I'm getting Black Ice, Knecht Ruprecht, and Lick It Again too!
October 2006 Archives
When you're used to using both Macs and PCs, it's important to remember which one you're on at any given time. Even though the Alt key on a PC keyboard is in the same spot the Command key is on a Mac keyboard, it does not do the same thing when you're trying to use shortcuts.
We went to a haunted house with Maddy and D last night and had a fantastic time. It was actually a haunted woods walk and two haunted houses, and the people who set it up did an excellent job. As we were standing in line to get into the first haunted house I saw people running out screaming, and all I could think was "How hard is it to just stay calm long enough to walk out of there?" Ha. When we went through I was absolutely terrified by the time we got to the exit, and when I heard a guy start up a chainsaw right in front of us, it took everything I had not to run out every bit as fast, if not faster, than the people I'd been laughing at earlier.
We went through the second haunted house right after finishing the first one, and it was much, much scarier than the first. While we were somewhere inside, I freaked out when a voice right next to my ear asked "Where are you going?" I screamed (I was informed later that I have a Jamie Lee Curtis-esque scream) and scurried forward, only to be scared again less than a minute later when the same guy asked "Did I scare you?" in the same creepy voice right next to my ear again. All I was capable of at that point was squeaking "Yes" and clutching tightly to Mike's arm. I was petrified by the time we got out of that house so we took a little break to get some cider, have our picture taken, and give my nerves a chance to recover before we went through the haunted woods. There was a guy roaming around with an air-puffer, walking up behind unsuspecting people and puffing a gust of air into their hair, and he got me three times as we were waiting in the various lines throughout the evening. After he startled me the third time I kept checking behind me every few minutes to make sure he wasn't there.
The line to get on the hayride that would take us out to the woods wasn't too long, but once we got out there, the line to actually get into the woods was long and slow-moving. We were the last ones in line, and it took an hour for us to get up to the entrance. The temperature had dropped quite a bit so it was a very cold wait, but there were a couple of fires along the way up the line which were nice to stand by until the wind started blowing the smoke in our eyes. During our wait we saw and talked about the two cop cars parked in the field near the line (one of which pulled away before we went into the woods), the pot we smelled drifting towards us, the two agitated rottweilers in a truck that pulled up when we were close to the entrance, and the crazy lady who tried to get us all to dance with her.
I went through the haunted woods for the most part with my eyes closed, holding on to Mike and using him like a shield. We were supposed to crawl through some areas, but I opted to duck walk instead because there was no way I was going to go through an area with both my head and feet vulnerable. After we made it to the end, we waited by another fire for the last truck to come and take us back to the main area. The people by that fire seemed to have been drinking quite a bit more than the ones by the entrance and were pouring diesel on the fire, coming dangerously close to burning their faces off in the process. The hay ride back was quite bumpy, but we made it without any incidents, and Mike let me sit on his lap so I wouldn't completely freeze, although I'm sure he regretted that decision every time we hit a bump.
We didn't get home until after midnight, but it was well worth staying up late, and in spite of being so scared I was worried I would pee myself, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. We're definitely going to make this a Halloween tradition.
Squeak! I'm participating in my first decant circle! I'm going to be getting Yule and Herr Drosselmeyer from the Yuletide 2006 scents. There are more that I'd like, but this is a good start.
I just called Mike a few minutes ago, and apparently my call came through right as he was picking up the phone to call me. Talk about timing.
The apple pie turned out pretty good overall, but I don't think I'm going to use the same recipe next time; I have an apple dumpling recipe from a family friend that I'm going to try to find and use instead. Mike really liked the crust, but that was pre-made so I can't take any credit for that. The main thing I didn't like about the recipe I used was the lemon juice. It made the apples too tart, even with the sugar and spice and stuff.
Yesterday's mail brought me a potential juror questionnaire from the US District Court, and if I'm selected I'll serve from November 2006 through December 2007. That'd be an interesting way to get out of holiday activities.
