Death to the desk top

My wretched computer won't let me post. Long entry short : I walked into the precinct meeting the vice chair and walked out the secretary.

There is an older guy named Brad
Who had better not need me to vote for him, ever because he is a douche bag. The new vice chair seems lovely but I've never seen her  at a meeting before.  Bless her heart.

We did make quorum for the first time in ever, because the convention is in Charlotte. News flash: people like us don't get sent to the big show. This is a completely thankless task.

I'm tired now and I don't know if its because I had a long day or because I'm pouting.

Conjoined Twins

I went to Home Depot on Sunday afternoon to pick up some metal cleats to hold down my trellis and I brought my cleats home riding in two stuck together redwood  planters. They were $4.93 because they were sealed together and "they had tried real hard to get them apart". I was asked at the checkout if I had been able to get them apart.

I took them home and brought them inside, after work Monday I hauled them  with some difficulty down stairs and planted them in front of the dehumidifier. I came a couple of hours later and tried to pry them apart with my hands. No go. I then grabbed a paint scraper and went around the edges . Presto! I had two separate planters.

I thought about the other stuck together planters I did not buy Sunday afternoon. I thought how much I wanted them and how really sad it would be for someone else to buy them and end up with siamese planters and how sad and unfulfilled the planters would be! They Needed Me! I hurried back to Home Depot to rescue them  from an uncertain life and the possiblity they could end up kindling! and to all of our great joy they were still there! Still stuck together, still $4.93 each .

The lady who checked me out asked if I realized I was going to buy two planters and if I knew they were stuck together. She told me that they had the planters since last year and they had been stacked and stuck ever since and that these were the very last ones. After I paid for them, I told her I had bought another set over the weekend and I how easily I got them apart. That's when she told me they had sold for $25 a piece before a stack of them got left out in the rain.

 I took these new planters home and carried them downstairs and put them in front of the dehumidifier, but before I turned it on, I tried the  same paint scraper trick just to see if it would work. It was even easier the second time around.

 I can't believe that at Home Depot "trying real hard to get them apart" did not include "use simple tools" . Why am I not some sort of evil overload? Because clearly I could be. I probably should be. What a wonderful world it would be.

On the downside they aren't small and they aren't light , actually quite big and quite heavy and  long term storage might be an issue but 1) I got one over on Home Depot and 2)  they were cheaper than the smaller plastic tubs I buy at Big Lots.

Housework

My plan for the weekend going in was to till up the garden, get the trellis up and maybe get the peas in. And then it rained. And rained. and rained. It just pretty much rained the whole time. So instead of spending Saturday piously being an urban farmer, I bought a computer.

A laptop. And even before I did that, I called up my ISP and signed myself up for cable. No more dial up for me! I am pretty certain I was the last dial up client they had. Starting next week I'll be able to play with the computer anywhere I want and I can leave my phone on all the time - not that it will matter, now that I don't have dial up any longer my phone won't be busy any longer. Also, wifi. My phone thanks me, my Kindle thanks me. I can now play with the computer anywhere I want. It will probably live in the office, but it can take day trips now to the kitchen.

I don't have any of this fun things yet though. So, I'm thinking garden. On Sunday it finally stopped raining and while tilling is still out of the question, I was able to get my trellis in and plant my peas. I will till everything up but not until next weekend, and yes, I will have to be careful but tilling isn't rocket science and as long as I stay away from the trellis, it shouldn't be a problem. I was very happy with the soil when I was getting in the peas, I found many, many worms and the soil was gorgeous. I hope that this year I'll  do more with my peas than just plant them like I did last year. Last year with my late planting, I got a single pea, which was quite lovely but I learned from that and this year I planted a lot earlier than I did last year,I am hopeful I'll get more than a single plant.  Peas like cool weather and by the time I got them in the ground last year it was too late and too warm. Its cold and wet now, go peas!

Friday Cat Blogging

I would have written a new entry today but instead I hooked up my new DVD player and exsisited for a moment in a world where my HD Tv would actually act like it but sadly, to make it do what it was born to do, I would have to pay my satilight company a lot of money and so the TV and I will just have to be happy that it has the potnetial to be all it can be.

Anyway, I can watch DVDs again.

So. Instead of writting, today we have images

Daisy and I took a walk downtown and I took my camera.

Garden Update 1 2012

Usually when I come home from work my goal is to do as little as possible. Today I failed in that. I took Dogger fort a walk, that she cut short after she saw an ambulance - no sirens no lights, just driving. Apperenlty she has never sen an ambulance that wasn't lit up like a Christmas tree and wailing and she found this off putting. We had to go home.

Instead of walking, I decided that today was the right day to plant my yukon golds. I think if I was hipper I would refer to them  soley as my "yuuks" and fully expect you to know what I was talking about. Last year I had such succsess with my container grown potaotes that I decided to do it again, but this year I'll have three different varietys and some of them are going to live in the backyard along with the barrels around the side of the house - unless having them in the backyard prooves to be a pain in the ass or they don't seem to be be all they can be, and then I'll just pick them up and move the whole lot of them to the side of the house.

