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new day, new job
September 10, 2012, 5:37 P.M.
Today was Spouse's first day at his latest job; so far he hasn't much to say on the subject. It
was practically an accident that I even found out he got this job; he never mentioned it to
me until I asked him flat out.
Which turns out to be kind of a funny story. When I finally dragged it out of him, he
exploded at me that if I ever read my damned text essages, I'd damn well know
he'd gotten the job. When I explained that I did happen to check my messages in a timely
manner, and that I had never received his, he backed off but was still a little pissy. But
about an hour later, a lightbulb went on and he realized that my number wasn't entered
correctly in his phone--our old phones didn't need the area code if it was the same as ours,
so he had never entered it. So any of the numbers they imported into his phone that were
from our area code didn't work. Mine, of course, was one of those, so I wasn't getting his
texts. I pointed out that if he ever just picked up the damn thing and telephoned
me, he would have known there was a problem. (I didn't have that problem because all the
numbers in MY phone were entered correctly from the beginning.)
Anyway. He is employed again; first shift for this week at least, but supposedly on second
soon. Yay. Pardon me for not doing a big old happy dance, but we all know how it is with
Spouse. We never assume "everything is okay now" when it comes to his employment.
Well, let's talk weekend. It started with me going into Friday trying to shake off a terrible
IBS flare which had me sleepless, queasy, and miserable. Since I had a mammogram
scheduled for 2:30, I got home from work and all I really wanted to do was take a nap
before I had to get showered & shaved and go get my boobies smooshed.
He wasn't having any of THAT. First of all, I had to get a mess straightened out with him and his compulsion to pay bills that I am in the middle of disputing. I have been at war with
Aurora billing for months over the office visit for my knee injury, and he has had strict
orders: NO TOUCH until I get it ironed out. I get home and what is he doing? He's
making out $100 checks to pay for a bill I don't even owe. After getting that all sorted, I
figured I could FINALLY lie down. Umm...no.
Nothing for it but for me to get dragged along with him on a bunch of stupid errands, plus
it is the ONE EFFING TIME he EVER wants to consider lunch on a Friday. Naturally.
Because I was so friggin' gut-sick I wanted to die, HE was starved and needed fast food.
Well, I actually won that round. We went home, I set an alarm and went to bed for an hour,
and he ate a baloney sandwich.
After a nap of about 45 minutes that did me a tiny amount of good, I got up and ready, and
Spouse drove me out to Aurora. Where I was once more floored by the speed, efficiency,
and friendly professionalism of the staff. If it wasn't for the facacta billing department, this
really would be the hospital of my dreams. I got there at 2:23, and got registered, gowned,
interviewed, got the records order straightened out for my last mamm, got imaged, dressed,
and discharged by 3:00 p.m. Not too shabby!
Then Spouse and I ran the errands I had earlier deferred, but we didn't stay out long. I was
so wonky from not being able to face food that we decided to go home and make dinner
early. We had a salad, and baked potatoes & barbecued pork chops on the grill. At that
point I really needed to eat & didn't much care how dinner hit me--but I handled it fine,
actually. I went to bed early, and was up at my usual 4:30 on Saturday.
I felt pretty good on Saturday morning; it had turned cool overnight and I had a bit of pep.
And since I could tell that my House Spouse was dying of cabin fever and in the mood to
do some wandering afield, I made a proposal. Drive down to Lincolnshire for a deluxe
breakfast at Walker Bros.Original Pancake House, then head back through Lake County,
doing our grocery shopping at Mariano's in Libertyville and Garden Fresh Market in Round
Lake. He was, as I suspected he would be, totally up for that. So we had some coffee, got
cleaned up, and were out of the house by seven.
Original Pancake House was just as good in Lincolnshire as it is in Glenview, Brookfield, and
Las Vegas. Spouse had smoked ham and buckwheat cakes, and I had their great bacon,
basted eggs (about the only place in this part of the country where they even know what
that is!), toast and more coffee.
Then we cruised up Milwaukee Avenue in the sunshine, and finally paid a visit to Mariano'sbaked goods rock) we just wanted to check it out. Verdict? Very reminiscent of Sendik's,
but with an even better bakery. And what was shocking for me--even though this is a
Roundy's chain, and obviously a luxury one...it was CHEAPER than Pick-n-Save.