It wasn't a complete disaster, but it wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be either. I don't know if it was because of the boxed mix or if I'm just not used to using the bread machine yet, but making the crust was way more difficult than it sounded. An SOS call to my sister and her "master chef" husband left me with a floury but good-tasting crust, and the sauce tasted great on the pizza, so, all things considered, I think it was a pretty good first attempt. There are a couple other things I'm going to tweak next time, aside from the crust, to include the sauce. When I make red sauce there are always a some chunks of Romano that don't quite melt all the way, and while those taste great in spaghetti or lasagna or stuffed shells, they're not so great in pizza - especially cold pizza. For the next batch (amazingly enough, I'm almost through with the vat I made the other day) I'm going see how the Romano melts when cut into even smaller pieces, although I think it might be easier to just to grate it.
While I was waiting for the bread machine to work its magic on the dough I started prepping things for the apple pie, with a couple of interruptions as I took breaks to work on the pizza and to monitor the shells I was boiling. It was close to 9 when I was done with all of that, and since I didn't want to stay up till 10 babysitting a pie, Mike suggested that I just put everything in the fridge and bake it when I get home today. The end result is a container of shells to be stuffed, a crust that needs to be put in a pie pan, and a large bowl full of apples to mix with spices and fill said crust all waiting for me to get home.
I didn't ever get around to the roast, vegetable soup, or chocolate chip cookies, but I did finally make the pumpkin pie. We had N Friday night because he asked if he could stay with us since his mom was having a birthday party for Z. Saturday was spent hanging out at the house until it was time to take N back to his mom's. While we were there, Mike and I walked to the park with H and played for a bit before we had to leave to pick up my car. We stopped by to drop off some pie for my mom, then went back home until it was time to leave to go to a Halloween party. Sunday was spent sleeping, reading, watching movies (Frankenstein and Dracula) and tv shows (Perry Mason), interrupted only by a brief Burger King run. In short, it was a great weekend.
This day feels long but it's really gone by quickly. I've listened to a lot of my old friends on my iPod, and the battery is edging towards red sooner than I'd like. I was planning on working a little late today, but plans have shifted, as they've had a tendency to do this week, so I'm leaving in just over an hour and a half. I have more than enough work to keep legitimately busy between now and then, and when you throw in some online slacking, I'm sure that time will go by just as quickly as the first 7 hours did.
The random weather changes can kiss my ass. I love love love my tank tops and sandals, but I am tired of dressing for the cold weather I feel when I let the dogs out in the morning only to find out that it's 80-something degrees and I will be melting on the way home. Those kind of days do not have a place in fall in my world. I would like either consistently warm or cool days so I know how to proceed without rabidly checking weather dot com every 15 minutes.
A roast, vegetable soup, apple pie, and chocolate chip cookies have joined pumpkin pie on my list of things to cook/bake this weekend. I'm ready for some comfort foods.
On my way home from work yesterday the clutch in my car started slipping really badly. By the time I got off the highway I was barely creeping along. I made it into a gas station parking lot, no thanks to the asshole behind me who apparently doesn't realize that hazard lights mean that something's wrong, and promptly called my mother to come pick me up since she was less than a mile away from me. (Even if she'd already left the area, my sister was less than two miles away, so I had a fairly good backup plan. I'm lucky my car decided to have a hissyfit on a day that they were both in the immediate area and could rescue my sorry ass.) After checking with the guy working at the gas station to make sure they wouldn't do anything crazy with my car if I left it there, my mom drove me home where my sister met us so she could show my mom her purchases. Nothing like a little car trouble to justify an unplanned get-together. I'm unspeakably happy I didn't a) have to push my evil car across a turn lane into the gas station parking lot and b) walk home. The guy who put in the shiny new clutch met me at the gas station on his way home from work to see if it was a clutch or transmission problem or if I should just have it towed to my mechanic. He decided that it was indeed a clutch issue and that my car was in good enough shape for him to drive back to his house to take a look at. We made it without any incidents, but as I was driving him back to his car he told me that towards the end he wasn't sure if my car was going to make it all the way there. Turns out the problems seems to be an adjustment issue, so I won't need another shiny new clutch, nor will I be stuck driving the van for the next two weeks.
