Archive
Friday Fun! (Classes, Surgery, Water)
Hello my lovely readers! What a busy week it’s been for me. This week was the last week of my semester. Finishing touches were placed on classes, and as of Tuesday night at around 8pm, I was finally on vacation! No more classes until July.
My brother, sister-in-law, and niece are in Boston for an indeterminate amount of time. My niece, who is about 4.5 months old, was born with a heart defect, so she is in Children’s Hospital getting it fixed. Monday night I went to the excellent parents’ hotel to see them before her surgery. Her surgery was Wednesday, and I took the day off to wait out the 6 hour surgery with my brother and sister-in-law. The surgery went better than the doctors were hoping for, so that was good news. They were just starting to wake her up slowly Thursday afternoon. I have yet to see her post-surgery, as only parents/guardians have been allowed in the recovery room so far. Her parents are holding up quite well, I think.
On top of all that, last Saturday a water line broke in Weston, which meant that all of Boston was under a drinking water ban, as the water could be contaminated. You had to boil the water for at least 2 minutes to make it safe for drinking or washing dishes. You also could wash dishes by adding some bleach to it. Well, I didn’t have bleach and wasn’t about to buy it for only a couple of days’ use. I had made a large dinner Friday night, and since I am not one of these “wash dishes instantly” women, I had planned on washing them Saturday. Ooops. Between everything else going on, I didn’t have a chance to wash them, along with all the other dishes dirtied during the incident, until Wednesday night. I got to spend many many hours doing dishes, let me tell you.
All in all a busy week, but not a bad one. Happy weekends, all!
Friday Fun! (Sarah Silverman)
Hello my lovely readers! Sorry there was no Friday Fun post last week. I had the day off and was staying as far away from the computer as possible. :-)
Last weekend I got to meet Sarah Silverman! She was in town for her book tour for The Bedwetter. She read a portion of the book featuring her father’s hilarious voice mails to her. This was followed by a Q+A session that I’m pretty sure nobody in the audience was aware was going to happen. It took us a bit to come up with semi-good questions. Among the things I learned:
- She doesn’t drink. (Say what?!)
- Her feelings were hurt by the whole TED fiasco, and her presentation for it is still unavailable online.
- She originally mocked twitter, but now loves it as a “message in a bottle” feature for her life.
- The only topic she personally has boundaries for is making “fat women” the butt of jokes. She said that “America as a society has this idea that fat women don’t deserve to be loved or happy, and I just think that’s really wrong, so I don’t go there, but other comedians have the right to do what they want to do.” Classy lady.
- She wants to adopt a mentally challenged kid, but she doesn’t want to feel guilty for dying and leaving a mentally challenged adult with no one to care for him/her, so she decided she should adopt a mentally challenged child with a terminal illness. Lolz.
After the reading was the book signing. There were probably around 150 people in line. She was sweet, but a lot more demure in person than I was expecting. I suspect she’s got the classic case of a shy person who comes alive when performing. She was nice to everyone, and I’m pleased to say I came away still glad to be a fan.
Also last weekend I dropped off my bike to be repaired and now it is all shiny and awesome! I was shocked to ride it and discover the gears are supposed to be smooth, not difficult to cope with. I’m hoping to start biking my commute soon. I just need to practice the route on a non-work day to get the hang of it.
As for grad school, my final projects for the semester are done! Now I just have to attend one more class session for each of my classes, and then I am home free with two months of vacation. Oh happy day!
What have you guys been up to in the last two weeks? Anything exciting or awesome?
Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (Finals, New Neighbor)
Hello my lovely readers! I’m smack dab in the middle of finals period, which for some bizarre reason consists of two group projects and two presentations (one solo, one group) this year. I gave my solo presentation this week. It was a database teach; I really enjoy those! Oh, heck, I just enjoy a bunch of people listening to me talk. It makes me all warm and glowy inside. Anyway, the two group projects mean that I can’t procrastinate this time around like I normally do. My team-mate for my face-to-face class is awesome, though, and she and I are motivating each other via GoogleDocs.
