LOST Season 5 Finale Party

[cue creepy music]

Another season of LOST come and gone. We had a party. Theresa made a blackboard for our kitchen, to cover up the breaker box, and just in time. Else how would we have known what was for food?



I guess we could have just looked at the table, where the feast was spread. This picture was taken about halfway through preparations, so the amount of food and drink doubled from here. There was beer-cheese dip in a bread bowl, taquitos, lime chips, lemon pastries, fruit, more fruit, fruit dip, more fruit dip, flowers (not for eating), veggies, veggie dip, homemade pretzels (Theresa), pretzel dip, and lots of Dharma Beer. Sadly, no pictures of the beer which had cool labels on it.


Oh, and there was a cake. Purple sprinkles gradated the night sky. Brown sprinkles formed the peoples' limbs. Tweezers were involved in the icing of this cake. Theresa may be a culinary genius. At very least she has potential as a cake-decorator. Thanks to Charm City for their inspiration!


And here are the hosts. I swear there were other people there, even though none of them show up in any of these pictures. Odd.

Half Bath Done

For four months, our living room has been graced by two lovely sinks. One, a fine pedestal sink, the other, a granite countertop with rubbed bronze fixtures. This arrangement afforded us two benefits. First, we could give our houseguests false hopes for clean hands. Second, painful aesthetics in the present make for palpable relief upon completion of home projects, or so I've heard, from like everybody.

So we installed tile. Travertine. Now, when I hear "Travertine," my eyes look a little like this: $$ and my mouth looks like this: O. After all, shipping inorganic chemical sedimentary rock from Tivoli ain't cheap. Anyway, long story short, Theresa found a box of Travertine with no price tag at Home Depot, and they sold it to us for the same price as ceramic. Win.

Our friends Dave and Jess did most of the installation, but Theresa paid close attention so she can install tile upstairs. Eventually.



We left the toilet outside on the back porch while we installed the floor. It was out there for nearly four months, which our neighbor thought was very classy, and when we removed the tarp at the end of month 4, the bowl was cracked. Toilet-related word. So we bought a new one that's all environmentaly groovy.

Theresa painted some birds on the back wall, because what is a bathroom without some feathers? She painted all the other walls, too. And helped install the floor. And went to Home Depot like 30 times. And measured for the baseboards, and coordinated with Dave and Jess, and made me help, which is no small task.



I installed the toilet, the sink, the baseboards, and the threshold. I hope nobody ever wants to remove that threshold, because I used enough liquid nails to keep Britney's career from slipping, oh snap.



Denouement.

It looks pretty great, and it's a pretty big relief to have a bathroom downstairs again, cause, um, we're pretty sick of guests using newspaper.

Valentine's Day, 2009

Welcome back.

So it's been almost a year since our last post. So we've been busy. Golly, between reruns of Scrubs and the time it takes to make macaroni and cheese, we've barely got time to sleep and earn a living.

--Fade in--

Valentine's morning. Sleeping. Cell phone on nightstand blinks from 8:59 to 9:00. Eyes open. Bare feet on bamboo floor. Sun peeking past drawn shades. Red curtain. Remembering - Valentine's day. Kiss wife.

Later, ice rink. Stiff leather skates, still warm from previous occupant. Shudder. Slow circles. Lots of people. Little kids with facemasks and rocket-propelled skates. No falls. Zamboni. Just right, like little bear's porrige. Remembering - Valentine's day. Time to eat.

Reading back over the previous two paragraphs, I remember something else. When I was in the monastery in southeast Asia, I vowed never to write anything the might, even loosely, be construed as poetry. Nay, forsooth, and whatnot! Fade out! Blog on!

We went to Whole Foods and bought whole foods and tasted several food parts. Then we went home and cooked and cooked! First, the appetizers... Polenta fritters with gouda inside. How were they? Insert pun here.



Next up, mixed greens with candied walnuts, red-wine-soaked cherries, and a blood orange vinagrette. Who gives a darn about an Oxford comma? Here's Theresa, squeezing blood from an orange.



Here's the whole meal, plated and paired with a lovely Cabernet. Oh yeah, the entree was eggplant parmesean, covered in red sauce and topped with mozzarella and parmigiano and parsely. Not a big deal. OMG so good!!!!!!11one



Finally, dessert - panna cotta with vanilla beans, topped with a fresh blackberry sauce.



Om nom nom nom.



It was the best Valentine's day we've ever had, which I suppose is fitting, since it's been a great year so far. It also helps, I think, that we've recently learned to share a kitchen.

Au Reviere. The redcoats are coming!

