Long Presidents' Day Weekend

Saturday night, Phyllis and I ventured out to the Springfield Elks' Club -- in sub zero weather. We didn't care because the car heater works great! We had a fabulous dinner buffet and then a comedy club with Jess as the MC. The proceeds benefited the Springfield Veterans Center. 

She was very funny, giving us a lot of laughs some of which were from a lesbian's perspective. One of my favorite parts of her remarks was how she is nervous because she has a new car. Her new car has heated seats and she's of the age where the "cough pee" is a real thing, "What," she thought, "if I cough pee and it hits the heated seat. Will it electrocute me?" So now if she has to cough, she pulls over.

There were two other comedians, who were also very funny. One who is from Maine said she lives in NYC and has had to get used to the environment. One subway ride was very scarring for her because a guy went up to her and said, "BIG FEET." He proceeded to chatter BIG FEET at her so much that she is now really conscious of her feet! She was very funny. The other one didn't impress me as much because her whole patter was about being from an Irish family and how they drink so much.  

Here is one of the clever table decorations (it was a table for 8):

As you may know, this is a beta which is also known as a Siamese fighting fish. One guy at the table thought it was fun to hold up a mirror to watch the fish get mad and attack the mirror. I think the fish must have had a sore nose from hitting the bowl. I was going to report him for fish abuse, but he stopped.

At the end of the show, they told us that someone at every table had something taped to the bottom of their chair -- it was fish food. That person got to take the fish home. I sure hope everyone stuck their fish in their jacket because otherwise they would have had a fishcicle by the time they got to their (cold) car.

More later but I have to go to work now. It was a fun-filled weekend!

Oh wait, do you like my new hair cut?

It's Snowing Again

O.k., so I know we are spoiled. Last year we had snow up the wazoo! This year, we are on our third storm as of today. And the last two were last week and two days ago. Whoever heard of not getting snow until February in Massachusetts?!  I especially enjoy clearing off my car after work -- not!

On to happier things. Dinner last night:

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you -- those are radishes. They are radishes sauteed with bacon and onion. Yum! They might as well be home fries. However, the radishes have 0.2 carbohydrates vs. 18 to 20 carbohydrates for a white potato. I'll take it! The rest is chicken coated in pork rind crumbs (they call it "dust").

I'm working on my second cup of coffee after an omelette with ham and cheese. I found a package of two ham steaks lasts me a really long time (one ham steak is way too big for a serving, so I cut it up).

Next I might try daikon -- an Asian radish. As we know, everything is great with bacon! Did you know that a lot of bacon has added sugar? I didn't, but now I look closely at the packaging to be sure there is no sugar in the curing.

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Thanks, Mom, you were right: I bought some slacks in a smaller size than I thought -- and they fit.  Woo hoo! Lisa is amazed at the packages I get in the mail. She says it's like Christmas every day. I bought some blouses too -- two sizes smaller than what I had been wearing a couple of months ago. Like a good girl, I put the too big blouses in a bag to go to charity. One item in, one item out is my new closet control theory. Of course, I still have too many perfectly good clothes, but some are just too worn or tacky for work. Today I plan to brighten up the office wearing my almost-tomato red (new) blouse and slacks. It's a grey day and we will need some color in the office.

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I prefer to remember the good times. Like the time the girls and I were waiting for Daddy to get out of work. We were outside of the WFCR studio in the parking lot. When he exited the building, the girls opened fire with water pistols. It was hot and he didn't mind.

Or the time we were in an elevator in Canada with Baby Debbie (sorry, Em, you weren't on the horizon yet) and an older couple got on. I don't speak French, but it was obvious to me that they were saying, 'What a beautiful bebe!' I think it was the curly hair ...

And there was the time that Sheldon came home from work and he told us how he couldn't figure out why none of the equipment (it was reel to reel audio tape in those days) in his studio worked. Then he realized that every button or switch that was at toddler Emily height had been pushed or toggled. She had reset all of the studio equipment. 

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I often wonder what the girls remember of their childhood. Do they remember the Un-Birthday Party I hosted in the back yard? Aunt Lorraine and Grandma and Grandpa and their aunts and everybody came. It didn't seem fair to me that December and March babies couldn't have an outside party so I threw one. That was the first time that I carved my famous watermelon basket and filled it with fruit salad. Good times! (I think the girls were around six and eight years old.)


