What not to do on a hot day

Engage in marathon cooking and decide not to use the AC.
Yesterday I made the following:
Lamb Stew
Rice- 2.5 weeks worth of lunches
Scallion Soup
mini key lime pies
Orange Ice Cream
Chicken Pate
Salmon in soy sauce

I am trying, and failing, to use up the stuff in my freezers. I want to turn the saved ingredients into lunchable food. I have a lot of frozen fruit which I've just been throwing into glasses of ice tea or lemonade in lieu of ice cubes. I thought I had a recipe calling for bread crumbs, nope. I was hoping to rid myself of the bread crumbs and crossant crumbs. There might be a soup recipe for that.....
Also what not to do... stand for hours in flip flops. My feet and legs were dog tired last night after trying to make tons of food. I did not make as I didn't have the energy or will to make heart-attack lamb stew (I feel my heart seize up when I take my first bite), make it up as I go along ginger lamb curry, and lets see what happens when you mix coconut milk-freeze dried lemongrass and chicken breast.

A tale of two bags

This morning on the sidewalk
Two plastic bags huddled together
The little black bag tried comforting the big white bag
But it was not to be comforted.
Distressed, the black bag floated away
leaving the white bag, with it's crumpled smiley face
in a grimace.

Mom not fired, yay

Well I'm happy. My mom did not lose her job. Totally not related to the economy, but more related to petty co-workers and the conditions of her job. Mommie works for a nursing home and when she first mentioned something was wrong she thought it was because of an incident. She was trying to take care of a 'crazy man' who had undone his restraints and when she turned her back he lunged after her. She ran and held the door shut. Fine, except there were a few other patients in the room with the 'crazy man'. Not so good. But she found out she was placed on probation because someone had accused her of abuse. Silly.
Worse mom did was yell at a patient. Yes, she'll desert you and leave you to fend for yourself, but she'd never lay a hand on you. Well an investigation was made and mommy was cleared.
I'm happy she still has a job, as it keeps her out of trouble.

Closer to freedom

I came close to canceling my one credit card.
I honestly and truly want to cut it up and close the account I've had since undergrad. I've had this stupid credit card for over 15 years and like the Highlander it is the only one.
I have debit cards and I tend to use those exclusively. I can even get points with them. A few more signed purchases and maybe I can get a $25 gift card.
Anyway, I called up the credit card company, and asked to have the credit limited lowered to a couple of thou, down from $14,000. I don't need a $14K credit limit. I don't want to owe that much. Sudhir (not his name) somewhere at a call center in India warned me that I couldn't get cash advances now. Good. I rarely used the cash advance thing anyway. Then he tried to get me to transfer my balances... what balances?
I'm one summer roommate away from fully funding an emergency fund and being able to comfortably call up the credit card company and telling Sudhir or Shanti to cancel my card forever, freeing me from one more account to keep track of.

Dried peas are a NO

I tried them and I hate them.
I was hoping to be able to have something shelf stable and wean myself off frozen peas and freeing up freezer space. Nope.
Black beans, I'm fine with. Navy beans, in a soup are good. Peas on their own, crap. Total and complete crap. Patoohey!

Forgiveness and History

History is dangerous. For lying in the past are unresolved grudges, slights, injustices, actions judged by today's standards as wrong and errors. These are not safely tucked away in the past, that once a day has passed all the bad and evil is locked in time and unable to harm the present. Nope. It gets resurrected like a zombie, and it's coming to get you.
I was thinking of the grudges and the idea that group A 'owes' group B something because the first group stole, hoodwinked, or wronged the second. And an apology or replacement in kind just wont cut it because went you add interest, subtract previous attempts at getting even, and factor in lost opportunities it never settles it. The only thing that settles the debt is forgiveness. Well that or wiping out one group.

Well got that over with

Yesterday I finally did what I didn't bother doing 18 years ago in Gainesville, FL at St. Augustines.
Today, I am enjoying a traditional Easter Sunday. I'm staying home. My aunt pestered me on why I stay home, what reasoning was behind it. Not a good one, I admitted, but I wasn't going to tell her what it was. But it is now a tradition of mine, something I've been doing for about 15 years (with a few exceptions), I see no reason to break tradition.

Why I need to clean the bathroom

Feminism is useless against the dust bunnies under my clawfoot tub.
Despite having two graduate degrees, a good job that uses those degrees and not being tied to a man, I have to lower myself to my knees to engage in the drudgery of cleaning the damned bathroom.... because no one else will.
I could pay a woman, and it is usually a woman, maybe two from the maid service, to do all the cleaning. However, maid service is about $80-$125 a week. According to friends, almost always couples, maids like to come once a week, if forced to be bi-monthly, they will charge you more. Also according to friends, they don't always clean everything. So if I want it done right and done cheap/free, I have to clean it.
Somewhere a mother is wrongly discouraging her daughter any of the home arts. This is a mistake. She should be teaching her children, regardless of gender, how to clean the oven, and correctly sorting the laundry. Because regardless how educated you become, your place needs cleaning and your food needs cooking, and the school doesn't issue domestic staff with those degrees.
When I was younger I didn't give much thought to the housecleaning. I had roommates, we shared the duties and did half assed jobs at cleaning whatever room we were assigned to. As I get older, and as most of my friends have either gotten a maid, assigned one spouse/partner to housekeeping, or decided that cleaning is overrated/ unnecessary/ pointless, I care about the dust bunnies. I see the dust bunnies messing up my nice floors and the renovation work.
Damned bunnies.

iTunes world

Okay I started this post to complain that iTunes didn't have the bad Euro-pop song I wanted to explain why my last 6 purchases have been nothing but non-English songs. But I did a quick check and low and behold there it was, Toy Box's The Sailor Song.
So let's look at my last 10 purchases.

10. History by Matthew West. This was recommended by iTunes with the purchase of the sacred harp song Christian Soldier, which I really like, and What a Friend We Have In Jesus, which I don't like so much.

9. Je veux te vior by Yelle. I this was recommended by iTunes when I purchased the English version of 8 & 7. It is a fun high energy French-pop-dance song.

8. I'm a Gummy Bear. I bought this in the Orlando Airport when I was curious about what was tops on the iTune dance chart.

7. Ich bin dein Gummibar (Marschmellow mix). Same song, remixed and in German.

6. Maahi Ve (Soundtrack). This came after watching the Bollywood film Kal Ho Naa Ho (Tomorrow may never come). It is from the high energy wedding dance scene where the guys rock the sandals in Hindi.

5. Mambo Italiano by Mauro Ottolini. Was in an italian music mood. I got a lot of French songs. why not. And I wanted a version not done by Dean Martin or Rosemary Clooney.

4. Bella Bella Signorina by Patrizio Buanne. see above.

3. Tu Vuo Fa' l'americano. I have 2 English versions of this, why not.

2. The Sailor Song (Extended version) by Toy Box. Bad, bad, morally questionable bubble euro-pop.

1. Caramelldansen by Caramell. The speeded up version of a dance song. More bad brain rotting Euro-pop. I can't tell if it is in German or English.

I think the best thing I can do for the people around me is listen to music with my headphones, because no one should have to listen to my iPhone go from traditional Christian to Euro-pop to modernist classical (Peter Glass) to sappy 80s power ballads and the like.