Whatta Fiasco

Wednesday night we saw the Triplets of Belleville (aka Belleville Rendezvous) and it was charming and disturbing and delightful. Do go see it if you haven’t, but be happy that this one will sit well on DVD once it’s released. The details! The music! It won’t change your world or even rearrange it much, but it’s fun.

Tonight I had a personal historic moment at fencing practice. For the first time ever, I broke a blade. Only one in two years? I can only hope that I continue with that sort of luck. At least it was my oldest blade, the one I had been expecting to break any time now for the last, well. two years. It was also a nice clean break and no one got punctured or hurt in any way.

This morning I discovered that Altoids(TM) sours tins are a perfect size for carrying four to five oatmeal cakes once you’ve finished eating the sour candies. I wonder what the size of the population is that likes both sour candies and oatmeal cakes.

And you thought the Federal Marriage Amendment was bad? Check out Senate 2082, a bill to limit the jurisdiction of Federal courts in certain cases and promote federalism, cosponsored by one of my very own senators. Let’s call it the Get Out of Judicial Review Free card, available with each invocation of God as the basis for a legal ruling. I know that it’s even less likely to pass than the FMA, but just the thought of it makes my skin crawl. And why does neither of my senators maintain a list of the legislation they’ve sponsored on their websites? Wouldn’t that be a useful thing to provide as a constituent service?
Ahem.

Did you know that going out to eat on Mardi gras after nine in the evening and when you don’t want to suffer through overly loud live bands can be a bit of an adventure? We tried our usual Tuesday night hangout only to discover the above mentioned loud band in progress complete with rowdy revelers and phenomenal wait times for seating. Oh, for a quite bar with good food! So on we went to choice number two, a common retreat for our Friday evenings. Here we found quiet and solitude aplenty (and if this is getting a little too Goldilocks, that means it’s almost over) but a wait that stretched into the following day as all the staff had been sent home early to attend to their private (or otherwise) celebrations. Dark hallways, locked doors, and sad hungry fencers.

And that’s how we ended up at Romanelli’s Grill, an old time city establishment. It’s the sort of place where your great uncle totters in for a bite to eat and stays most of the night drinking scotch on the rocks. The filets come from McGonigle’s Market just down the road, and the spaghetti with meatballs is no-nonsense, just plain good food. But don’t bother ordering any of the local microbrews. This is not a microbrew sort of place as evidenced by the very clear wheat beer we were served. I don’t know how long a keg of unfiltered has to sit undisturbed for the unfiltered part to hide at the bottom. A glass of the house red would likely have been better, but the meal was scrumptious and we have new alternative eatery for after fencing practice.

It was a rough start to the morning but it turned into, mostly something worthwhile. With as little time as I get to spend in my house, and the even les time I have to spend watching weird and oddball movies undisturbed, weekend mornings are precious time for me. I was watching Eat a Bowl of Tea (not quite as oddball as usual) this morning. Lisa wandered out into the living room about half way through the film, groggy and not quite awake. When she wanted to chatter, I pointed out that I was trying to watch a movie, and she tottered off.

Ten minutes or so later, she’s back and chattering and talking right over my objection that I was busy doing something else. Should I have just shut the movie off for a bit to take time to talk to her? Maybe, and a few years ago, I probably woul d have. But a few years ago stopping what I was doing (or not doing it at all) was a default response from me anytime anyone else in the family needed anything. It made other people happy but was driving me crazy. So I’ve been working on carving out pieces of time and space for myself and guarding those bits selfishly.

I’m still working on the balance. I did shut off the movie, but it was because I was angry, angry at Lisa for so completely ignoring my polite request and waiting half an hour to chatter about Dungeons and Dragons. Getting mad wasn’t good, but I used the mad to get the dishes washed, clean the upstairs bathroom (that Lisa uses), to bag up Max’s clean clothes to clear a laundry hamper for Lisa to use, and to clean out the closet in Lisa’s room so she can hang up some of her clothes is she’s ever so inclined. Three bags of clothes. Three bags of trash.

Then I went and apologized for my out of scale reaction, explained why I got upset with her, and gave her the laundry hamper so she could clean up the floor of her room. I’m a long ways frmo being perfect, and dealing with Lisa has been pushing me up against some of my least favorite limitations. I keep trying.

I just read that a remake of Shall We Dansu? (wonderful Japanese romantic comedy still not available on DVD) has been remade starring… Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. (Nononononono!) Heaven help us all. (Mr. Gere, you’re no Koji Yukusho.) But… Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci are in supporting roles. Will I go see it? It’s slated for an August release, so probably. If this prevents the original from being released on DVD, I’ll be sad, but there’s always the chance that it will inspire people to see the original. Maybe.