Over in my apartment, the painting guy came to check out the massive wall stains from the leak. He says it’s still too wet to fix, and it’ll be another 3 to 4 weeks before repainting, so my apartment still looks like Big Bird’s blood was smeared up and down the wall. In related news, my new neighbor moved in yesterday. She’s my age, has cats, and isn’t married. Even if we don’t wind up friends, that’s still a major step up from the we-got-married-and-immediately-turned-grouchy-and-started-acting-old folks who used to live under me. My tomato seedlings are actually starting to look plant-like now, the herbs are all fluffy and adorable, and the peppers finally sprouted! I would show you guys pics, but I don’t have a good digital cameras so taking and uploading pics is mind-bogglingly frustrating.
I get a three day weekend this weekend since Monday is Patriot’s Day. I know that’s not a holiday you get off in most of the US, but here in Boston it’s also the marathon day, so if you work nearish the marathon route, you get it off. Yay! Happy weekends everyone!
Friday Fun! (Rain, Gardening, and Cooking)
In spite of the torrential downpour that Boston experienced last weekend (check out pics of the sinkhole that erupted under a line of the T here), I still managed to have a very nice weekend. I got to flex my Beirut playing muscles Friday night and got to spend most of the rest of the storm holed up inside, except of course for Monday when I had to commute to work. Also, inside didn’t exactly mean no rain as both my library and my apartment sprung leaks in the roof. They thought they had fixed the library ones. They were wrong. The hospital didn’t even bother wet vacing the carpet this time around. As for my apartment, it held strong for most of the storm, but on Monday morning, I woke up to water running down one of the walls. It appears some of that wind finally took its toll on the roof tiles. Almost everyone I talked to though said there was at least some water damage to their homes, so it has been proven yet again that I am not a unique snowflake (thank you, Fight Club).
The weather the rest of the week almost totally makes up for it though. It’s been in the high 60s to low 70s. I haven’t had to have my heat on in days! I took this as a sign of spring and started my herb and flower seeds last night. I’m planning on ordering my veggie and strawberry seeds today and hopefully will get them planted soon as well. I’m honestly pretty darn stoked for all the food aspects of summer–plants in my kitchen, farmer’s market on the way home, possibly taking a whack at canning by myself for the first time, berry picking, etc… So much yumminess and new skills to learn!
I tried out two new recipes this week. The first was a low-calorie, low-dairy mac and cheese bake (I printed it from some random website, which I can’t remember off the top of my head). It used pureed butternut squash to replace most of the cheese. The only cheese used was 1 cup of mozzarella and 2 tablespoons of cream cheese. Naturally, the pasta was whole wheat. I enjoyed this, and I think it will be a good recipe with time. A little something was missing from it, though. A wee bit bland. My dad suggested nutmeg. Any other thoughts?
The other recipe was for stuffed eggplants from my cookbook The Vegetarian Bible. Basically you halve the eggplant, scoop out the insides, then mix the insides with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and al dente pasta. Then you stick it back in plus mozzarella and bread crumbs then into the oven. This wasn’t a bad recipe. It was nutritious, filling, and tasted fine. I just didn’t love it or really like it enough to warrant the labor intensity of it. I doubt I’ll make it again unless I randomly have lots of eggplants I need to use up. The other recipe I’ve tried from the cookbook was really good though, so I think this might be a personal taste thing.
What did you guys get up to this week? Any new things tried? Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (Unathletic Me)
I have always wanted to be athletic. The version of me that tends to populate fantasy land is essentially the female version of 007. This is so not realistic though, and I’m not just saying that I can’t do backflips. My lack of athleticism is so strong that one of my most frequent memories of schoolyard sports is getting hit in the face by basketballs. This pretty much happened any time I was anywhere near a basketball court. I didn’t even have to be playing. I also have asthma and have this tendency to have to stop running to wheeze. God help me if there’s ever a zombie uprising.
In spite of all this, I still, inexplicably, delude myself into thinking that this time it will be different and sublimely attempt various athletic to semi-athletic endeavor. Last weekend this endeavor was ice skating. I remembered ice skating when I was a kid on the beaver ponds near our house. I was definitely good at it. I’d play hockey with my brother and his friends. Why did it take me so long to remember my awesomeness? I wondered. I discovered a free skating rink in the North End with $5 skate rentals. I asked a friend to meet me there, and it was on like Donkey Kong.
