Saturday, August 13, 2011

Saturday Summer Slacking




Not much going on. I just felt like posting.


Menu of the Day:


Music: nothing - i'm starting to get used to posting without music since we don't have our iTunes switched over yet. I'm digging it, like equeyaya was saying earlier about the silence! 


Photo: this is from The News Tribune. It's a photo of Troy's girlfriend's burger restaurant in Univ. Place. It was great review from Sue Kidd (who can be a difficult critic). Troy got his food handler's permit and is working with her on his days off and after work and even on his vacation. I think he's having a great time. The lines are LONG and the place is hugely popular already. I'm very happy for Pam because it's been a dream of hers and in the works for two years. (She and Troy met because she wanted to hire him for construction work that long ago. Who knew that burgers could lead to love? ) And speaking of her burgers: They are indeed very good, like the old fashioned juicy burgers from our past,  because they are hand pressed, not frozen. 


Troy called me at work couple of days ago and he sounded very happy. We both laughed at how it will be along time before we get together again. (Unless i get my food handler's permit too!)


Book: OMG, i think this book is replacing my favorite books of the year, maybe the past two years. Cutting for Stone is an amazing story. I think i love this book even more than The Kite Runner or House of Sand and Fog. (I only name these two because i never knew i could like books about other cultures.) I will be done with it maybe even by this evening or tomorrow for sure. I don't want it to end. I will be sad to let these characters go. 


On with the numbers - i'm still trying to get to my goal of 52 posts for the year and i'm still lagging. Whether anyone is reading or posting here, i'm forging ahead with my goal, come hell or highwater!


The Best Thing That Happened: (edited to add this:) I just found out after checking the mail today! ......Our little abode is paid off with only one more payment! (I wasn't expecting it until October or November.) No more house payment! WE are meeting with a financial planner next month to invest that same money. We are so excited with this news! 


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1.  Where did that phrase  'come hell or highwater' come from anyway? I think i will Google that.


2. In regards to the Republican race for president: i want to go on record right now that i do NOT think Michele Bachman is going to be the candidate, Iowa straw poll be damned.  (Though i so wish she would be!) I would be willing to bet money that the presidential nominee is going to be Texas Governor Rick Perry. I remember seeing him awhile back on Jon Stewart and i thought he reminded me SO much of George W. in his mannerisms and his speech. BUT he is better looking and even i  have to admit, while i don't like the guy, he comes across with a certain charm. I will remind y'all from time to time as the days get closer to election time that i said this. I hope i am wrong. I really do.


3. I wouldn't be surprised if some Democrat doesn't come out of the woodwork to challenge Obama either. But right now i don't know who that would be. (If it were Anderson Cooper or Matt Damon, i may be inclined to change my mind about my vote!)


4. I went back to work last week. It wasn't as bad as i thought. Here is the key for me for a successful new year: do something new! .... My manager/boss at headquarters assigned me to mentor a new hire in one of our neighboring union offices. And after talking with her on the phone yesterday to set up a lunch date, i can tell I will already like this woman. Also on Friday my boss asked me to serve on a committee to research the best communications tool we can use for our 80,000 members. I love communications, so this is right up my alley. And both of these assignments get me out of the office.


5. When i think about my summer, it was great, lots of unencumbered time. Nobody demanding anything of me. But it mostly involved me watching Tabatha's Salon show, The Debt Ceiling news, Casey Anthony, unfurling my flag which kept getting wrapped around the pole on my front porch, watering my patio plants, taking naps, running, drinking wine, watching Rescue me, reading and making my bed. I wasn't bored, but i realized it didn't make me an exciting person to be around either. Housewives and young stay at home mothers must feel this way. 


6.  I am going to be meeting susieatl (who posts here infrequently) next Saturday in Seattle. She knows what i look like, but I have no idea what she looks like because she never puts up photos on Facebook of herself (mostly her dog) but she tells me she is under 5 feet. I think I should show up in a wig and sunglasses! LOL..... 


7. My husband has been under our house in our crawl space for most of the day today, fixing and rewrapping our duct work and checking for leaks. I KNEW the dust coming inside our house and inordinate amount and sure enough we have some leaky duct work that sucks it into the house. Brian fixed it. When we are done we will have the most looked over condo in good repair in our whole community. He's been in every inch of our crawl space and thought he is not claustrophobic (as i am) it's not a pretty job.


8. I love being married to such a handy guy. He can fix almost anything! 


Ok, that's all. What's going on with your week

13 comments:

jojo cucina cucina said...

I got this from Googling the phrase 'come hell or highwater':
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This phrase appears to have been coined in the late 1800s to describe trail drives bringing cattle to the railroads. They had to cross the rivers even if they were flooding and the summer sun made the open prairies unbearably hot. The trail from Texas to Kansas went through hell AND high water.

'Come hell or high water' means - 'no matter what' or 'in spite of all obstacles'.

equeyaya said...

Love it! Reminds me of Lonesome Dove. Another phrase I love is "lord willing and the creek don't rise."

Congratuations to Pam for making her dream a reality! Looks like a fun place.

I am up at 2:30am because I woke up and looked at my phone (as I often do) and it was dead. Not battery dead, "restore to factory settings" dead. I can't count how many times this has happened with this iphone. Not only has this taken 45 minutes of my sleep time so far, but I have lost all of my music and photos I had stored on there.

