Good Wishes

Just wanted to say thanks again to all of you who commented or emailed about Gert. I really, really appreciate it. It's one of those precious few signs to me that the world is good; February will soon be over; These feelings will lift.

Gert is very well, and in my honest opinion, no longer remembers that anything unusual occurred. (Gert has never been known for her mental prowess). She is sleeping comfortably in her chair right now, having woken me at 6:04 to demand food and outside time. These needs satisfied, she has returned to bed, whereas I am up for the duration of the day. Oh well. I'm glad things are getting back to normal.

Happy Belated Birthday to my sister, Ali, who turned 27 yesterday. She came over for a nice birthday dinner of my husband's awesome pork chops (Ali and I both thought we hated pork chops until we met Thomas) and acorn squash. YUM! (Even if I did struggle with the squash and we sort of had to eat it for dessert. Sorry, Ali.)

And so another week begins. A week in which I will no longer use this blog like a diary but will actually post about things that matter. Like Little House on the Prairie.

Gert is OK

Not that anyone was waiting on quite the pins and needles that I was, but I just wanted to let the general public know that Gert came through her surgery just fine. She had 5 small teeth removed (none that make her tongue hang out the side--Yay!) and her bloodwork was "excellent for a dog her age."

She's totally doped up and asleep in her chair right now.

Yeah, I love her a little bit.

S.A.D.

Depression's got me bad, y'all.

Too much melatonin, too little Vitamin D, PMS, Post Drinking Depression...I don't know what all. I've got blog posts stored up, a little list beside the computer, but I just cannot snap out of it. If I had money (reason #347 to be depressed) I'd be going back on the Paxil right now.

Gert's having her tooth surgery on Friday and I'm unreasonably frightened about it. Gert is 14 years old and when she was little, she was so sickly that we never did her teeth because we were afraid to sedate her. Now I'm even more afraid to sedate her. I feel like maybe I love those dogs too much. I feel like if you asked for my kidneys...one for each...or my feet...one for each...if they could just live forever--Well, consider it done. Consider it not even a decision. Those dogs are my heart. I shouldn't love things so much that will die so far before me. I know that seems crazy.

So, Idol's back on. One more sign of spring. And I'm glad because, like the seeds, it let's me know that the winter will end. One of my very first blog posts was about Idol last year and so I also know that I'm about to hit the first anniversary of this awesomeness being a part of my life. Thanks for bearing with me while I hibernate and try to get through February.

When Seagulls Attack

So, Thomas was watching The Birds the other day and it reminded me of my first spring break from college.

For some reason, a huge proportion of Guilford College students come from suburban Maryland and hence I knew and traveled with a group of 5 people from my dorm. We took turns driving home for breaks, and our first spring break, we all decided that we'd go to the beach in Delaware together. We piled into my friend Kim's tiny (two door, even?) car, all 5 of us and all our luggage.

I should pause to note how much luggage first-year college students travel with. And then I'll also pause to note that that winter we'd had a horrible blizzard in DC and were all snowed in from Christmas break. We were two days late for Spring semester when our parents were so collectively tired of hearing us bitch about how badly we wanted to go back to college that they paid a guy to pick us all up, take us to Union Station and put us on a train back to North Carolina. The train took 12 hours to get to Greensboro. At around midnight, when we arrived in freezing, ice-coated Greensboro, I called a cab to come get us and take us to school. And then I called another cab, because my roommate (hi Kim!) brought so much luggage that we couldn't fit it in the cab. Seriously.

So it was a herculean effort to fit Kim, another Kim, Becki, Chris and me into this tiny car with every single thing that any of us had ever owned.

Kim's mom used to buy food in bulk from Sam's Club, and when I say food, I mean the most amazing quantity of junk food that you have ever seen in your life. Kim's pantry at home was like walking into a convenience store and hence we all slept over at her house a lot. So for this trip, she had sent us the motherlode of all Girl Scout cookies. They were crammed in between us on the seats, shoved into the rear window, piled onto the floor boards. Yum.

So, naturally, we decided that we would stop at the outlets on the way to Rehobeth. Cause we needed more stuff to put in the car.