The barley and burdock were still good at lunch today, but a bit on the intense side, not unlike the celeriac. But I’ve now had Creamtop Vanilla, Coffee, and Lemon, and Lowfat Chocolate yoghurt from Brown Cow. So far the only only (mild) disappointment was the coffee. Maybe next week I’ll try a fruit flavor.
The only bad thing about cooking my lunch to bring to work is that it’s harder to get outside in the afternoon. It was colder today than yesterday, but it was still pleasant, from what I heard. At least it’s the weekend now.

Welcome to the Sick House, where half the mammalian population is coughing and sneezing. The cat and I are just fine so far.
It was fifty-two degrees here this morning when I left the house. By the time I drove home, nearly all the remaining snow was gone. A few minutes ago the front came through bringing rain. It’s going to be cooler again but at least we won’t spend the entire month with snow on the ground. Spring will come. The little bit of thunder is nice.
We have a hotel reservation for Arlington, Texas next month, and the epee I had thought was lost came home wagging its tail behind it. I had resigned myself to no longer having my Vniti blackstick, but I hadn’t been all that fond of it anyhow (a combination of bending too easily but not wanting to take and keep the bend I wanted in it), so I had been anticipating a new blade. Now I’ll get a chance to get used to it again.

For dinner tonight I went out and had the thom ka gai (thai coconut chicken soup) I’d been craving. Very nice. And then I came home and cooked my lunch for tomorrow, the first time this week. Barley and burdock root go as well together as I had expected. Earthy and buttery, I seasoned them with salt and pepper and a little fresh nutmeg. Also very nice. Life is an embarrassment of simple pleasures.

Isn’t it traditional to wake up early on President’s Day to watch a dvd of Eddie Izzard? Maybe it should be. At least I no longer have such a large Eddie Izzard shaped hole in my cultural knowledge. I will grant that getting up early isn’t a necessary part of the ritual, and that neither is nine in the morning considered early on most days. He’s clearly past his nominal prime, but he’s got such an interesting face.

Then it was off to have lunch with Ms. K. (and hubby and Zoe). I got to see a cool new phone, eat some good breakfast type food, and watch Ms. K. abscond with a spoon. Don’t worry, she took it with permission. Attempts were made to gently extricate it, attempts to which she was not going to be a party. In short, she put on the cranky face and charmed everyone. The only problem with that trick is when you run across someone over the age of ten who still thinks it’s cute. K still has a generous amount of default cute time left. With a little work, she could have her own set of flatware before she starts school.
After lunch I did some grocery shopping (yoghurt still on sale! burdock root in stock! ) and then wandered over to a coffee shop in lieu of doing anything as mundane as going home. Sitting there reading, I looked up to see the snow begin making motions toward light flurries. Five minutes later it was a full scale invasion of fat flakes sticking to the sidewalk. Very pretty.

But eventually I got home to find a grumpy cat wondering where the heck I’d been. She never has approved of this whole going to work thing, and now she’s sleeping grumpily next to me on the bed. On my new comforter. Yesterday morning, in a cloud of tiny down feathers, I gave in and admitted that our long-suffering comforter was done for. Done in. Kaput. Surely, I said surely there is somewhere in this town where I can buy a simple comforter for a price that’s not too dear. Quoth the Raven, Go to Target, baby. I scored one full-size down comforter in a microfiber shell for mere peanuts. And the cat approves of it so it can’t be all that bad. I’m pleased with it too.

Did I mention big fat flakes? They’re pretty but I hope it stops snowing soon because we’re supposed to go to fencing practice tonight and I’m very much in the mood to fence. I’m not so much in the mood to slip and slide on the highway. But it’s so pretty. Speaking of pretty, if you get a chance to see Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress, you should, assuming you can stand a sad love story. But if you do, keep an eye out for the old ghost with her spinning wheel, because she’s not spinning, even if she might remind you a little of Fate. What she’s doing is hand reeling silk from a cocoon. Very cool, but the movie is good too. Satoshi Kon is building one heck of a team and I’m looking forward to seeing his next film, Tokyo Godfathers.

Happy valentine’s day, chocolate and cupid hearts and all. If I had the brains of a guppy, I would have backed up that database the way I kept planning on doing. Poof, the book blog is gone. So now I have the chance to redo the database design, which it had been needing anyhow.

But the spaghetti dinner tonight was just right. Eating out on Valentine’s day is not really something I want to do in this town without a reservation. My grocery store was out of cheater garlic bread and french bread of all sorts (very odd, that) but dinner was still fine. I even picked up some Ben and Jerry’s as a special treat, even if I did get a heart-shaped butter cookie earlier in the afternoon.

Earlier in the day we made sacrifices to the moving gods to help with getting a small piano into a trailer for some friends. One stuck truck, one smashed foot, and a broken cupholder. With any luck, when the piano gets to Tulsa, it will sail itself out of the trailer on downy wings as faeries make the perfect space for it to live in the house. Doesn’t everyone want to move a piano after fencing practice?

