Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Where the weekend goes
Hmm. Let’s see if I can reconstruct this.
1. Get up. Make the coffee. Suck down some cereal for breakfast since I have great plans to go to the gym later.
2. Go to the hospital, discharge my post-op patient. His face still works, yay! All is right with the world.
3. Grab a real breakfast. Watch waitresses be mean to some old guy. Say nothing about it.
4. Come home. Start re-packaging my books into “keep” and “donate” boxes. Wake up Jake with my mad boxing skillz.
5. Run errands: kitty litter and cat food; nursery for chestnut trees (no go, but I got a lead on a nursery which DOES carry them) — Karen’s crazy about chestnuts and now she wants a tree of her own. Two trees. It’s one of those situations where you need two trees.
6. Run errands: Borders to get some music Jake and Karen want. Couldn’t find either. That’s why God made the Internet, after all — local stores never stock what you want. Went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to buy new stoneware. Fusion Wasabi. Stupid name, hot look.
7. Run errands: buy a pool thermometer. Go grocery shopping. Find Karen’s chestnuts at the third grocery store I check.
8. Come home, make beef stew for Karen and Jake, salmon salad for me.
9. Fritter away most of the rest of the day playing Torchlight, which Dean turned me on to.
1. Get up. Make the coffee. Suck down some cereal for breakfast since I have great plans to go to the gym later.
2. Go to the gym since I know if I don’t do it now, it ain’t ever going to happen.
3. Now I’m looking for pomegranate syrup to make fesenjan. Don’t worry, I used chicken thigh meat, not duck. I’d have had to stay up all night preparing duck. (Although I do have one in the freezer, so that was the plan, once upon a time.) To make fesenjan, I need pomegranate syrup. I could buy pomegranate juice and boil it down, but this is expensive and a pain in the ass. So I’ve previously googled a couple of “international” markets I have not yet visited. First up: Global Market, which is truly Global if the world consists of Southeast Asia and the Phillipines. Still, not a total loss; I picked up some frozen shu mai and pot stickers and frozen clams, and I now know where to go for durian, frogs legs, and pork uterus.
4. I’m hungry. Global Market is in Little Saigon Marketplace, or something like that, and now I’m torn between banh mit and Vietnamese iced coffee versus spring rolls. I go for the healthier choice — spring rolls. (They’re not fried.) Early lunch for five dollars. Now it’s off to a halal market a bit further north cuz Global Market doesn’t have pomegranate syrup. The halal market has pomegranate syrup but not much else of interest, since I have no use for Lebanese tobacco.
5. Off to the nursery that has chestnut trees! Only they don’t have both necessary varieties, only one. Come back in January they say, when we’ll have both types in bare root. Thanks for not telling us that yesterday when we called you about ’em.
6. And since I have not yet had my fill of ethnic markets, apparently, I stopped off at a nearby Indian market for gulab jamun and a variety of other sweets for Karen.
7. Still no rest for the wicked. I came back home only long enough to roast chestnuts for Karen, play a little and I do mean a little Torchlight, then google to find out where I can get the oil changed quickly on our Camry. Off to the oil change place, where they try to sell me a new air filter for $25. I think not.
8. And then back to Bed, Bath, and Beyond for a new shower nozzle, the kind with the long hose on it. I stopped off at the grocery store afterward because my weekend isn’t complete without at least three trips to the supermarket, then came back home, installed the new nozzle. Call my Sis to wish her a happy birthday.
9. . . . And then dragged Jake off to the park to practice badminton. Or did I call my sister after the park? It’s all a blur.
10. Make dinner. Fesenjan and crispy rice for me and Karen, nachos for Jake. Wash dishes.
11. Answer emails. Write a blog.
12. Play Torchlight, I hope.
D.
Fritter away most of the rest of the day playing Torchlight, which Dean turned me on to.
(insert evil laughter here)
I spent far too much time yesterday lazing and playing Torchlight.
You had a more productive weekend than we did. Our Saturdays our similar, although with different errands run, but we sat around and did bugger all for most of Sunday. Which was very pleasant, I must admit.
Oh, and I also spent some time separating books into “keep” and “donate” piles. Because I had to make room for the $125 influx of new books we acquired Sat. morning. Also there was much Torchlight played by the senior male in the family.
hey.. have a look at your air filter. as filthy as the stuff you breathe up there in bako is, you might just need one.
You called me after badminton practice, and with a schedule like that, I appreciated the call even more.
Dean: lazing sounds nice. I laze far too infrequently.
Chris: I think I’ve found a place for our “keeps” — a shelf that runs the perimeter of our walk in closet. Is it big enough? Dunno. Is it strong enough to hold all those books? Dunno that either.
Joolz, yeah, I hear ya. But this is something I can do for myself — I don’t need them to change my air filter for me. I could change the oil, too, but it’s such a messy pain in the ass, I’d rather not.
Sis: oh, you’re welcome 🙂
When I moved this last time, I spent a lot of time constructing a custom bookcase to deal with some of my books. I figure that I will need to build another in the next year or so.
And I think there is a weekend eating black hole lurking near you and me both…
HI RENEE! long time no see 🙂
Did you ever photoblog your bookcase?