We all shopped and then climbed over one another trying to get back in the car with all our new parcels, when someone kicked an open box of Girl Scout cookies out of the car and they spilled all over the parking lot. Within seconds, a humongous flock of seagulls was on us. They were everywhere! In the car! Snatching Girl Scout cookies!

And then, just like that, the cookies were gone and so were they.

Too bad they didn't take some of our luggage with them.

Successful Valentine's Day!

So, I should have remembered to take a picture of this before we totally devoured it, because it was actually quite pretty. It was a lightly breaded and roasted pork loin, cooked in shallots, sherry and broth with a cream sauce and almonds. Seriously, probably the best thing I've ever cooked. Finally! Some success! And I didn't even burn anything down, which would have been par for the course this month.


By popular demand, I cooked the torte. It was all we dreamed of and more. Strawberries were very good this week, so I could have made the other, but I'm glad we had this, though it is rich as hell and sits in my stomach like a devilish chocolate brick while insisting that I go eat some more, because, after all, it's low carb.


See my seeds? Yeah, I know you do.

Bad Luck February

My friend, Jennifer, believes that bad luck comes from puking before the ball drops on New Year's Eve. This theory was born last year when she had perhaps the worst string of luck ever to befall a human. Needless to say, she had visited the Porcelain Lord at around 11 pm.

Both Thomas and I remained relatively sober on New Years, but somehow this was not enough to appease the Gods for this has been the most damage-ridden February of my life. The TV in our bedroom broke; Thomas' van's brakes started squealing; The dog requires tooth surgery; The heat went out; I had ovary and wrist difficulty; Thomas broke his glasses. DUDE! We just cannot catch a break!

I'm exhausted.

I want to blog but I'm preoccupied with what could break next.

Stay Tuned for:
How I am Obsessed with The Little House on the Prairie
Never Wanting to Leave the House
and
Pictures of the Valentine's Day Dessert

Craft Extravaganza

So, yesterday I planted my seeds for the spring. Last year I did it in March and I felt my plants were a little later-blooming than I would have liked, so I started earlier this year. I'm also hopeful that all this activity will alleviate my depression of late. Planting seeds means spring is coming.
Here are 3 of the many trays of seeds currently taking over our mudroom (Sorry Thomas!)



As I mentioned previously, I rely heavily on crafts to get me through the winter season. So Friday, Jennifer and I did a practice run for this month's stitch and bitch: Mod Podge. Also, Jenn is a great beader, so we made bracelets, which made me very happy.



This is Jennifer's mod podge cigar box


and my (slightly blurry) mod podge box top

Finally, Thomas and I decided to stay in for V-day this week and I'm going to cook us something shmancy. Please help me choose between these two (low-carb!) desserts:
Dessert A: Strawberry Shortcake

Dessert B: Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Torte

Soon, You're Just Going to Think I'm a Wild Animal

Ok, so the heat still isn't fixed. The poor repairmen have been trying all week, which I guess is what you get for living in a 95 year old house. When we first moved in, the stove was broken and it took almost 2 months for anyone to figure out how to fix it.

Oh, my wonderous landlord, though you deal with my issues promptly and thoroughly, if you sold me this house these things would be my problems.

See, despite the seeming 2 weeks it takes to fix anything around here, I love this house with a fiery passion. To me, this house just speaks my name. But sometimes it tries my patience, none the less. Last night, while waiting for Jennifer to come over for dinner (and oh, we'd bought beads and mod podge and all our spring seeds to start in trays! I'll blog about that tomorrow) Thomas tried to plug in one of the space heaters left for us by the repairmen and we blew a fuse.

And in our house, that's literal. Thomas was driving all the way across town to buy a fuse while I searched the house with a flashlight for a phone that wasn't cordless so I could call my guests and tell them to wait.

In slightly unrelated news, I seem to be developing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in my left hand. Having it is sort of like have allergies for the first time. I used to disdain allergies and consider them to be wussie. Now I feel the pain.
Quite literally.