All of this means that I still haven't made the grocery store trip I've been planning to make all week, which means I still don't have condensed milk so I still haven't been able to make the pumpkin pies I've been wanting to make since last weekend. If I don't get there today after work, I'm going to hire someone to take care of this for me so I can have some damn pie tonight. I think I deserve it by now.
My plan to hit up the grocery store yesterday after the school meeting didn't go quite as I thought it would. As in, it didn't happen at all. Mike had originally planned to work late, but he brought some work home with him so we could both go to the school meeting with the kids' mom. After the meeting we went straight home, and I could've gone back out to the store but didn't since my sister was coming over later to upload some pictures from her recent trip to Europe. (She went to Germany, France, and Rome. Yes, I am insanely jealous.) Instead I spent some time with Mike and started on a vat of red sauce so I can make my first attempt at homemade pizza this weekend. I'm cheating and using a boxed mix for crust the first time so I can get an idea of how it's supposed to be before I start trying to make my own.
Skeleton Key was on HBO Sunday night, and that's one I've wanted to see since it first came out, even though I knew next to nothing about it. Mike flipped past it early on in the movie and humored me when I asked if he'd leave it there. That is not a movie I should watch before bedtime, let me just say that. I liked the plot, I liked the twist (it may have been obvious to you, but it was definitely a twist for me) near the end, I liked the hoodoo involvement, but sweet, weeping Moses, I spent a good chunk of the night trying to get the image of the ghosts in the mirror out of my head. I think that part got to me more than the rest of the movie, although after seeing the ending, it was neat to go back and put all the pieces/clues together. I'd like to see it again now that I know what's going on so I can watch it all unfold from that perspective, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. (When I finally did fall asleep, I had a nightmare. All I can remember from it is peeking through my eyelashes to see if it was safe, only to see someone's eye so close to mine that all I could see was the light reflecting off the black iris. Creepy.)
After watching the movie I was so freaked out I needed something to take my mind off the hoodoo so I picked up The Templar Legacy, one of the books I got from the library on Saturday. I finished it Monday afternoon and really enjoyed it. I'm pondering starting a book blog, so that's all I'll write about the story for now.
The weather is getting more consistently colder, and it's finally time for pumpkin pie. I picked up a couple cans of pumpkin over the weekend but didn't get any condensed milk. I'll have to do that this week so I can have my pie. I'm working late tomorrow and Thursday, since I'm leaving early Wednesday to go to a school meeting, I'll just hit the grocery store up then.
I found my earring on the stairs this weekend. I never would've thought to search the stairs, so I'm lucky it didn't get vacuumed.
My doctor's office finally called in my interim prescription, and I was able to pick that up Monday when I got my antibiotics and cough medicine. I'm now two days into it, and my allergies are at bay. Next up: getting off my ass about that prior approval thing.
My car's back, and I can shift again. Yay! I'm glad we have the van so we don't have to deal with renting/borrowing a car when the truck or my car need to be worked on, but I was really getting tired of driving the van every day. I'm getting used to my little car (and being so much closer to the ground) again, but I'm happy to have my car back. I'm even happier now that I don't have to fight to get it in gear.
Yesterday morning I noticed that one of my hoop earrings was missing. I was a little upset at the time but didn't think too much of it, assuming that it had fallen out while I slept and I'd find it when I rummaged through the pillows and sheets. No such luck. My earring is still AWOL, and if I can't find it soon, I'm going to have to buy a new one. Damn it.
Apparently, my misery over the past week has been because of an ear infection, which may very well be the first one I've ever had. A couple prescriptions later, I'm feeling much better.
