couple handfuls of mini marshmallows in the last ten minutes, and it was frickin' awesome.
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| flipping out |
[14 Nov 2009|05:28pm] |
Avery's signed up for a gymnastics class, but we haven't been to one in three weeks. What with traveling, friends, family, and parties, we just haven't been in town, which is sort of a co-requisite to attend a sports class. In that time, the term changed over, and we actually paid and enrolled for the current one even though we weren't going.
So today, when we finally made it, we found out that Avery was the only kid signed up for this time slot. "Good," you say, "more personalized attention." Well, not really. Considering the class is half dance, and the adults tend to be the only ones actually dancing during those segments, neither I nor the teacher is the type to embarrass him- or herself for ten weeks. Plus, from the gym owner's perspective, it doesn't make sense to pay a teacher for one kid unless that kid is at a competitive level.
Still, we want Avery to have some kind of organized athletics. Let's face it -- I'm not exactly Dan O'Brien, and even though she got a new swingset, it's not going to do a whole lot for her until I can teach her to swing without being pushed. She's too little to play soccer or baseball, to say nothing of my eventual hope of basketball or drum corps. So gym it is.
So now she'll be in the class on Thursday mornings. Realistically, this means she'll be more likely to make it to class every week anyway, since weekends are when we do stuff and go places. On the flip side, it means now Sed can't come. But I guess you take the bad with the good.
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| yo, check it out, guys -- this is insanely great |
[13 Nov 2009|06:22pm] |
Remember when I talked about the virus and the weird graphic problem on my desktop? Yeah, I guess the virus wasn't the problem. Well, OK, you don't want malicious programs logging your keystrokes and e-mailing out your passwords, but scanning and rebooting and rescanning and isolating and deleting has not affected the beautiful blue and red screen garbage.
My tech support guy (read: my brother) told me that there were three possibilities for failure: the video driver, the video card itself, or the memory. I've jumped through some hoops and gone through various motions, and so far it's not the driver. If it turns out to be the video card, he's got me covered. But I kinda hope it's the memory, because even though that's a cost to replace I want that machine to go faster anyway. Let's face it -- we're almost into the '10s, and just one gig of RAM is verging on obsolete.
On the bright side, the phone problem seems to have been rooted out. Glad to know I can fix something.
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| need sleepy |
[12 Nov 2009|10:50pm] |
So somehow, after just a weekend, Avery has taken to waking up earlier and going to bed earlier. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. On one hand, it's nice to not have to wake her up to go to school (you know, when school is actually open) and that I can get some breakfast in her ahead of time. But then on the other hand, that means I have to wake up earlier too, which seriously throws a cramp into my personal time in the evening after everyone's in bed.
In fact, I don't actually have anything to say today. I'm posting because I said I would. This is why I quit blogging in the first place. Crap.
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| baby wiped |
[11 Nov 2009|05:15pm] |
Man, I'm like totally useless today. I successfully went to the store, but beyond that I've been on the couch pretty much all day. When Avery went down for her nap, I came back to it and fell asleep for an hour. And I don't feel more rested.
Frickin' pretend holidays. I mean, yes, thanks to everyone who fights and protects so I don't have to. But seriously, preschool is closed on Veteran's Day? I guess paying as much for my kid to attend nine hours a week as my mom used to pay for two of us in a summer recreation program doesn't buy holidays. Considering Avery was too sick to go Monday, I sure could have used the time. These three mornings a week have become a pretty important part of my personal time, and this week I lost two of them.
It goes without saying that I haven't made much progress on my novel, what with this and the trip to Las Vegas. (I did actually get to work on it for about 15 minutes one morning before everyone else woke up.) I'm at 4897 words, and have pretty much written off "winning" NaNoWriMo. Hooray for failing both November writing initiatives less than a third into the month! But I'm determined to keep working, and actually finish a reasonable draft of this story, even if it takes me a while longer. Maybe January, when I put Avery in all five days.
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| we were told there'd be pie and punch |
[10 Nov 2009|10:57pm] |
As usual, we're going to my mom's house for the big Thanksgiving dinner this year. It's nice that we're closer, so we can set off when we feel ready rather than when the airline decides to take us. Unfortunately, Sed's working the night before, so we won't be able to go until she's done on the actual morning of. Nobody actually said the end of residency meant the end of long shifts, I guess.