And so, it seems as if everything around me is just slowly disintigrating. First my ovary and now my left hand. The heat and then the power. DAMMIT!

It all reminded me of the house we lived in before we moved here. The city line running into that house often got blocked--it wasn't our fault, there was just something wrong with it--so periodically we'd have to call out the city to dig out the pipe and leave raw sewage in our yard to deal with. YAY! One day that happened on our birthdays! And we were giving a party! In the backyard!

But I digress.

We got used to that situation and began to be able to sense it coming and call the city before the sinks stopped draining and the toilets stopped flushing. But one Friday at 5 o'clock it caught us completely off guard. There was nothing to be done; the city was closed. So we went to our friends' houses and to the bar a lot so as to be in proximity to bathrooms while we waited for Monday to arrive. But at night, right before we went to bed...

all four Gilberts: Thomas, Meg, Gertie and Gonzo, would go outside to pee.

Unfit for Human Life

My best friend, Kasey, lives where it is very, very cold. So cold that when I asked her on the phone the other day what the weather was like there, she answered, casually, oh, it's 2.

2.

And that's pretty warm for there. I check her weather every morning along side my own (as if I need to verify for myself daily that someone I hold dear was crazy enough to leave the state of North Carolina for the frozen wilds of Northern Maine) and it's not unusual to see -13.

Dude.

A couple of years ago, I sent her a down-filled robe for Christmas. Her husband asked her why I felt the need to ship her that monstrosity and she said, "Meg thinks I'm cold." And I'm like, Kase, I don't think you're cold, I know it for a fucking fact. Because that is just not fit for human life. If you stayed outside too long, you would die.

And that's just not ok to me. Much like the temperature of my house right now.

Last night at 1:30 am, Thomas woke me to tell me that there was something grievously wrong with the heating system and he was going to have to turn it off. I sat there, totally unable to comprehend this for a moment. I said, "Um, you know it's 22 out there, right?" And drat his responsible self, he pointed out that it is better to be cold than to burn the house down. I just don't need to hear that kind of logic at 1:30 am.

So, now it is 30 something outside and 52 in my house and I think my hands are seriously going to fall off.

What I wouldn't give for that down-filled robe right now.

Suprise!

So, I am no longer a surprise party virgin. Yes, it's true, I attended my very first surprise party on Saturday night for my friend Mary's 30th birthday and I didn't even wreck the surprise!

Here are some great pictures of Mary freaking out:





Happy Birthday, Mary!


Here is my favorite video ever of surprise parties:

Yes, I Eat Out of the Trashcan

So I've been enjoying this post by Lauren about dropping the love bomb.

I wanted to reply with a story of my own, but I actually don't remember the first time that Thomas and I said "I love you." We discussed it last night, but all we could come up with was, "Maybe it was at Lula's?" Sad.

(P.S. I just ate fake chocolate. It took 17 minutes for my body to figure it out. Uh oh.)

What we did remember was a very funny incident from the first couple of months that we were dating:

I eat a lot. I mean A LOT. I really think I could enter food eating contests and win. This is not something that I generally like to reveal to my significant other right off the bat. It does not seem feminine to reveal that you could eat 3 times the meal that he just put away.

So one night, Thomas brought home food from Checkers. To the best of our recollection, it was chicken fingers and fries. I ate my portion nicely (or at the speed of light, depending on your perspective) and waited while Thomas picked at his food in a leisurely manner. Finally, it appeared he would eat no more. Would I reach over and eat the food? Should I request the leftover food? Should I clear the table and eat it on the way to the kitchen? These and other options I pondered while Thomas put his uneaten food back in the Checkers' bag and threw it away. THREW IT AWAY!

So I did what any self-respecting person would do. I waited until he left the room, got it out of the trash and ate it.

Except he came back and caught me at it.

Thereafter, we were at a gas station and Thomas was going in. He asked me if I needed anything and I said no. He asked if I was sure. Yes, I said, I'm sure. He walked toward the gas station and stopped at the trashcan, pointing at it and looking at me as if to say, "Anything from in there you want?" Bastard.

To this day he'll still tease me about it.