All except one of them. I decided to be all out there and I planted one of them in the same area I planted the watermelons last year. I'm going to plant them there again this year but I don't think it will be a problem having them share the space. They have different growing habits and I don't think it should be a problem.

This year I went about the planting a little diffrently. Last year I only lightly covered the potaotes and then as they grew I covered them with more dirt. This year I saw some reference to what I did last year, mounding, but this artical said that I should plant my seed potaotes six inches down instead of leaving them on the surface and then mounding as they grow, the mounding is supposed to lead to a better harvest by giving them more room to produce spuds above the ground as well as in the earth. Last year I worried that my naked spuds were going to get taken by wandering critters, or get cold. This year I think they are better protected from all the elements.

The other potaoe is the one I;m going to have to worry on. I'm not sure the ground is going to be soft enough for the plant to do its thing but  I'm going to do my mound thing and just build it up as we go. You have to keep the potaotes covered up because if the they get in the sun they turn green and the green is poisonous. That is to be avoided.

And then I made dog cookies and emptied and filled the dishwasher and ran a load. And then I put the bike back in the car. That is a lot of work, goal not met.

Tuesday Night

I got the house cleaned up, the dogs linens changed and my laundry put away. My parents are here for the night and I am temporary guardian of their wicked little cat. I just ate a an aquarium's worth of fried seafood. Life is good.

Working Out

I am so lame. I stayed up a little bit past my bedtime  last night watching the Oscars (tm) and I spent the entire day today propping my eyelids open. When I was twenty I wouldn't even leave the house until 11pm and now I can barely stay up to then. Being old sucks.

My parents are coming tomorrow and instead of spending the  early part of the evening cleaning the place up and then going to bed early, I decided that what I really needed to do was to go to Big Lots and buy dirt.  So now I'm cleaning and vacuuming and putting away and its so much later than I would like. I am doing this while limping because I decided to get a pair of deeply discounted rocker sneakers and now I have a blister. My ass does not feel more shapely and I don't think my calves are toned, I don't think developing blisters was mentioned in the advertising. I'm pretty sure the only things I was supposed to develop according to the literature was my sexy. Blisters are not sexy.

And the Oscar (tm) went to... Oscar (tm) Results 2012

 Start : 8:30 on the dot.

Art Effects - Hugo
Cinematography - Hugo
Costume Design - The Artist
Make Up - The Iron Lady
Best Foreign Language Film - A Seperation, Iran.
Best Supporting Actress - Octavia Spencer, The Help
Film Editing - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Sound Editing - Hugo
Sound Mixing - Hugo
Animated Feature - Rango
Visual Effects - Hugo
Documentory Feature - Undefeated
Best Supporting Actor - Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Orginal Score - The Artist
Best Original Song - "Man or Muppet", The Muppet Movie
Best Adapted Screenplay - Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash , The Descendents
(Jim Rash plays Dean  Pelton on Community)
Best Orignal Screenplay - Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Live Action Short Film - The Shore
Documentory Short - Saving Face
Animated Short Film - The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Best Director - Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Best Actor -  Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Best Actress -  Meryle Streep, The Iron Lady
Best Picture -  The Artist

11:36pm last award presented.

Friday Cat Blogging

Small Cat wanted me to know that although he didn't know where I was going, that he was most certanly coming with.

Finally.

In honor of lent I am absolutely going to put the bike back in the car and all ready there is nothing I want to eat in the house. I have had two lunches in a row of protean bar and tea in my car. While I haven't reached self-denial nirvana as yet, I know its out there. I am so going to move the exerbike back in front of the office TV very soon and as soon as I get the right cables, I am totally going to watch the How To Use This Big Giant Ball As A Work Out Tool DVD I haven't been able to watch yet.

On to a different thought process. You know what would really improve work productivity? Lap Cats! Each worker would be assigned a cat that would curl up in the workers lap and go off to sleep. The worker would be so happy with the sleeping cat that they wouldn't dare leave their seat for a non-work related purpose in fear of waking it up and losing the cat to another worker better able to stay at their desk. You might have to work hours before the cat would deem you a good nap risk and return to you. The kitty would purr every once in a while and have what ever dreams cats have and sometimes they would wake up and nuzzle the worker and all in all, the work day would be much better and much more productive and lower in stress, I would also guess there be less absenteeism because who wouldn't want to spend the day with a lap cat?

And see, they could all be adoptable as well! We could clean out the shelters of orphan cats and kittens! It would be a revolution! Lets say you really like one of the office lap cats and you want to  let it explore the career of couch cat? You could take it home with you! A new lap cat would be introduced and  the circle of life would go on! And if you have a bogus, made up "look at me I'm special!" cat allergy? You could get a lap turtle instead! Think of the  reptile joy! I see a lot of benefits to this, no downside at all. I think I'll start drafting a grant proposal immediately! Totally.

