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Happy Holidays 2009

My Four-Eyed Girl

• I always did have a thing for girls with glasses (it is a little known fact that the Lovely Suse wears glasses, but only at home). So the Lovely Tess has glasses. We had noticed over the past month+ that her left eye had started turning in every once in a while. We got it checked out, and it turns out that she has a not-uncommon condition that will necessitate glasses and other treatment over the coming years. Luckily we caught it early, and she’ll be just fine. Luckily, the girl knows how to rock a pair of specs. And yes, she will have multiple pairs to suit her mood and outfit, because, well, that’s just how she rolls. She’s had them for all of three days, and so far so good. She keeps them on, claims that she can see better, and frankly, I think she just likes looking a little different than everyone else. We’ll see how long this lasts for. I expect multiple pairs of broken glasses, complete meltdowns, and numerous glasses-related accidents.
• Our sauce making is done for the year. We made 40 jars of tomato sauce, which should keep us and friends and family stocked up for a little while. We hardly made a dent in last year’s supply, so we might be a little more generous this year. Or, we just might using a lot more sauce.
• Our friends Robert and Margaret joined us for our sauce making extravaganza, and they were kind enough to bring over the New Super Mario Bros. Wii for us to play while the sauce bubbled away. Holy crap this game is fun. I spent more hours than I care to admit of my youth conquering the first three Super Mario Bros. games on the original Nintendo, and this brought me right back to the those days. The greatest thing about this one is the ability to have FOUR people playing at the same time, and we did just that. You haven’t seen fun until you’re seen four 30-somethings playing Mario on a Friday night.
• Our holiday card is out, and hopefully people have gotten them by now. I’ll post it here later this week. Don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t gotten it yet. We’re happy with the way it came out, and I guess we’ll have to start thinking about next year’s card soon. The expectations are getting to be a little ridiculous.
• I am currently enjoying my first week off from school since July. And it couldn’t have come at a better time. I believe my current pace could best be described as “burning the candle at both ends”. I will spend the next week sitting on my ass, watching bad TV (Jersey Shore, I’m looking at you), enjoying the holidays, and actually spending time with my family. I can feel my blood pressure dropping as we speak.
• Speaking of TV, I discovered last week that a third season of Everst: Beyond the Limit was filmed this past year and should be appearing soon. This may be one of my favorite shows ever, and I can’t wait for it to appear. Oh, why can’t it be ready for a New Year’s Eve marathon, just like I watched the first season?

12/7/2009

The girl likes to rock.

• Less than three months of school left. That light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer and closer, and I’m very much looking forward to things getting back to normalish. To be honest, I don’t even remember what that feels like. You mean I’ll actually get to watch TV and movies and read books and take naps and have “free time”. I think it’s going to take a while to get used to it. I know that I bitch about it a lot, and it’s not that I dislike it, but I’m just tired. I can speak for the Lovely Suse and Lovely Tess that it’s been a very long two years, and I know that we all deserve a nice long vacation when it’s all done.
• After being unhappy with my suits for a while, I finally bought myself a new one. And it is custom-made. And it was very reasonbly priced. And feels very nice. And fits perfectly. And I want to wear it every day. And I ordered it online. And it got to my door in 7 days. Seriously. I found Indochino.com a couple of month ago, and after reading glowing reviews, bit the bullet, had the Lovely Suse take my measurements, and placed my order. I ordered it on a Monday, and it arrived at my door the following Tuesday. It needed some minor adjustments, but the company reimburses you for the alterations, and if the fit is really off, will remake it from scratch. A 100% fit guarantee is hard to argue with. Once my local tailor was done with it, it was pretty much perfect. I think I will have to make another order soon. A man can never have enough suits, right?
• For any of you who enjoy your DVR, I highly recommend picking up a Tivo HD. They recently dropped the prices on them, video quality is superb, and they do Netflix streaming. Oh, and you can replace your cable box with a CableCard (which your cable company provides at a lower cost than a HD box, although I do sort of miss having the clock on the box). They make an excellent holiday gift!
• Have I told you how much I love my cast-iron pans? We replaced all of our sketchy non-stock pans with cast-iron, and we haven’t looked back. It takes a little while to get them seasoned well enough to be truly non-stick, but it is so worth the effort. They retain heat amazingly well, they give food a fantastic crust, and they make an excellent weapon. Seriously, these things weight about 10-15 pounds apiece. It’s only a matter of time before I seriously hurt myself with one of them. I also discovered that they can be cleaned with only salt. Shake a bunch of kosher salt into the pan while still warm, scrub it with a brush or paper towels, and all of the gunk comes up. Rub it with a little canola oil and it’s good to go. These pans will outlive me, guaranteed.
• I have multiple implements to sharpen my knives, but none of them do a great job. I feel like a whetstone is the next progression. There seems to be something zen-like about sharpening by hand.
• We’ve hit up Chinatown twice in the past month. I have no idea what we don’t go there more often, but Taiwan Cafe deserves much more frequent visits from us. ASAP. Steamed vegetarian dumplings, braised eggplant, sauteed watercress, and a cold Tsingtao is one of my favorite meals of all time.
• It finally snowed over the weekend, which I highly disapprove of. However, I am now ready for the holidays due to the change in weather. I just wasn’t feeling it with the 70 degree weather. We picked up our tree yesterday, and ee tried replacing our incandescant lights on our tree with shiny new energy-efficient LED lights. When we finished decorating it, we came to the conclusion that the lights suck. They’re harsh, too white, and they blind you if they catch you at the wrong angle. An epic failure. We’ll look for better LED’s, but if we can’t find ones that give that same warm glow, the incandescants are going back up. Sorry environment. I have my limits.
• We get along with our upstairs neighbors very well, but let me say this: I can’t wait until their son goes back to college. These are going to be a long six weeks. I guess we took the peace and quiet for granted.
• Why is it perfectly acceptable to talk publicly about kids pooping but not adults? Because let me tell you, what the Lovely Tess did yesterday made me very proud. Chip off the old block, that one.
• It’s becoming a Sunday tradition making these pancakes. While we don’t always have buttermilk on hand, they are pretty damn tasty made with regular milk. It’s taken me years to find a recipe that didn’t come out like lead plates, and these are light and fluffy and just the way I like them. I went so far as to mix up a huge batch of the dry ingredients so now any time the hankering hits, we can quickly whip up a batch. Give ‘em a try.