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sheds and ships and steaks and sorbets
May 29, 2018, 9:34 P.M.
Friday: Worked in the morning, napped in the afternoon. Hotter than hell; turned the air on when it got to 84 in the living room. We didn't feel like going out, so Spouse picked up dinner from the local Chinese takeout. The chicken & broccoli was really good.
After reading back through my last post, on Friday evening I said fuck it, and splashed out in a small way. Ordered a few things from Birmingham Pens, a Pittsburgh dealer I've heard great things about.
I ordered a very nicely priced bundle, that gives you a Knox Galilleo fountain pen (I selected Navy Blue/fine nib) with gift box and TWO converters, a small Tomoe River notebook, 5 adorable nib-shaped paperclips, and a free bottle of their proprietary brand of ink, in your choice of colors.
All that, for only $24.99! And the inks are named after notable Pittsburgh citizens and landmarks, so how could I resist "Fred Rogers Cardigan Red"?
They also do free shipping on orders over $30.00, so I got another Tomoe River notebook (I'm excited to try this paper so many people rave about!), and a sample of another ink color.
So we're talking a new dealer, new pen brand, new paper, and new inks for me; I've never tried any of these and I'm psyched! Really looking forward to this order.
Saturday: Got up, did some laundry and housework, and then got cleaned up. Spouse had a concrete contractor come over to quote for pouring an 8'x8' concrete slab (shed foundation). The estimate was $1,650. Yeah...no. That's three times what we paid for the shed!
After that guy left, we went out and ran our errands; Costco, Woodman's, gas station. Came home, put away the groceries and supplies, and then I advanced the laundry and made a batch of coleslaw, before we headed over to U-Haul to pick up the van.
That took a while; they were really busy--naturally. Sunny, three-day weekend, and the last weekend of the month, and school year? Yeah, lots of people moving. Turns out my idea to rent the 9 foot cargo van was a good one. We got to Lowes and there were two or three guys ready to wrestle it in to our vehicle, but no wrestling waas necessary. It slid right in with no issues and we were on our way.
Once we got back to the house, Spouse parked the van across the front lawn/driveway so we could get at the shed easily from the back and side doors, and we unpacked it right in the vehicle. Carried it out back a piece at a time, stacked it neatly on a couple sawhorses, and folded up the enormous cardboard box & put it in the van to drop off on the way back to U-Haul.
And then, after we got to Festival and found out their community recycling bin wasn't available, we drove back home and stacked it on the porch!
Took the van back and dropped it; they were glad to get it back early and I was glad that I only had to pay $41.00 for it. Plus a couple gallons of gas, that is.
We came home and chilled in the afternoon; it was another bright and brutal hot day, to be doing all that at mid-day (Only time I could get the van). And we were beat.
But we did discuss a fun thing we wanted to do. Spouse asked if the bucket for the ice cream maker was in the freezer downstairs. I checked, and it wasn't, so I washed it up and put it in to chill. We were initially discussing homemade ice cream, but then changed our minds to first strawberry, then raspberry, sorbet.
We did some recipe-googling, and I explained what I thought would be the best way to go about it (frozen raspberries, puree via the Cuisinart, push through the sieve to de-seed.), and we decided that we would run to Meijer and get some berries, and just go for it. But not till Sunday, because we were D-O-N-E for Saturday!
Dinner was charcoal-grilled bratwurst with my coleslaw and some potato salad and macaroni salad from the deli case at Woodman's. Minimal fuss, maximum deliciousness.
Sunday:
More chores, more laundry, and a few more errands. The recycling bin was back out at Festival, so we dropped off the cardboard, and then we filled up Spouse's car, and vacuumed the enormous amount of accumulated dog hair out of his back seat.
Then we went to Meijer. I'm kind of off Meijer right now, but that's really the only good place to get B's wet food, and we needed the kind of assortment of things, like motor oil and milk and berries and grave decorations and dogfood, that made a trip there necessary.
We lucked out because the frozen raspberries were on sale 2 bags for $6.
when we got home be put the berries in the big steel mixing bowl right away, so they could thaw. I'd told him to get three bags, to be safe--he got four, to be safer! But we only ended up using three.
While they thawed, we made the simple syrup so it could chill, and then returned to various household chores, inside and out. Once the berries were ready, Spouse ran them around in the food processor with a little water, until they were pureed, then I worked the puree through my fine mesh seive with my secret weapon--the gravy ladle. It is the perfect tool for that job, as I found out when I made raspberry filling for his birthday cake a couple of years ago. We did that in three batches) and then whisked the simple syrup into the puree. It needed to chill a couple of hours before freezing, so we cleaned up our mess and relaxed for a while.