EPIC FAIL

I woke up this morning and rolled out of bed.
I yawned and I showered, I dressed and I fed.
I trundled upstairs to log on to the net...
Just wanted to check on my email and get
Up to speed on the news of the day and to see
That I knew what was happ'ning internationally.
At this juncture, I fear, was the first of my clues
That the day would be filled with bemoanin' and blues.
For my trusty old Firefox failed to connect.
So I reset the router, began to inspect
All the cables and cords, and the modem of course -
But all was in order; no flaw to endorse
My impression that something was terribly wrong,
My efforts to remedy didn't take long.
Not as long, in the least, as the time that I spent
On the phone with a customer service accent.
Anyway, in a while I gave up the chase
And went downstairs to T. for a needed embrace.
But then what to my wondering eyes should appear
But my cell phone is pieces, just sitting there
On a towel, and looking a right awful mess.
"It went through the washer" T. sadly confessed.
"Confound it!" I screeched, and other such things,
For inside me frustration'd unfolded its wings
And was now soaring high, and I think mocking me,
For usually I'm gifted, electronically.
So I grouched for a while, and mumbled a bit,
Using four letter words like "darn," "urgh," "jeez," and "pits."
Then I rallied around! A new challenge arose!
I would go to the thrift store and buy some old clothes.
See, the ones that I own are too short in the sleeve,
Cause they're made for one shorter and wider than me.
And the same with my pants - they're for people with thighs,
Not for someone with all of their substance INside.
So - long story short, this adventure failed too.
I found nothing appealing, and left unamused.
Later on, back at home, I thought maybe it'd be
Nice to spend some time browsing in the library.
So I looked up the time that it closed Saturdays,
But my luck in this case matched the rest of today's.
Yep, the libes had already shut down for the night,
Which to me seemed unfair! Yea, it didn't seem right!
Not everyone wants to spend time at the bars,
Breathing second-hand smoke and just passing the hours
Until morning when you wake with an ache in your head
And a taste in your mouth like something is dead.
Yeah, some of us want to spend Saturdays reading!
Anyway, I'll go on just to keep this proceeding...
I was feeling frustrated and hungry to boot,
So we went to get Thai at a place of repute.
We had dined there before and the food was delicious.
But the day was just cursed, and my karma pernicious.
The Pad Thai was yummy... the waitress was cute.
The problem was floating in water - the fruit
That is meant to accent and refresh with its tang.
Yep, a lemon was the final straw of the day.
I squeezed it right into my half-empty glass...
There wasn't a warning - it happened so fast...
Lo, out from the lemon a droplet took flight,
Traversed through the air and encountered my eye.
And the burning I felt was familiar to me -
It summed up quite nicely the moral, the theme:
When a day's disappointments go beyond the pale,
Prepare thyself, grasshopper, for an EPIC FAIL.

And my guitar string broke. And I couldn't find the book I was looking for at either of the two bookstores I went to. And my cell phone is definitely not going to work again. And some of the CDs I imported have static.

And it was a beautiful day. Theresa and I took a walk in the sun and the snow. I watched a mockingbird preen and puff itself up against the cold. I played the banjo. I had Pad Thai. I listened to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong sing Porgy and Bess. I took a bath. I read Neil Gaiman. I ate a lot of chocolate.

March Brunch

In life there are few certainties. In death, there are many, but few people are certain of what they are. The point is, sometimes people have brunch on Saturdays, and this was one of those Saturdays for Theresa and Andrew.

It started out as a plan, a plan with blueberries and bowls of granola, orange juice and melon, insatiable appetites and idle chatter. As it turns out, somebody drank all the orange juice, melons and blueberries have flown south for the winter, granola is just too much of a hassle for Saturday, and chatter can only be idle if it is not usurped by a conversation. And their appetites were quickly sated by the heavy fare.

The menu included: Scrambled eggs with feta, slabs of soysage, and a layered cardamom coffee cake with strawberries. The strawberries cried out valiantly in support of a heart-healthy meal, citing both their antioxidant properties and their kind-of heart shape if they are cut a certain way, and also they are red like hearts are, but then Andrew surrounded them with brown sugar and margarine, white flour and eggs. They quickly gave up the fight and surrendered to their fate - to be the trophy harem of a vicious and unforgiving cake. The eggs just watched this struggle unfold and remained, as always, unflappable. But not unflippable... anyway, that came later.



They ate on the back porch, and had green tea.

The temperature was in the mid sixties. The sky was absorbing a lot more red light than blue, and there was no breeze, so after brunch they spent a few hours in the hammock, reading something funny (Theresa), and something serious, but with a lot of pictures (Andrew).