I got the skates in the biggest size they had, because I have inexplicably large feet for my short stature. I laced myself up and fought my way through the 2 foot tall terrors to get onto the ice. I stepped on and almost fell flat on my face. Hmm, this is not the me on ice that I remember. I desperately grabbed for the wall and glared at the children flying around using stacked up plastic crates to keep from falling down. That is so cheating, and no wonder kids are growing up to be such wimps these days, but I digress. Whilst holding onto the wall and taking tentative skating steps, I realized there was growing pain in my feet. The skates were way way too narrow. I also suddenly remembered that I used hockey skates, not figure skates growing up which explained why I couldn’t seem to handle the ice. You use movements more like roller blading for hockey skates, whereas figure skates are more like roller skates. I am not a roller skating girl. I got halfway around the rink, thinking my feet would go numb or something, but they suddenly were in excruciating agony, and I am not exaggerating. Realizing that I would probably be that woman crying on the rink if I didn’t get off the ice asap, I changed my course and headed down the middle of the rink, abandoning the wall and hoping I wouldn’t land on my ass. I managed to make it to the door safe and sound and hastily ripped off the skates. Every step I took still hurt. It turns out I somehow pulled most of the muscles and tendons on top of my right foot, and I’ve been limping most of the week.
I’d say in the future I won’t attempt athletic things again, but I know myself. I can just see me taking skiing lessons at some point in the near future. I’m bound to tell myself If you can snowshoe, you can totally ski, Amanda. I guess it’s just lucky for me that I don’t live in a climate with more dangerous recreational sports.
Happy weekend everyone!
Friday Fun! (Happy 2010!)
Sorry for the hiatus last week, guys. I was recovering from my New Year’s Eve fun. For New Year’s Eve I acquired First Night buttons so I could go see the Kaiju Big Battel (sic) taking place in Boston. (Side-note: I cannot for the life of me understand why it’s called First Night and not Last Night. It’s the last night of 2009, not the first night of 2010! Ideas?!) I happened to catch some crazy Middle Eastern dancing that was occurring on a stage nearby while I was waiting. I have no idea what kind of dancing it was. It wasn’t bellydancing, and they hopped around waving their arms and fake swords a lot. Anyway, so Kaiju Big Battel is essentially WWE only the wrestlers are wearing monster costumes ala Godzilla and the stage has miniature buildings set up that they also smash. Two of my favorite characters of the night were Plantain and Dusto Bunny. Dusto Bunny was actually dusty! (Sorry I have no pictures of Kaiju to show you. I have yet to upload them from my camera). Anyway, then I met up with friends in the Common to see the ice sculptures and rang in the new decade on the Esplanade. It was definitely a fun night!
This week has been busy busy busy at work. They’re renovating my library (again). Currently all of us are crammed in one room while they work on the rest of it, but the exciting part, you guys, is I’m going to go from having a cubicle to an almost office! It’s pretty much an office minus a door, but I’ll have a divider up in lieu of a door. Plus they’re building me bookshelves, and I’m getting a brand new wood desk! I’m excited to move into my new office. It’s going to make me feel much more part of the team, since currently I’m the only one without an office.
In cooking this week, I tried out making gnocchi from scratch for the first time using sweet potatoes. It’s pretty simple, actually. You just cook the potatoes, pass them through a sieve, then combine it with spices, egg, and flour. The tricky part, I discovered, is adding just the right amount of flour. The consensus upon eating it was that it was neither good nor bad. A bit too floury. However, on reheating the leftovers, it went to good. I’m thinking maybe I just didn’t cook them long enough? I’ll definitely try it again. I think it’s one of those recipes you improve with over time. Kind of like pizza dough.
Oh, also, I’m all caught up in Lost now, so I’m totally ready for the new season. Bring. It. On!
Have a great weekend everyone!