I'm wondering if I should jump the apple ship and get some other kind of smart phone. Any suggestions?

I'm claustrophobic, too! Brian gets a lot of points from me for doing that!

It's now 3am. We'll see how much of my music actually gets back on my phone. Stupid itunes has a ton of songs with those exclation points that say they can't be "located." grr.

jojo cucina cucina said...

There are SO many good phrases in Lonesome Dove. Brian always liked how Gus described Jake Spoon as being 'a leaky vessel'.

eque, why do you look at your phone at 2:30 am?????? I try hard not to even look at my alarm clock!

I wonder if i will be able to go through my whole life on Earth without ever owning a cell phone. It's actually a goal of mine to do that.

So of course i have no ideas about cells. Brian has a Blackberry for work. He doesn't complain too much about it, but then i might not be paying attention.

Today i watched a Kevin Costner movie on TV called The Guardian. I expected it to be really stupid, but it wasn't bad. It starred Ashton Kutcher, and actually if he hadn't married Demi Moore, he would be a husband pick for Kylee. (He loses some points because he married her.) I think i would like him in real life. I liked that the Coast Guard got their hero movie. And actually Kevin Costner - who i only liked in Bull Durham and Dances with Wolves and one other movie (I forget the title but it also starred Joan Allen - they both were neighbors and kind of drunks). But he wasn't bad in this.

There is a definite autumn feel in the air today. Cloudy all day. I can see the maple trees that line our sidewalks outside our condo starting to turn.

:(

jojo cucina cucina said...

I was watching CNN over the weekend and found out that Rick Perry came out ahead of Mitt Romney (as a WRITE IN) in the Iowa straw poll and Perry wasn't even there.

I did not even know this when i said i pick him for the nominee. I would have put up Michele Bachman's Newsweek cover as the photo here - have you seen it? - it's so scary. But's that why. It's too scary. She really really needs to quit invoking Ronald Reagan when speaking about her candidacy.

Having said that, i am not afraid of Michele being the candidate and actually hope the Republicans are dumb enough to choose her. I think Rick Perry will be a formidable candidate.

jojo cucina cucina said...

My sister's son Christopher got married this weekend in Hawaii in a small ceremony. My niece Jessie-belle (that's what i call her) has been Facebooking us stories of the wedding and my crazy yaya mom. Here is one of her Facebook posts that totally cracked me up:

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Grandma brought 3 bottles of wine over to the boys yesterday before the wedding. She brought wine glasses also, But forgot the opener. She told grandpa to go get a COCKscrew, I heard the guys faces were priceless!

jojo cucina cucina said...

I'm going to call it a 'cockscrew' from now on. This from my mom who refers to a serrated knife as a "surrogated knife' and once ordered Dungeness crag as "Dungaree crab" in a high end restaurant.

equeyaya said...

bwahahahahaha!!!! your mom is too funny! she traveled to hawaii for the wedding?

jojo cucina cucina said...

CELEBRATION TIME !!!!!

I made our very LAST house payment this afternoon. We are debt free! and ahead of retirement. I was originally shooting for paying it off the year i retired..... (though if my union goes on strike with this new bargaining drama, i may very well be retired!)

This is so exciting and now i'm really glad we didn't buy that other house.

I wish i could buy something for it to make it real, but right now i think we're good. I guess i could get the sofa recovered as i've been talking about. And i think we're going to hire the cabinet makers who did our built in to make us a custom computer table.

equeyaya said...

woohoo!!! congratulations! i just started paying mine, lol!

Amanda said...

Is that pulled pork? Looks fantastic!

On our vacation, Erik's dad called Havarti cheese "hantavirus cheese." It was good. Now, that's what I call it, too.

My grandpa also talks about his "prostrate," which is awful on multiple levels.

Did you see Piers Morgan and Christine O'Donnell? It's my new favorite thing. I wish Crazy Eyes Bachman would go on that show.

jojo cucina cucina said...

I did not see Piers and Christine but i heard something about it. I'll go looking. I saw in Barnes and Noble that there is actually a book about her. Really?????

SOOO many people call it prostrate! We should refer to super sad people in mourning as 'prostate with grief' then.

That's funny about 'hantavirus' cheese.

I heard today from my nephew Brian that my mom gave the airline folks bigtime trouble because they confiscated her hand lotion and hairspray bottle. She travels more than i do, how could she not know? And i guess the employee got pretty pissed with her because my mom can be a real pain in the ass about that stuff, as if the rules don't apply to her at all. That's why my dad hates traveling with her. It's embarrassing how she treats people who are providing service. She acts like a Diva and the Queen of Sheba.

P.S. That is called the Viking Burger. It's a hamburger and it's a full pound of beef. The Curtis HS school boy students order it. (Their school mascot is Vikings.

jojo cucina cucina said...

Oh yeah, the other thing she did in Hawaii was they all went out before the wedding to manicures and pedicures. They all got French manicures and so my mom, not knowing what a French manicure was after she got it, insisted that they put nail polish all over her nails because they did not finish the job.

Brian said...

They should call that a Finnish manicure. :)