We got pretty much everything we needed, with one or two exceptions, and I even found
the toothbrush I wanted. We glommed onto some of their great bakery stuff--Spouse got
butter-recipe chocolate cookies and homemade bread, and I got a faboo blackberry pie and
a demi-baguette for myself. Spouse found the shallots he needed, I found the raspberries I
wanted (at a great price). And we generally filled in some grocery holes, even though we
didn't need too much. We only ended up spending sixty-three bucks, and that included
Bailey's kibble and veggies (on sale for an unbelievable 64 cents a pound!).
One thing we didn't find, surprisingly, was a decent beef roast. Spouse wanted a really good
rolled roast for Sunday, since he needed something play host to the Laura Calder Shallot
Sauce he wanted to make. But since we were planning to run out to Round Lake anyway,
we weren't too worried. We ended up with a very nice little 2.67 lb. Sirloin Tip roast that fit
the bill perfectly.
Once we had the shopping wrapped up, we meandered home across Lake and Kenosha
Counties--one has to meander, because every possible direct route anywhere has been
screwed up by road construction. And when we were a few miles from home, we got
caught in a traffic jam/construction zone/road accident nightmare which required even
more shuffling around just to get home. We heard later that there had been a fatal accident.
When we got home, I put everything away and then just kind of was lazy for the rest of the
day. Dinner was simple--sloppy joes and fries. In the evening, I just watched old movies until
I felt sleepy, and hit the bed with that big sack-rat dog of mine until morning.
Sunday was a little more work-related: we got up and had coffee and our respective
breakfasts (bacon and eggs for him, a warm, crusty demi-baguette slathered in butter and
my homemade peach preserves for me). Then we showered and dressed, I started the
whole weekly laundry process, and got ready to run a few more errands. Spouse picked up
some stuff for another project at the hardware store, we got Auntie's half of the peach
preserves off in the mail (I love the local postal substation with the Sunday hours!), and we
we were back home within the hour. Had lunch--consisting of a large bowl of a
Crunchberries knock-off. In the afternoon, I finished the laundry and read, while Spouse
mended a light switch and installed a cable splitter so he could watch tv in the bedroom.
And then proceeded to watch tv in the bedroom.
We got started on dinner about 4:00; I made a batch of scalloped corn and got the potatoes
prepped and seasoned for roasting, then Spouse seared the roast & got it in the oven,
surrounded by my pile of spuds, the scalloped corn tuck in beside it. He then got going on
the whole reason for this menu--his shallot sauce. I got the heck out of there, because I
didn't want to be in his way. Since this is menu is one we'd never made before, there was a
lot of shuffling and changing and outright MacGyvering to get everything ready at the same
time, but when we finally sat down, the roast beef was perfect, the oven-browned potatoes
were perfect, the scalloped corn was perfect--and the shallot sauce? I hated it. I ate it, but I
hated it. He wasn't happy with it, either. It came out sour--I think he used too much
wine--it said two cups, but "more is better, right?" and he used the whole bottle of cheap
sauvignon blanc I had in the fridge. Sure! Why not? If a recipe cals for 473 milliliters, why
NOT pour in 750? Gah. He is learning to be a helluva good cook if he follows the recipes,
but winging it is out of the question--his instincts are still for caca.
Since we had over half a roast to eat up, it got another chance to disappoint at tonight's
dinner. I thought baking it in the oven might mellow it, so I tried that with the leftovers.
Also, I think the shallots were still too firm when the liquid had evaporated/been absorbed,
so I figured baking would help that, too. As I said--still disappointing.
Anyhow--dishes, internet, get ready for Monday, and bed. That wrapped up the weekend.
Oh, btw: we made the leftover roast with mashed potatoes & gravy, peas & carrots, and the
aforementioned sauce for dinner. With the exception of the last--superb once again!
Reading: �Winifred's Neighbors� (1903), and �The Children of the Top Floor�
(1904). Both by Nina Rhoades. These two actually tie in with "The Girl from Arizona", and
since I kind of went backwards, I'll note that the actual order is �Winifred's Neighbors�,
�The Children of the Top Floor�, and "The Girl from Arizona". After reading "Arizona", I
looked for other books by the same author and found "Top Floor", which featured
characters & situations that had been referenced in "Arizona". And once I realized that, I
kept noticing stuff in that one, that seemed to harken back to some previous
volume, so I went looking for that and found "Neighbors". And I have to wonder if there
may not be at least one more before these; from from a somewhat involved reference in
"Neighbors", I believe there may be a book about the character Lulu Bell that involves her
being kidnapped! It isn't easy to find anything about the author or her work online, so I
seem to keep fuddling my way backwards through her work.
Listening: Aerosmith, Bon Iver, Green Day.
Surfing:
At Random:
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