Tomorrow is by biannual review. I took a shower and washed my hair in preparation, I thought it would be good to have clean hair in advance of hearing my sins  categorized and rated by degree of incompetence. I think I'm going to have to bring Small Cat with me to work, I'm going to need a lap cat.

Being Good

I thought if I went to 7pm  Mass that I would be the minority and everyone else would have all ready gone earlier, they had Masses all day after all and there are so many churches around now. Yeah. The earlier masses must have gone begging because it looked like Christmas in there.

"Looked" being the operative word. I was outside with about a hundred other people, I didn't get inside the entry area until after the ashes - which they kindly sent a priest outside to give us. I had also thought that maybe the seven Mass would just be ashes. I was wrong.

I also had thought that a seven that there would be lots of parking. Do you know who else goes to Church Wednesday evening? Everyone and everyone has a church within shouting  distance of the Cathedral and everyone  at everyone else's church was at church. All ready. I had to park in hell.  I was going to make a crack about the Baptist skipping Ash Wednesday and having a  Mardi Gras pageant on Tuesday instead, but that would be wrong.

The long walk  was good for me, it was good for my soul, Lent is a season of self denial and penance.

Yay Wednesday!

Happy First Day of Lent 2012!!! Woooooooo!  Its Ash Wednesday Up In  Here! Woot Woot!

What? Not partying? not enjoying ones self?  Did you hit the self denial a little hard last night? I thought so. I hit the buffet table at China Panda pretty hard myself and I spent the day light hours of Fat Tuesday surrounded by donuts and fun-sized candy bars at my desk. I feel your pain and then I came home and went out to dinner and let me tell you, the protean coma I fell into after dinner was a bear. Once I regained conscience muddled through and I was able to bully the customer service drone at DirecTV into sending me a new receiver - the tech support douche bags didn't want to but I went over the heads and threw them under the bus, so thrrubbt to them.

Dicks.

Did you know people actually go to restaurants during the week? I thought I would be the only person there. I have no real experience with eating in restaurants on week days. In my world they are only open Friday and Saturdays and maybe, Sunday lunch. So imagine my surprise when not only was the place open, I wasn't alone and from what I could tell, most of the other people there weren't even on vacation! Weird.

My boss is at family funeral today, so should I skeeve off work for Mass? I men they have to let me go and I could be all kinds of pious and just keep going back all day if I wanted to. I bet Saniturm spends the whole damn day at Mass and I bet he bathes in ashes, just bathes in it. Totally against scripture to do so but I bet he does. Philistine. He's the type who "forgets" to wipe off the ashes and spends all day with it on so people know he went, because he's so observant. I wonder what he thought of Vatican II? I wouldn't be at all surprised if  he staged "illegal" underground Latin Masses for years. I bet he wears a scapular and  a hair shirt and still says nasty things about Romney's' Mormon underwear .

I want to know if he's as anti-Viagra as he he is anti-birth control?  If Gawd doesn't want you to have an erection, he is Sending You A Message, don't put yourself above Him by inverting in His plan for you. If he is all about Gods Plans for Us he must know that Viagra is wrong.

 I could go to seven something and be late to work? Noon something and take a long lunch, 5:30pm, lie say Mass is at 3:00 and go home early and hit the 5:30pm? I could also not skeeve at all and hit the 7pm? Or maybe, I'll just drive around and listen to Mass for Shut Ins on Sirius.

Baptism by Oil

I am two for two with frying. I fried again and did not burn down the house. Score.

AS promised I baptised the new frying pan with Chicken friend steak. I've always really liked but I've never known how one went about creating it. I was pretty much comfortable believing that they were created fully breaded from a restaurant. Shockingly, you can make them in your own kitchen. It does not require a commercial kitchen to make.

Stage 1 - Get a decent recipe. While I was thrilled to find Luby's recipe or something purporting to be Luby's recipe, I was not thrilled with the outcome. It was good, but next time I'll use a different recipe

Stage 2 - Let the oil heat up. It is not going to burn your house down if its hot enough to fry something. Truly, hot oil doesn't burn your house down, you screwing around with hot oil burns your house down. Fry your meat not your house. Not hot enough oil is a bad thing, its not supposed to be a lovely warm bath for your meat, its supposed to fry your meat.

Stage 3 - Pound that meat! Pound it! Pound it! I know have my very own meat pounder. I bought cube steak that while pre-tenderized and run through a machine, it still needed to be thinner to get the whole CFS effect.

Stage 4 - Learn how to bread. Flopping it around in flour isn't breading it. Do it right and it stays breaded, flop it around and you wind up with patches. Patches are bad.

All in all, I was pleased with this first effort. There was a lot of room for improvement but that just means I'm going to make it again. I love CFS so this is a win for me.

Beginning

Middle

End

The next time I'm going to use this recipe , with a few tweaks. I'm going to pound the hell out of the meat - after I have done the intial breading, I saw that hint online somewhere and finally,  I'm going to let the oil heat up properly.