Good grief! Time to go to work. Ciao!

Super Bowl 2016

So I probably should not tell some of you who live on the left coast that I filled up my tank at $1.68 per gallon. That's using 10 cents off per gallon due to my Stop and Shop grocery purchases.

It is a fine day to pump gas -- the temperature is 43.6 F. and the sun is blindingly shining.  However, I could have done without my jeans and underwear inexorably sliding off my butt. Yes, I do know what a belt is. I was/am wearing one. It apparently does not know its use aside from as a tourniquet. Luckily, I had my long winter coat on so nobody getting gas around me fainted.

It was time: I had to do it. I bought a lot of food so that I will have some cooked and ready to heat up when I get home from work. So far, I have cooked chicken Italian sausage with kale (I can't figure out why they put kale in it, but it was marked down), baked chicken thighs in crumbs (using pork rind dust), plain baked chicken, baked chicken with Montreal seasoning.  I have yet to make eggplant with ricotta and meatloaf and meat balls.  I have sliced the radishes.

Radishes? you say.  Yes, a low carb blog (Carol Ketchum) poster said they loved radishes cooked in bacon fat with bits of bacon.  Now we already know that bacon makes everything better, but this seems like a yummy substitute for potato. According to Google, there is 0.2 carbohydrate in radish.  Woo hoo!

From the number of people at the supermarket, you would have thought we were getting a snow storm. It was packed! Almost all of the parking spaces were filled to the edge of the parking lot. It was pretty apparent there had been a run on store made guacamole and fresh salsa. The chips still seemed in good supply. But then, I was there early -- around 1 p.m. I wonder if there are last minute Super Bowl shoppers the way there is for Christmas.  Woe to the guy who was supposed to do it earlier and has to return home to the wife without all of the items on her list!

Today after church I was supposed to get a lesson on how to use the commercial dishwasher.  I did, sort of. It was not working. It turns out that there is no hot water, so the machine 'knew' that and would not complete the filling up process. Luckily, I don't need it until Feb. 20, but they were glad to find out that repair is needed before Shrove Tuesday (Feb. 9th).  That's when all who show up get free pancakes and sausages.  There's merriment and bingo after that. I probably will pass because I cannot eat that many carbs.

Speaking of which, this low carb diet is really working for me. I lowered my A1C (average blood sugar level over 90 days) one full percentage point. My doctor and I are very happy about that. As you know, I have a ways to go with weight loss, but keep your fingers crossed (or say a prayer if you are so inclined).

This afternoon, I'm going over to Ann and Rod's house ostensibly to watch the Super Bowl. I just really only watch the commercials and half time. I just don't really like watching guys run into each other causing pain and injury. Tennis is much more civilized. I'll probably bring a quilt to bind. I have procrastinated for so long, that I have to finish this one!! And the Stupid Bowl, er Super Bowl, will keep me in one place hopefully long enough to finish the binding.

I had Friday off. We had a late opening at Noon due to the 5 inches of snow, but I took the rest of the day off as vacation. It was still snowing and I just couldn't face cleaning my car off when coming home.  Consequently, today is the first day I left the house. I had been so tired on Friday that I had completely slept through the phone with the robo call telling us of the delayed opening. I'm not sure why I was so tired, but I think it was because my back had been hurting. It pretty much hurts all of the time, so I ignore it. Although some times I use a cane.  Maybe when summer comes it will stop hurting.

The League of Women Voters has been having a table in the lobby of the Library so they can register people to vote. I'm really happy they are doing that. We need everyone possible to vote, especially in the presidential election.  Traditionally, Amherst is almost exclusively Democratic, so it will definitely be a minority of for those who might vote for Trump or one of the others. I have to say that I am ashamed to hear some of the bigoted hate speech spewing from some of these candidates' mouths. And that's all I'm going to say. I try to avoid politics and the nastier sides of real life.

Life is too short to not enjoy it and to be mean-spirited. Ooops! Just realized that I also have a boneless pork roast in the oven. I'm going to go check on that. Ta ta!

Savoring Sunday

I'm savoring the last bit of my Sunday before I have to sleep. As always, the weekend was too short.