Tonight, who knows? Bowling was an option, but perhaps instead they will sneak past the guards and fight crime instead (though it can get boring, doing the same thing every night). Or, or... Maybe they'll go Krogering, and sabotage the entire operation by switching the locations of the apples Fiji and the Red Delicious. Ho ho! They've got depths you can't even begin to plumb.

Both of them are mostly over being sick... Andrew had SARS, or possibly just a cough, and Theresa had Ebola, or maybe just a cold. The former were more accurate for things like missing work or school, the latter were more accurate for deciding to go outside after all and play with Hermione in the garden.

Theresa is still student teaching and enjoying it despite the long drive and how it conflicts somewhat with her long-term goals in life. Andrew, by day, is an office assistant, but by night transforms into a world-class somniloquist, his repertoire including mainly movie scripts with the occasional off-Broadway monologue; with impeccable elocution and no facial expression whatsoever. Theresa, in opposition to Andrew's wishes, frequently sells tickets to these presentations on Craigslist, but he forgives her because she lets him have some of the proceedings in order to pay for his haircuts, the costs of which account for nearly 30 grand in credit card debt. A guy's gotta look good, even if his social scene involves dreams mostly.

Spring bides her time, waiting for an opening in winter's double dutch jump ropes. Small colorful vegetations are beginning to appear, blue in the grass, yellow at the end of tulip stems, red in the bushes just to the left of that woodpecker, oh! Tomorrow, a trip to Radnor Lake is in the works, to hike near and around it.

They hope you are enjoying your winter weather, whatever that may mean, and that you have a brunch sometime soon. With love.

The Great After-Holidays Holiday Letter 2007 or 8

Things are pretty much back to normal now. Theresa is working hard as per usual, finishing up her thesis, which she defends tomorrow, and student teaching the day after. She'll be putting in a full work week, plus studies, and won't get paid for it! So that's fun.

Andrew spends a good amount of time thinking about coffee while he's at work. He also is working hard to keep up with the burst of activity coinciding with the start of spring semester. He starts his CS 101 class on Wednesday, wherein he'll learn some Java, which, ironically, is the subject on which this paragraph started.

Want to see what dorks do when they have a pet and access to the internet? Check it out. That's the pet hedgehog you've heard so much about! She spent a lot of time in cold cars and strangers' hands this winter, and she's very glad to have her full-sized cage back and a consistently warm house.

The house, now that you mention it, is warm and entirely in one piece, thanks to thier friendly handyman Mr. George, who put the gutter back on last week. They arrived back home to find it hanging by the telephone wire, as it were, by its toes. No lie. The pine-needle burden had finally broken its spirit and it just broke down.

Where did they get back from? Glad you asked. They spent a couple of weeks driving around and seeing family and friends. Pictures? Ok.



That's their friend and ex-roomie, who maybe they'll live with when they move to Seattle. The other one is a family Theresa lived with when she worked for a few months in Michigan. They saw several others, but have no pictures. It was great to see everyone.

Happy Holidays. Back to work!

On Disappiontment

A great sadness has descended upon them like the slow darkening of the ocean as night falls on creatures of depth.

They were appropriately thankful for their discounted tickets. They were appropriately prepared for their island vacation, with sleeveless shirts and sunscreen, novels and no socks. They went to the airport and boarded the plane! ...To Atlanta! Ok.

From there, they planned to fly to Hawaii, direct. To Honolulu, where they would spend three days with relatives, and then to Hilo, where they would hang with a best-friend until next Tuesday. A glorious vacation it would be!

But alas! Their tickets were standby, their passes were "buddy." Their chances were slim! Their luck was amok! They made it to L.A., and waited for days! They nighted in hotels! High prices were paid! They were held fast by grim disappointment, again and again as it crush-ed them down.

Excuses were made by the airlines, in numbers.
Their hopes, oh! their hopes! They were dashed all asunder.
With "fuel optimized" and "perishables stowed,"
The airplanes took off, and passengers be blowed!
Empty seats? Yeah, who cares! Cargo sells! To the air!

And we wept, yea, we wept.
Of tears there were many.
And of hard cash on hand, we had none but a penny.
It was time to give up. It was time to go home.
So we flew back to Cinci', and drove to Dayton.

There we spent the remainder of our hard-earned time
(The rate it accrues is naught but a crime!)
And we saw our relations, and an elephant too
(We went to a circus, not to a zoo).
It was nice, which was nice, but it wasn't Hawaii.
Even now, we remember what weren't, and we cry.

And now here we are again, here in Ville Nash.
We've slept in our bed and we've broken our fast.
What have we to show for the grand that we dropped?
This postcard of LAX airport - it's tops!