I started the day by watching Stephen Chow in God of Cookery. It was, as expected, over-the-top , silliness. Almost as funny as the movie were some of the subtitling gaffs. (”Satin from hell” was my favorite.) I expect, however, that I ought to be grateful that I watched it subtitled and thus missed most of the crudest humor. How could it not have been there when “exploding pissing meatballs” are almost a supporting character unto themselves?

You know you’re in trouble when your waiter introduces himself to you as your culinary consultant. Feh. The pretentiousness gets stretched a bit too far when said consultant manages to incorrectly describe the vegetable of the day. But he meant well and was enthusiastic (I would so much rather relax and enjoy my meal than cater to the insecurities of the waitstaff), and the fish was quite good.

If you’ve ever decided to add more tofu to your diet and decided to use the flavored baked tofus as a way to get texture and flavor, you might have noticed that less than satisfactory seasoning is more than a little expensive. But for less than half the price I found some organic, firm nigari tofu, cut it into pieces, and seasoned it the way I wanted.

One of the best reasons to go to your local healthfood store, or any place that sells grains out of bulk bins, is the chance to try grains you wouldn’t normally eat. At a cup or less at a time, it’s easier to try the unusual. I still haven’t found a useful way of using whole amaranth or quinoa that I like, but the whole barely has proven a success. This was the untoasted version (not kasha), but it still has a distinctive nutty toothsomeness. It’s time for me to find some larger containers to store both corn meal and barley as they’ve both become staples in my kitchen.

I’m in a bit of a flip-floppy mood lately. Volatile. Nothing is terribly wrong but enough things are niggling that it’s hard to focus on the good stuff, let alone relax and enjoy life. I go to work and do work type things. Over lunch I figure out how to use python to schlurp useful information off a web page. I go to fencing practice and get hot and sweaty while learning more interesting ways of collecting (and not collecting) bruises. I gossip over dinner, and then go home to discover what new ways Karl Popper found to abuse other widely regarded philosophers. (I thought he was hard on Plato, but Hegel gets knocked about like a punching bag.)

I need to find a distracting activity for later in the week, one that doesn’t involve coding or spending money. Maybe I’ll take a book other than Popper to a coffee shop later this week. Or maybe I’ll take a sketchbook instead. I’ll find something and things will be fine.

The process of replacing the hard drive has been rockier and longer than expected, which is why you’re not likely to be reading this on the sixth. It started with a failing drive that turned into a failing hard drive controller, and before I knew it it there was a new monster drive, new motherboard, new case and keyboard all sitting in the house. And we were in the middle of upgrading to RedHat version 9. With any luck, you’ll be reading this by sometime this weekend and all will be more or less well.

With hubby staying busy as server technician, I’ve been left to enjoy the vicissitudes of the weather. It snowed all day yesterday to the point of getting the office closed half an hour early. From our end of the building conference room I watched a FedEx truck fishtail its way around the corner, nearly smacking into the curb. Four guys across the street helped push a little pickup truck up a short incline at the bottom of the alley. The buildings over the hill disappeared in the white.

When it came time for me to escape, there was a little slipping and sliding trying to wrestle my car back off the road the FedEx guy slid onto, and then an onramp from hell with four inches of slush to navigate, but everything else was smooth sailing. I only saw a couple of cars in the process of being pulled out of ditches. I got home to find my driveway and curbside both under four to five inches of snow. So I parked in the drift on the street so that I’d have a chance of making it to work this morning. Luckily it was warm enough that the snow was fairly sticky, which made the job of shoveling off the steps and then the driveway not so bad. I was back inside and warming up before I realized that I could either dig the snow out from around my car then, while I was still a bit damp and chilled around the edges, or I could wait until morning and then have to drive to work while I was still cold and wet. Even luckier still, my driveway is just the right size to make snow shoveling a fun exercise (if you only do it a few times a year), so I enjoyed it. Horrible, I know.

To round out an exciting evening of clammy cold hands, I watched Seijun Suzuki’s Pistol Opera. Ostensibly it’s a sequel to Branded to Kill. It’s certainly another story about professional Japanese assassins vying for the number one spot, but our protagonist this time is a woman known as Stray Cat, assassin number 3. Again, the plot gets pulled thin enough from time to time that you’re tempted to read the script through it. But it never quite falls apart, and the whole thing is stylish and stylized enough that you can forgive the weaknesses. And the one’s you can’t forgive, you can laugh at, aside from a few very odd camera choices. Besides, Makiko Esumi is much better looking than Jo Shishido and the saturated color palette is lovely.
But no fencing tonight. Damn the snow, even if it is pretty. Maybe fencing tomorrow.

(The server is up again. Still ironing out the wrinkles.)