The weekend was good, overall. Mike and I were both feeling pretty crummy so we slept most of Saturday away. We did keep our movie date though, and watched the Changeling, which I thought was very creepy.
Sunday we were planning to go to a wine festival, but neither of us slept well Saturday night and we were both feeling bad still, so we ended up skipping that. We got the kids in the afternoon, and then stayed home for the rest of the day.
Monday was spent getting people to school, getting me to the doctor, and going to the grocery store and pharmacy. H came home from school with a headache and ended up going to bed before I even got home from my pharmacy/grocery store run. After dinner, Z helped me build up my blue and white Magic deck, while N gave us some input, and N's going to be helping me create a new one (red, black, or green) this weekend.
Monday night:
Z: What time is it, Kate?
me: It's a little after 9:30.
Z: Nooooooo, it's peanut butter and jelly time.
but if my doctor's office doesn't come through with my interim prescription, this very well may be me by Monday:
Today has been a mixed bag. The good: my face no longer feels like a blowfish; my coat arrived; I got the necessary load of laundry taken care of (well, all except the folding and putting away part, so I guess I only got it halfway taken care of); I picked up some yummy green tea chai which is soothing my throat as I type this; my allergy prescription is ready for me to pick it up and mail in (although I still have to get that pesky prior authorization thing taken care of); I discovered Godiva Belgian Blends dark chocolate mocha which is like liquid dark chocolate - so good; I picked up tickets for us to go to a wine festival this weekend; and tomorrow is a kidlet day. The bad: I forgot my water bottle at work; the reason my face no longer feels like a blowfish is because my sinuses are draining like constantly; my throat is raw thanks to the non-stop drainage (which is also causing me to cough and/or clear my throat every three minutes or so which has GOT to be annoying); I didn't find out that the one store in my area that is supposed to carry Yogi tea does not, in fact, carry it until I made a special trip there to pick some up for my miserable throat; and my doctor's office did not call in a 30-day prescription for my allergy meds to my local pharmacy, which means that I have to call them tomorrow and beg them to do this, because the thought of going through the next two weeks like this is not a pleasant one.
See also: sinuses. I'm achy and whiny, stuffy and puffy (thankfully not literally - my sinuses just feel like they're puffed up like a blowfish), drippy and sniffly, and generally all-around miserable. Sitting up is uncomfortable because my neck and back ache so badly, I would love a couple of extra pairs of hands so I could keep pressure on the bridge of my nose and still type at the same time, and I know that if I could just pop my ears and get rid of some of that awful pressure, I'd feel much better. And the worst part is, it's my own damn fault. My doctor gave me a sample of a new allergy medicine that works wonderfully for me, and for the past week or so I've been dragging my heels about calling and asking for a refill. Why? No good reason. I have to ask them to call a 30-day supply into a local pharmacy, then ask to get a written prescription for the rest of the year so I can send that in to the mail order pharmacy I use. I also have to get them to fill out a prior-authorization form so I can get three-months worth of allergy meds at a time (which, by the way, makes absolutely no sense to me, but that's a rant for another day), and it would be much easier if they'd just call in and give a verbal prior-authorization. So, because I will have to spend more than 5 minutes on the phone with someone from the doctor's office, I've been putting this off until I can't stand it any more. Not my most intelligent decision ever.
PS: the itchy ears can go to hell.
My coat shipped! And my gloves! (After much pondering, I decided to go ahead and buy a pair of the softest-fleece-ever gloves.)
I love Urban Decay's Midnight Cowboy Rides Again. Love it. But the glitter in it does not love my eyes, and I do not love rubbing them constantly. This makes me very sad, because I love it and Urban Decay in general. I guess I'll drown my sorrow in a pot of Gash.
Also, coffee belongs in the travel mug, not puddled on the counter and waterfalling onto the floor. Mopping up coffee is not my idea of a good way to spend part of my morning.