Yesterday (Saturday), I drove to Worcester to have lunch with Deb, Paul and Emily. We had wonderful seafood and lively conversation. Deb and Paul gave me my Christmas presents which included nice, soft socks and a series of novels signed by the author. The first one is called "Hens and Chickens" and it's by Jennifer Wixson. It definitely will be a departure from my usual murder mystery as it says this is " ... a story about love ...".

After lunch it was on to Emily's house where I got to have 3 cats snoozing on me at once while we watched the snow and TV. Actually, Worcester only got about three inches of snow and Amherst did not get one flake! That is a huge difference from NYC (about 20 inches) and Silver Spring, Maryland (about 28 inches!).

Emily and I watched "The Imitator" which is about Alan Turing who cracked Enigma -- the Nazi code during WWII. It was an amazing story and very sad at the end. He was treated very badly. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II posthumously awarded him honor, but it would have been better when he was alive.

This morning I buzzed back to Amherst in time for church. I was a half hour early but I did not go home first because I was worried that I would be late. I have to use the elevator since my sacroiliac went out and the elevator has you walk past the choir. I feel it's bad form to be late!

Ann and I had a yummy lunch here. I made "spaghetti" using a spaghetti squash and it came out very well. The whole squash takes 18 minutes in the microwave. Of course, I had made meatballs and eggplant parmesan and a green salad. We feasted like queens. With tiaras. Not the other kind of queen.

After lunch, Ann and I watched an Indian movie on TV. As in tea and rajahs, not as in bow and arrows. I'll be darned if I can remember or replicate the name because it was the anglicized version of Hindi. It was very entertaining, especially reading the subtitles, and it was after the whole story was done (while the credits rolled) that they began the singing and dancing that is so characteristic of the Baliwood movies.  Wow, do they ever love color in their dance costumes! It was fun to watch and made us want to see a 'real' Baliwood movie because there would be more singing and dancing.  

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Last week I got a new garbage disposal. The old one had quit. I was very happy to see the shiny new disposal. It worked! Once. Yesterday, I tried to use it for the second time and it did not work. Yes, I tried the reset button and I stuck a broom handle in it. No dice. So I left a message for them to come fix it tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the day before that, I had the beginnings of a new crown on a tooth. I was in the dentist's chair for two hours!! This is getting to be ridiculous. I spent 50 minutes in the chair for the root canal before that. And I have to go back in two weeks for the actual crown. Bummer, eh?

Very Relaxing Day

Thank you, Nova Scotia, for my luncheon mussels! They went well with a cup of Red Rose and some chorico on the side (and marinated mushrooms and peppers stuffed with prosciutto).

Above was actually yesterday's lunch. Tonight, for supper, I made homemade chicken soup with a bit of leftover chorico. The sausage gave it a nice zip. I added fresh green beans, cabbage, onions, etc.

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So today I decided to fix my garbage disposal. No, no go. I tried the re-set button several times. I have the fix-it people coming on Wednesday afternoon.

I thought I had been clever in putting the household cleaners in a cardboard box so that in this situation, I could just pull out the box. Well, yes, sort of. The sink had dripped into the cardboard box ... ick! It was a good opportunity to combine partial bottles of glass cleaner and throw out dried out silver polish. When I went to the grocery store, I got a plastic 'dish washing' pan for $1.99 to replace the gross cardboard. I already had a plastic one on the other side so now it's very neat.
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After hanging up two loads of laundry, I decided to go to the gym for a "strength" class. Nope, the instructor didn't advise it because I'm still sore from the bout of sacroiliac pain. So I did a bit on the recumbent bike and then hit the hot tub.  Wow! The hot tub felt SO good that I went into the pool and did my treading water thing. Then the hot tub again.

After that, it was off to the supermarket to return bottles.  No, Cyndi, the machines wouldn't take the flavored sparkling water bottles. I don't know if it was because I bought them at Costco and not Stop and Shop, but I left them there. 

Speaking of Cyndi, I had a fabulous time at her birthday dinner at Galaxy in Easthampton. Their food is fabulous and I told the chef so on my way out.

Half of the table with Cyndi the Birthday Girl at the head of the table next to George.

At the party, I learned that they are not oxen until they are trained. I said, "You mean they are cows?!?!" And Cyndi said, "No, because they are boys. Steer, actually."  Sheesh, who knew? I thought an ox or oxen were a whole different kind of beast.