Actually, we turned our attention to planning another cruise. We (well, HE) are planning to take a west-coast cruise a year from now, in early May 2019. Something a little shorter, that would go up the California coast--maybe as far as Vancouver or Victoria. So called our travel agent and told her what we were looking to do, and she went to work on some research.
About four or so, we returned to the project--I assembled the freezer and we got the mixture going in it. Because we made way too much mixture, we had a lot left after our little freezer bucket was filled. No worries, though--I added about a half-cup more water to it, just to ensure a good freeze, and used it to fill up my paletas molds. As luck would have it, I had exactly enough to mix to precisely fill my molds! Probably couldn't have done that if I was trying!
We popped the pops into the downstairs freezer, and after about a half-hour, the sorbet had frozen and aerated quite beautifully, and we packed it into three one-pint plastic containers and got it into the freezer as well, to set up while dinner was going on.
We did baked potatoes, charcoal-grilled porterhouse steaks, and a tossed salad for dinner, and had the sorbet for dessert. And it was all delicious--except for the sorbet.
Delicious is nowhere NEAR a good enough word to describe that. IT CAME OUT EXQUISITELY, PERFECTLY, SCRUMPTIOUS.
Unfortunately, my gastro-intestinal condition tried to ruin it for me, but I said to heck with it and enjoyed my dinner and my dessert anyway.
Got up yesterday and the guts were still chancy, so I had one cup of coffee and skipped breakfast. we did some work in the yard weeding and spraying for ants and working on the weed-whacker, Spouse and I got cleaned up and took a ride out to Papa's grave and decorated it. On the way back into town, we discussed dinner and decided to just pick up some cold cuts and have sanwiches for dinner.
So we stopped at Fresh Thyme, and got a few things. Then we came home and pretty much chilled out for the rest of the day. I was still feeling a bit punk, and to tell you the truth, I have been very depressed and unmotivated lately, anyway.
The travel agent emailed what she thought was the best cruise option, and it sounds perfect. Early May, after spring break and Easter, but before the main Alaskan Cruise season. The Ruby Princess, which is a sister of the Emerald Princess we took to Alaska. LA to San Diego to Victoria to Vancouver, and fly home. Long days in San Diego and in Victoria. Up the California coast, with a starboard-side (coastward), balcony cabin, similar to what we had before, but with a bigger balcony. Good cabin location on the ship. Good prices. We will probably go for it.
It isn't my idea of what I want to do for my vacation (I don't really like being on a cruise ship), but I do dearly want to re-visit both San Diego and Victoria, and this is probably the best way to make that happen.
I wish I could say we had a peaceful evening, but the local idiots that think any holiday requires massive amounts of major explosives decided to set off a bunch of what honestly sounded like TNT. Had the dog in a tizzy, and I couldn't get him to go out at bedtime, which meant I had to get up and let him out at midnight.
Today started off with the entire neighborhood reeking of skunk, and went downhill from there. I was the only person in the office, and the effing help desk never stopped all day. Two people, in particular, seemed to be making it their life's work to make my day suck.
I probably should have mown the front yard when I got home, since it is supposed to rain tomorrow, and be in the 90s on Friday. But since Spouse had requested a fiddly thing for dinner, and since I really don't want him getting TOO used to me doing all the mowing, I skipped it.
I was beat, and chicken stir-fry was enough work for the evening. Especially since I really make TWO stir-fries, one for him with just the few veggies he likes, and one for me with pretty much ALL the veggies.
But he really enjoyed it, and did the dishes after. I had washed up most of the prep stuff already, but there was still plenty to deal with.
Tomorrow, he's having his leftovers from tonight, and I'm having a julienne salad (I ate all my stir-fry!), so it will be a bit simpler. I do have to stop after work and pick up the two items that we forgot over the weekend, despite all of the shopping and running around we did (bread and foil). And if it's dry enough, I'll probably mow.
Reading: Still on "Ann Boyd" (1906) by Will N. Harben. Not a lot of time spent reading this weekend; just didn't feel like I was in the mood to read.And tonight, I wrote this instead.
Listening: Lou Reed, Semisonic, Portugal. The Man, The Nails
Inked Up: Same three from last post, The Bexley 10th/Binder Burgundy, the Conklin Duragraph fine nib/Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Brown, one of my old Bülow X450s/Graf von Faber-Castell Stone Grey. Plus a fresh one: JinHao X750 medium, with Rohrer & Klingner Blu Mare. Sometimes you just need to spend some time with your favorite blue ink.
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