I've taken the responsibility of the pies, and I'm trying to decide what all to make. I've settled on the chocolate bourbon pecan pie that ocarina was so kind to provide all those years ago, and I'm pretty sure about an apple peanut butter pie (especially after eating a delicious Granny Smith this evening). But what else? I usually make four -- well, I make three and my youngest cousin makes the pumpkin pie. I'd love suggestions, because I'm drawing a blank.
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| forward this message on to everybody |
[09 Nov 2009|03:05pm] |
We've had pretty good luck with virus issues on our computer. It's probably five years old now, and the only issue we'd had up to this weekend was a mild worm I got from the filthy skanks of computers at Office Max that I was able to clear off with not much more than Google-fu. Plus, in twenty years of using computers, that's maybe the fourth virus I'd gotten. By the law of averages, I was way past due.
Before we left on our vacation, I noticed that the computer screen was all jacked up, with frequently intermittent light-colored boxes repeating across it. I turned the monitor off, gave it a few seconds, then turned it back on. Boxes were still there. Rebooting the whole computer worked, but as soon as I opened Facebook they came back. I chalked it up to a problem with the memory1 and decided to wait and see if a weekend away would solve the problem.
This morning I turned the computer on and walked away, doing nothing more than logging in so that our MagicJack would work. When I came back a few hours later, the screen was jacked again. So I went looking for ways to increase the available memory, and one of these ways took me into msconfig's Startup tab. I didn't want to remove stuff that was needed, though, so I looked up all the programs in there to see what they were.
One of them was a trojan2.
So off I go looking for remedies to this program, herss.exe, which parks itself in your Local Settings/Temp folder and disables the computer's ability to view hidden files or folders. If you turn it on under Tools, it turns itself right back off. None of the backdoor ways to view them worked for me, which meant I had no choice to install antivirus software, the frickin' resource hog which is just gonna eat more of my gig.
Luckily, an engineer friend of mine had only days before recommended Avast as a wonderful freeware antivirus suite that doesn't hog memory. The computer let me download and install it, which suggests that the virus is not totally debilitating, and told me to reboot so the program could scan my hard drive.
My virus scan just finished. It didn't find a trojan. It found like ten, hidden in 329 infected files. Plus, as the database updated itself, it found another one, which popped up six times. I'm rebooting and rescanning with the new definitions, and hopefully this will be the end of it.
The display looks right already, too. Here's hoping.
1. The desktop runs on 1GB. It was fine for a long time, but in the last few weeks I've noticed the phone (which runs on MagicJack) breaking up and beeping by itself. I chalked that up at first to Sed making calls from deep inside the hospital and pressing her ear against her phone's buttons, but when it happened with both of our moms I figured the problem was on this end. Upgrading the memory wouldn't be difficult or pricey, and events that unfolded haven't changed my intention to do so.
2. Are you still supposed to capitalize this word in reference to the type of virus? I'm too lazy to go check.
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| that's what you get, baby |
[08 Nov 2009|03:16pm] |
I was thinking about backdating an entry for yesterday and pretending I was still in the NaBloPoMo game, but when you cheat at an Internet accomplishment, you're only cheating yourself. Who are we kidding? I wasn't gonna interrupt drinking an entire six-pack by myself to blog.
The trip has been great. We saw Jay Leno and Lance Burton, and both shows were hilarious and worth the expense. We meandered all over the Strip and have eight sore feet among us. We ate two breakfast buffets, one of which was brunch at the Bellagio and well worth the longest line in Vegas. Maybe best of all, we got to spend a good amount of time with my friends who live here, drinking and shouting and generally being amiable.
The airport really provides mixed feelings. On the one hand, we've had such a great getaway that it's hard to picture the end. But on the other, I can't wait to get a big hug from my little girl and spoil the crap out of her with all the souvenirs we loaded up on.
Now, just because I lost the game doesn't mean I'm gonna stop writing this month. This is for me, not for some random Web community where I could possibly win prizes. Who needs fabulous prizes? Bah.
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| bright light city gonna set my soul on fire |
[06 Nov 2009|07:54pm] |
I love it that I get to look out my window and see the mountains. Especially since at the moment, most of Las Vegas and Henderson is between me and them.
Yeah, this morning we got on a plane and came to Vegas. It’s been more than two years since I’ve been here, and more than three since we were last here together. It’s one of our favorite places to come, but while we were living in Florida (another of them) it was harder to justify flying all the way out here. From El Paso, it was less than two hours in the air.