Now I have to google moose, elk, and reindeer all over again. Maybe I just need an animal crib sheet. Although, I have to admit that I have never used oxen in a sentence before. Sure, crossword puzzles, but that's about it.  But my friend, Cyndi, apparently has a blossoming relationship with the oxen at Old Sturbridge Village. Who knew? (I wonder if they sent her a birthday card.)

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I'm thinking baby bok choy is my new favorite. I don't care if cauliflower is the new kale, I can't pay $6/head -- and the store was out of it again. I made chicken and bok choy tonight for tomorrow, but I fell in love with it with shrimp from my favorite Chinese restaurant. I think they had sauteed everything in chicken broth. So the rest of the veggies will go with shrimp. 

Sorry that so much of this is about food. I am determined to make things that I can bring for lunch. I plan to make meal-sized containers so I can just grab something in the a.m. That goes for salads too. That reminds me: I should make some crustless quiche for breakfasts ...

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She did it again. Nancy beat me by over a hundred points at Words with Friends. And then Mom goes and beats me. I would go in the back yard and eat dirt, but we got a dusting of snow last night and there's none available. And then, then, to add insult to injury: the darn game trumpeted a 30 point word for me.  Ahem. No, that was a 55 point word! Sheesh. I'm still losing. Sigh. Maybe I'll find someone who doesn't speak English ...

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Okay, have potted up the pre-cooked food and one salad for tomorrow. Have washed 8 zillion dishes. I'm going to bed! I wish you all a happy week!

Is That All There Is?

So the holidays are over. Thank goodness! I won't tell you how ridiculously late it is, but I'm still in pajamas. I will get dressed to go to the movies in a bit.

But as I watched stale TV (reruns of Law and Order), I remembered how embarrassed I was yesterday when I couldn't find a can of Redi Whip in my fridge. I quickly put the chaos of the refrigerator out of mind and began channel surfing.

O.k. It only took one show of Hoarders for me to tackle the refrigerator.  Oh, Lord! Who knew it could hide so much ... er, garbage? It's all better now but I had to make a crustless quiche and some cauliflower "bread." Both are in the oven now. Yeah, yeah, I'll give you a picture. 

The quiche has sweet red peppers and mushrooms.

I know that this doesn't look like bread, but l'm supposed to gently remove it from the pan and make a cheese sandwich. So when I grill the "bread," it should make a yummy grilled cheese sandwich. I have my doubts, but it's worth a try. I'll be doing that on another day because we're going out to eat after the movie.

Happy New Year's Day!

Cyndi, Emily and I had a fun and relaxing day. Two of our friends couldn't make it at the last minute, so we will have to do this again soon.

As we began our marathon watching of "Mozart in the Jungle" on Amazon Prime, we put out some hors d'ouevres.

That's 3 different cheeses with crackers on the left, Cape Cod potato chips to go with onion dip and the far right is lettuce leaves and crackers with salmon and cream cheese spread. (I mixed cooked salmon into cream cheese. The lettuce was for me so I didn't eat the crackers.) The top right is pea pods (raw) and to the left is broiled eggplant slices with a bit of sea salt. In the middle is Whole Foods' green olives with garlic and lemon.

Before Emily arrived, I gave Cyndi her happy new year gift. (O.k., it's true it wasn't done for Christmas.)

Cyndi really liked her new cow bag and I'm really proud of myself because I figured out how to put in a magnetic clasp.

After a couple of episodes, we got to work cooking. Cyndi and Emily (mostly Emily) made won tons with crab, bok choi, and carrots inside.

Emily grumbled about being a slave in Mama Tina's won ton sweat shop, but we all enjoyed the fruits of her labor. 

In the picture below, Cyndi seared the tofu for the stir fry on the left. This stir fry included red peppers, broccoli, water chestnuts, onions, green beans, bok choi, floor sweepings ... no, I'm kidding. 

And in the middle of the picture above, is the lo mein that I made using whole wheat noodles.

Cyndi brought a wonderful fruit mix of strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries. The fruit was wonderful!

While it's true that I vacuumed and washed a fair amount of dishes, I haven't done anything else. It has been fun! Although I had planned to make low carb pumkin bread. But tomorrow is another day.  Cheers!