the world is your acorn

This morning I made myself a cup of coffee. It smelled a little like soy sauce. Does that mean I made it wrong?

One of the things that I complain about (I know, there are so many) is that it is difficult to get the Asian groceries here in Nashville that I’m used to having access to. Well, I was encouraged on Sunday when The Little Red Haired Girl and I went to check out the new K&S Market on Charlotte Pike, near White Bridge Road. We have been going to the one on Nolensville pretty regularly, and it definitely has a pretty good selection of vegetables, fish, meat, frozen foods and canned items. The new store on Charlotte Pike, however, is amazing. Since it’s still new everything is well-stocked and organized, the aisles are clean, and there is tons of space between aisles. There seems to be more selection of certain items, like frozen dumpling-type yummies and canned goods. I also found Black Currant Frutips, which was super exciting. I’ll have to stock up, in case they decide to stop carrying them. We did not get to check out a whole section off to the side filled with appliances and dishware, but we will this weekend. In addition, there seem to be freshly prepared items; we saw a case where roasted duck and chicken will presumably hang. If that becomes a reality, I will have little more to complain about in terms of Asian groceries here. Bravo K&S, and bravo Nashville!

I feel like, no matter how friendly, hospitable or trusting you are, it’s never cool to find a strange man who has your housekey at your door at 8:30 in the morning. I don’t want to exaggerate, I mean, he did ring the doorbell, twice, and I did let him in. I guess he had been sent over to check out the flooding in our basement. Which is great. Nevertheless, I would have liked to have known that he was going to show up, that he was going to be given our key, and that he was planning to do work on our house today. Our landlord does not seem to think it’s a big deal, and emailed a cursory apology which was more of an explanation than an apology, or assurance that he’d be in better communication with us in the future.

I’m livid, but The Little Red Haired Girl does not seem to care. Or she is just irritated and does not want to think about it. Of course, she did not get her work and schedule interrupted this morning by a strange man. Anyway, I feel the need to rant. This has helped, some. I may have to go searching around school for someone else to rant and rave to, and maybe get some empathy. I can’t wait to move.

I recently decided that I am always listless and lethargic because I get too much sleep. I go to bed when The Little Red Haired Girl does, then get up when I’m bored of lying down. I don’t know how I manage it while getting all my work for school done, but it’s true. So anyway, for that and other reasons, I think I need one of these

I also might need one of these. I could be referring to the cat, the helmet, or the sense of humor of the blogger; I’ll take any of the three. (via Boing Boing, of course.

I was going to post about the ugly sweater party, but it will have to wait. In the torrential downpour and thunderstorm last night, our basement flooded. The frustrating thing about it is that I noticed a little flooding a couple of weeks ago, but we took our time telling our landlord, then he in turn took his time doing anything about it (which is to say that he called the plumber and told him to call us, even though we’d already said that it was leaking from outside, not from plumbing. The plumber just called this morning, and said that it didn’t sound like a plumbing issue. No shit.). Anyway, all our stuff that is stored down there is basically sitting in 2 inches of water. Luckily a lot of it is in rubbermaid bins or stacked on top of flattened cardboard boxes. Unfortunately my box of notes from the last four years of teaching was just sitting in it, soaking up dirty brown yuck water all night. Some of it is salvageable, but I think a lot of that work is going to end up getting tossed. I’m scared to find out what else I have down there that might be swimming, but I gotta get to class now so that’ll have to wait. Boo.

Who among us hasn’t been nice and snuggled under a blanket on the couch or in bed, unwilling to reach for the remote or turn the page because that would require disrupting the cozy and exposing an arm to the cold air? Well, Boing Boing points us to The Slanket, a blanket with sleeves! Problem solved! Well, if you have $64.95 to blow, that is. It’s a great idea; unfortunately, I can’t afford it.

I went to The Parthenon last night to see Elizabeth Papousek’s opening. The way that The Little Red Haired Girl had described the photographs to me, I did not think I was going to like it. “Photographs of flowers… enh” is what I thought. But woah, it was really quite amazing. I can’t wait to go back when there are fewer people around to look at them, and to look at them with The Little Red Haired Girl. There are some that are breathtaking, and there are some that you just want to look at and look at to catch the details and figure out how they make the whole picture. I can’t describe it, but if you get a chance, you should definitely check out the exhibit.

The opening was also just a fun social event. The Couples came for a while, as did The Little Red Haired Girl’s mom, who was in town for work and a short visit. I also really love seeing The Little Red Haired Girl at work, in her domain, where she is so in charge of everything and knowledgeable and well-respected. She knows a lot of things and sees things in ways that I can’t really understand, and has access to this world of art that I know nothing about. I always makes me so proud and so impressed when I go to the museum and see her interacting with people and doing her job. The Little Red Haired Girl is humble, but I hope she knows how amazing she is. Now I am getting sentimental, so I must go.

I just got back from the mall, where I had to run an errand for The Little Red Haired Girl. I have to go to school in a little bit, so I wanted to get to the mall as soon as it opened, at 10. Woah. It is amazing there first thing in the morning. Parking is really easy, things in stores are still nicely arranged in their proper places, there is room to walk around, it’s quiet, people are smiling. The store clerks are a little over attentive since there aren’t many people around, but I was ok with it today since the rest of the experience was so pleasant. It’s a whole new world in the AM!

So, when Lady E came to visit she brought me this Williams Sonoma Pumpkin Spice Bundt cake mix (which I can’t link to because I guess it’s seasonal, and right now it’s out). Now, those of you who know me know that I don’t usually enjoy baked goods, but do randomly get into it every once in a while. So, I had told Lady E that I had tried a piece of this thing once in the store, and it was bangin’. Anyway. We didn’t get a chance to make it when she visited, and I finally got around to it today. I should have waited for backup. I cook a lot, but don’t often bake.

First off, my arm is about to fall off from using the handheld mixer. I felt like I was in one of those cartoons where a small character has to hang on to a hose that is spraying all out of control, except it was a mixer and batter was spraying everywhere. Then I had to use all kinds of bowls and dishes in the mixing process, which I am not into. I like to minimize the mess when I cook, which is apparently impossible when baking. The batter turned out way too thick, so that when the instructions said to “pour” it into the pan I actually had to scoop and glop. With more experience I might have known if this was ok or not, but I don’t have any. The worst part of me trying to bake, I think, is that I don’t really enjoy licking batter off things. I know, what a waste. I just rinsed it all down the sink this afternoon.

Anyway, the thing came out of the oven (in a baking pan rather than a bundt pan, cause I don’t have one), and it smells ok. Who knows if it’s cooked in the middle. I’ll stick to cooking the savory items, I think.

This was posted on Techcrunch back in November, but I didn’t remember to post about it until now. Fotolia is a site where you can sell and buy royalty free stock photographs. I haven’t really dug into it, but the presentation is clean and easy to use, and it seems like a good idea.