Needless to say, this is a weekend for adult debauchery. No, we didn’t bring Avery -- even though Vegas is getting more family friendly every year, it’s still not a place for a toddler. Nona is staying with her, probably having as much fun as we will. Of course we’ll miss Avery. We already do; we aren’t heartless. But it’s still nice to have a couple of days without Pull-ups or Ni Hao, Kai-Lan or fighting with a certain member of the family over how much chicken she has to eat before she can have something sweet.
The best thing about Vegas is you don’t really have to plan your vacation. We sort of rolled into town with tickets to see Jay Leno tonight and no other ideas. But there’s so much going on here that the ideas will come to you. Tomorrow we might see a singer, a magician, a troupe of impressionists -- could be anything.
So why am I wasting precious minutes of my vacation writing a blog post instead of getting wasted? Hey, I can do both. Because I’m committed.
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| vocrapulary |
[05 Nov 2009|08:54pm] |
Shrimp is delicious. I used to hate it, but after living in more localized aquatic climates I've come around, to the point that I even cook it myself. Tonight, I made shrimp and grits for guests, and everyone loved it. But sometimes it grosses me out. Like when I'm standing at the sink for half an hour peeling and deveining two pounds of 41-60s.
You gotta do something to occupy your mind while you're doing something that monotonous. Me, I invent new words.
shrit n.
the stuff you're getting rid of when you're deveining shrimp After all, think about it. That's not a vein. It's an intestine.
Yuck.
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| slow and steady |
[04 Nov 2009|10:14pm] |
So I mentioned Avery has a new pet turtle.
This weekend, my brother and his wife came down for Halloween (which is a whole other post, and wait until you see Avery's costume). While they were here, Sed took advantage of having a female around to go shopping at the outlets in El Paso. I don't know how they happened to see the turtles, but at ten bucks a pop, they were both sold.
Sed worked pretty hard to justify it to me later. Avery needs to learn how to take care of a pet, she said, and a turtle is a little bit more interactive than a goldfish but not as demanding as a hamster. Also, it's not so heartbreaking if a turtle bites the dust as it would be if it were a furry friend. Now, the tune will change when this turtle's time comes and we have to have a funeral for him and Avery's crying (and so is Sed). I think we both know that this was an impulse buy, predicated both on Sed's desire for her own menagerie and the low price. I don't mind. A turtle is generally low-maintenance, plus it's cute.
Avery loves having a pet of her own, rather than just the dogs (which, let's be totally honest, they're mine). She named it Webs the Bapper Turtle. I don't know where she came up with Webs, and I don't know what a bapper is, but that works for me. We play with him a few times a day, and it's a good thing turtles have a hard shell because I've totally lost count of the number of times Avery has dropped him, to say nothing of the dives he's taken off the coffee table. (Oh, I forgot to mention we got our coffee table. Another post.) Naturally, he's scared of the dogs, but oddly the dogs aren't trying to eat him, which is unexpected given their total freakout at the big turtle in our backyard in Florida. They just give him a sniff and go about their business. But most of the time he lives in a terrarium with purple rocks (Avery's choice) and a log to hide in.
I have to say I'm pretty proud of how quickly Avery's learned to be gentle and carry Webs properly. Maybe one of these days she'll stop trying to tackle Kucha too.
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| so long, old friend |
[03 Nov 2009|07:27am] |
Today's entry was going to be some flippant off-the-cuff stuff about pets. OK, you're asking, and yes, Avery has a new pet turtle. His name is Webs, because that's what she came up with out of somewhere in the ether. But that has to be another day's post. Today I have to be serious.
Yesterday at around noon, I found out that my mom's best friend died.
I knew Beth for most of my life -- she and my mom started working together not too long after I was born. And when I say "most of my life," I don't mean she flitted in and out from time to time. She was always there. If you had a birthday, an anniversary, any memorable event, you could always count on Beth to shoot you a homemade card and a few kind words. She was forever working to brighten everyone else's day, even if it meant not asking for help herself.
Right to the end, she didn't want to be a burden. She went quietly, by herself, not interested in prolonging the pain for anyone. If anyone deserved to be surrounded by family and friends in her last moments, it was Beth, but that's not what she wanted. I suppose we should respect that, but it's hard when you don't even get to say goodbye to someone who was such a huge part of our family.
It's still not real to me. I keep expecting to go to Thanksgiving dinner and see Beth sitting at the kitchen table, helping out not so much by preparing food but by throwing out compliments and laughing at jokes and making the time pass more quickly. Even thinking about that day without her doesn't seem right.
Go well, Beth. Wherever you are now, I hope you're at peace.
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