Best Discoveries of 2009–Boston Places, Web Clips, and Recipes
Yesterday you got to see my best discoveries–aka I encountered them for the first time–of 2009 in movies, tv shows, and websites. The day before in my reading stats for 2009 you saw my favorite books I discovered. Today I’ll be finishing up my discoveries lists with Boston places, web clips, and recipes!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinagiku/ / CC BY-ND 2.0
- The Friendly Toast (1 Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA)
Known as a hipster joint, this restaurant serves breakfast/brunch foods all day long. It’s decorated with fun vintage posters, many of which are scifi themed. The portion sizes are huge! You really get the bang for your buck here, and vegetarian options are numerous. You even can get vegetarian sausage! The servers are also super-friendly. This is currently my favorite breakfast place in Boston. - Berk’s Store (50 JFK St, Cambridge, MA)
I was hunting everywhere for waterproof knee-high boots without a heel, when I wandered into this store. Crowded into a small space is the best shoe store I’ve found in Boston. The styles reflect the needs of Bostonians–good for walking and the weather without sacrificing style. The employees are friendly and–get this!–you can put a deposit on shoes and have them hold them for you to pick up later without paying anything extra. This is great for if you find a great pair of shoes/boots but don’t want to drag them on your commute with you. - Boston Bed Company (1113 Comm Ave, Boston, MA)
More than just mattresses, they offer bed frames, bedroom furniture, living room furniture, sofas, and chairs. This business is locally-owned, and they understand Bostonian’s needs. Everything is reasonably priced, the sales associates are friendly but also understand giving you space to wander about the store on your own, and you get free delivery (over a certain price point, which I forget right now, but I easily reached it when buying my mattress and box spring). Definitely check them out for any furniture needs. - Hootenanny (36 JFK St aka The Garage, Cambridge, MA)
The clothing off-shoot of Newbury Comics, this store is great for funky clothing, shoes, and bags. I got my Glomits there, as well as a steampunk skirt and dress. They also offer vegan shoes for my vegan friends. The prices can be a bit steep on some items, but they have continuous sales which knocks them right down to reasonable. - Jacob Realty (279 Newbury St, Boston, MA)
I had to apartment hunt this year, and after many phone calls that ended with me mad at an agent who couldn’t accept my price limit as a real price limit, I finally landed on Jacob Realty. My realtor actually listened to me and treated me with respect, and she helped me land a great apartment! Definitely check them out if you’re on the apartment hunt.
Web Clips (yes I know there’s a lot of cats on this list)
- Surprised Kitty
Holy fucking squee is all I have to say about this one. - Protecting and Maintaining Your Heterosexual House of Cards
Hilarious look at the lengths straight guys go to in order to not appear gay. - The Mean Kitty Song
A guy wrote a tongue-in-cheek song about his new kitten’s activities in his apartment and managed to make a music video for it too. 
Know Your Meme–O RLY? Owl
I love all of the Know Your Meme episodes, but the O RLY? YA RLY! NO WAI! Owls are my favorite meme, so that’s why you’re getting this episode.- Keyboard Cat
I love this video. I now have my kitty “play piano” sometimes. - Jingle Cats–What Child Is This with Hava Nagila
It’s a kitty cat Chrismukkah!
Recipes
- Emeril’s Vegetarian Egg Rolls
Confession. I have a deep fryer, and for my housewarming party I wanted to use it. I’d made egg rolls with my dad when I was a kid, but those were meat-filled (this was before I went veg). Anyway, I was shocked to discover Emeril has a vegetarian recipe. They require a bit of work what with making up the filling and wrapping them, but they came out very good. Even my friends who don’t like egg rolls liked these. 
Little House Apple Pie (The Little House Cookbook: Fronteir Food from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories by Barbara M. Walker)
I’d gone apple picking with two of my best buddies, and I wanted to make apple pie. The problem was that I’d never gotten the family recipe from my mother who I disowned, so I needed to find a good new recipe. Omg, people, you should ditch family recipes more often. This pie is so good! Side-note, I always use Emeril’s Basic Sweet Pie Crust with my pies.- Vegan Sweet Potato Latkes (current issue of Vegetarian Times, apparently isn’t on their website yet)
I wanted to make latkes for my Chrismukkah gathering, but wanted a healthier version than the traditional one. I love sweet potatoes and already had a stash of them, so this seemed like it’d be cool to try. Instead of eggs, the recipe has you boil some sweet potatoes and mash them to use for binding the shredded potato together. I was skeptical as to whether this would work, but it totally did. These were a big hit.
That’s it for my best-of lists! Hopefully next year I’ll have more recipes to share with you guys. I hope you all made some fun discoveries of your own in 2009.
Book Review: Truly, Madly by Heather Webber (ARC, Feb 2010)
Summary:
Boston socialite Lucy Valentine isn’t too keen on running the family’s matchmaking business while her mother and father take a necessary trip out of country to let a scandal settle down. You see, she lost the family’s genetic ability to see auras that has led to their matchmaking success. When she was a kid, she was hit by an electrical surge that removed her ability to see auras and replaced it with an ability to see lost objects when her palm touches the owner’s palm. When a potential client shakes her hand, and she sees a dead body wearing his ring, she gets caught up in a bit more adventure than she ever thought her ability would lead her into. It doesn’t hurt that she manages to enlist the aid of the hunky private investigator whose office shares the matchmaking business’s building.
Review:
I was excited to discover a book set in Boston that has nothing to do with the Irish mob or the Kennedy’s. Unfortunately, I have this problem with reading about the modern wealthy. I simply can’t identify, and it tends to irritate me unless the book is all about how they’re a serial killer or something. Lucy is decidedly in with the Boston wealthy. Her family owns a building on Newbury Street; they employ a driver; and she has a trust fund. Of course she refuses the trust fund, but she’s still living in a cute, perfect cottage on her grandmother’s land in the South Shore. She calls her grandmother by her first name, “Dovie,” and her mother “Mum.” *shudders* I cringed every time she said either.
On the plus side, once I manage to overlook the whole poor rich girl scenario, the plot is good. It is full of twists and turns that have a slight supernatural bent without going full-tilt building an entirely populated other world of faeries, sprites, vampires, etc… that is seen in a lot of paranormal fiction. Lucy’s attraction to Sean, the PI, is believable and progresses at a good rate. The main mystery actually managed to surprise me with the ending, so that’s a major mark in its favor.
I also enjoyed the little life details Webber put into the story, Lucy’s cat’s activities, exactly what T lines are nearby where the action is happening, etc… However, I did not like Lucy’s personality quirk of doing math problems in her head when she was nervous. I don’t know what it is with romance writers lately having their characters do some annoying thing when they’re nervous, but to me it screams that Webber couldn’t figure out a better way to signal this emotion to the reader.
On the whole, it was a fun mystery plot with a dash of paranormal set in Boston marred by the choice of making the main character part of the wealthy elite with an annoying, unnecessary personality quirk. If you enjoy paranormal and wealthy characters, you will enjoy this book.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Received from publisher, St. Martin’s Paperbacks, through LibraryThing‘s Early Reviewers program
Projected Publication Date: February 2010
Friday Fun! (Merry Chrismukkah!)
What a busy week it’s been! Full of good and bad stress. Thankfully mostly the good kind. Unfortunately stress of any kind can make me act kinda wonky, so…..sorry about that.
Over the weekend I visited my family in Vermont. My nephew is 2 and has reached the “why” stage of development. My brother and sister-in-law have grown a bit tired of it, but I gotta say I thoroughly enjoyed answering all of his “why’s” to the fullest extent. Of course, I only was around him for a portion of 2 days, lol. My aunt and uncle (who my dad lives with) were very hospitable, and I drank much wine. My dad gave me housewarming money which was fairly promptly used to buy a toaster and a rice cooker. They haven’t arrived yet, but they’re bright red and appear to be entirely awesome.
Monday was my presentation of my final team project for this semester of grad school, which means I am officially on winter break! Yayyyyyy!!! I already got my grades, and they were both just fine and dandy.
This week I hosted a Chrismukkah gathering for my group of lesbian friends (I call them “The Lesbians,” and yes they are just fine with that. In fact, they kinda love it). I had my first attempt at making latkes. I used the vegan sweet potato latke recipe from this month’s issue of Vegetarian Times magazine. I was doubtful that substituting pureed sweet potato for egg would work, but by golly it did. The latkes tasted great, although I need to work on figuring out the appropriate cooking time. There aren’t the helpful bubbles that you get with regular pancakes, so a few got a bit, erm, burnt. We lit the menorah (and I am proud to say that I can now sing the prayer), and we watched Claymation Christmas. If you have never seen Claymation Christmas I hereby order you to go find it on Youtube. It is quite trippy. The Lesbians surprised me by giving me a crock pot! This means you may be hearing about my vegetarian crock pot cooking adventures in the future.
You guys were totally going to get an adorable picture of my kitty snuggled up in wrapping paper, but I didn’t get a chance to download them to my computer. I swear these Friday posts will have pictures eventually.
I hope everyone’s holidays are going well. Try to enjoy and stay stress-free!
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