The improvised MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Thanks for getting our week off to a great start with a new MMP, Bob!

Yesterday, my girlfriend’s mom had us over for Sunday brunch. She cooked up three different varieties of snausages and had some awesome homefried **N.O.T.**s as well as bacon and some scrambled eggs, ham, & cheese. The bacon strips were cut in half which made them much easier to handle. The odd part is I think I enjoyed the buttered toast the most, but all of it was tasty.

The brunch was certainly better than the football game. By the 4th quarter, we were all joking about when the QB would throw his next interception (“Nah he likes to wait until he’s inside the 30 to turn it over.” “It’s like watching Mark Malone all over again.”) You Ravens fans out there certainly had a treat (as did Green Bay fans last February, but I digress…).

Today’s sammich supper was baloney & colby cheese on swanky buns with mayo. The buns came from Giant Eagle (Jint Iggle for you Pixburghers playing along at home). I call the baker there Sybil because they never have the same thing from week to week. Some weeks, they’ve got buns, some weeks not. And when the moon and tides are just right, they might have iced brownies, but none for the last seven months or so. sigh

I’ve got to make this Colby cheese last. Somehow I managed to toss a bunch of Swiss cheese by mistake. Good thing I picked up the Colby which was practically an impulse buy as I remember thinking I already had cheese at home…

Remember to keep track of your cheese!

Bri2k

42

No, but I’ve been blurfy all day and I didn’t know what else to post.

Yikes. Was that car parked on that stretch of road? because you’d think the driver would have noticed the “pothole” if he was driving around after Lee.

43

Who let in all these new Mumpers?? Jeez. I go away for a couple days, and there are all kinds of names I don’t recognize! :stuck_out_tongue:

I didn’t do much with my extra days off, but the pantry is cleaned (and my coworkers are happily munching the found box of Thin Mints) and organized and I’m much less stressed. Although I’m feeling it rising again today while at work, although there’s nothing wrong at work so I really need to just let it go and not worry about things so much.

I made Swiss chard lasagna yesterday but with beet greens instead of Swiss chard. They’re related. It’s close enough for me. I didn’t realize until I started exactly how much cheese there was in it. I left out the mozzarella and parmesan entirely and cut the cream way back. It was still plenty rich and saltier than necessary. But good enough to make again.

I also tried the recipe for hot chocolate from The Sweet Life in Paris by David Libovitz. Wow is that rich. Really good. But overwhelmingly rich. A very small serving is recommended if anyone tries it. (And try it without the sugar. It’s better on the almost-bitter side, although that may be because I used 60% chocolate. If you use 70+% as the recipe recommends, the sugar may be necessary.) Good stuff.

44

**rosie **- as I understand it, the car hit that washout while the water was still flowing over the road. If you go to Mapquest and search for Allens Fresh, MD, then look at the aerial map, you’ll see where Allens Fresh Run goes under Rt 234 - you can zoom in pretty far. The washout was just to the east (right) of the bridge. It’s the only impassible road in the county - all the others have been patched at least. I’m dying to see it, but I don’t want to drive all that way, and I expect it’s barricaded pretty far back.

45

I hope you recognize me… :frowning:

Dinner is chicken sausage in the crockpot with purple cabbage, apples and onions and N.O.T, mashed.

46

MOOOOOOM that pic made me go :eek: Dang!

Sad news. A former church music director passed away today. :frowning: He had stomach cancer and had decided to forego further treatment. He looked pretty bad last time I saw him which was July 3rd at the church’s 50th anniversary celebration. It was not an unexpected thing but still :(.

And on that note I believe I shall retire to the bed and watch some teevee. I’s tahrd!

Nitey Nite Y’all!

47

Hello Everyone. Monday’s suck and that’s all I’m gonna say about that. Come on Firday. I had a generally quite weekend. Took the dog and cat to the Vet and that was it for anything productive. Lazy I was.

Have a Great week all.

48

Mmmm, taxi, that sounds yummy.

Sorry about your Monday, Buttercup.

Have put things back in the office - have cleaned up quite a few things, but still lots to go - and am about to sit down to read for book group. We’ll see how long I make it. It’s fascinating, so it might be a while.

Hugs all.

ETA: sorry about your former choir directory, swampy. :frowning:

GT

49

Oh good heavens…I was expecting flooded roads, not that. Glad you don’t have to deal with that.

50

Aw, sad news. Sorry for your loss.

Have a good nights sleep.

51

Din din’s done. Meatball grinders. I made sure to make enough so we can have spaghetti and meatballs tomorrow.

Now it’s time for CoH and Strongbad e-mails (I can’t wait til we run out these in the netflix queue).

52

When I was at the grocery store the other day I saw a display of Hatch pepperes on sale. I didn’t know what they were but I remember some of my imaginary friends raving about them so I bought some. Well, last night we grilled steaks on the barby, so I threw the peepers on there to char, got them nice and black, and stuck them in a bag. After dinner, (steak, baked **N.O.T.**s, and sallit) I stripped the skins and seeds and stuck them in the fridge. About 10:00 last night I happened to touch the corner of my eye with my finger. OW!, OW!, OW!, OW!, OW! I obviously hadn’t washed my hands enough.
I was not happy.
Now what do I do with these peppers?

Sorry about your friend Swampy.

Happy Monday y’all!

53

**Bumba, **be glad you didn’t take a leak.

When I did that, it was 20 minutes before I quit dancing around. Now I keep medical gloves for kitchen use.

54

Believe it or not, they’re still roasting those Hatch chile peppers here in Albuquerque! People almost go bonkers for them, apparently. LOL I have tried the roasted peppers and they are pretty good, as long as they’re on the mild side that is. :smiley:

We had corned beef and cabbage for dinner tonight and tomorrow will be chicken and dumplings. We’ve got plenty to eat for the rest of the week after that, I think! FCM, have you and FCD seen the show “Tanked” yet on Animal Planet? They build custom aquariums for folks. :slight_smile: Taxi, could you put up that swiss chard/beet green lasagna recipe on the mumpers food blog please? :slight_smile: Soapy, sending good thoughts your way, and would like your recipe for the chicken sausage and polenta lasagna (I saw you post about that on facebook a goodly while ago, btw!), thanks in advance. :slight_smile:

Thursday will be the first pottery class - yay or should that be ay yi yi!? Sunday is my birthday and we’re going out for dinner, I think. :slight_smile:

Sending good thoughts to -everyone- and sorry I’ve been so negligent - just busy doing other things, I guess! :stuck_out_tongue:

Oops, got the recipe for the swiss chard lasagna - definitely have to try that. Sorry for not clicking on the link before I asked. :frowning:

55

woke up (because Nature called) thinking it was close to 4am. I guess that means I can play for two hours…?

56

SOAPY! Hi!
Sorry for your loss, swampy.

Orange’s customer service sucks. If you go to their webpage, the “contact” section just lists their telephone numbers; call any of them, you get a machine. There are no options where you can upgrade your services or somesuch. I’m currently in-country and can go to a store, but helllll-oooooo! People need some way to contact phone companies which doesn’t require the ability to go to a store! I’m planning on doing three things: activate roaming, get the “cheap roaming plan” and file a complaint :stuck_out_tongue:
It’s sunny outside, and balmy, and I would like to be in the park right near the office, blowing bubbbbbbbbbbles… bubble bubble bubble

57

Good morning!

58

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffienatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 65 degrees Amurrkin out with a predicted high of 94. Tomorrow the high will be 96 then a cool down starts with the high on Sattiday of only 83! I guess Summer is gettin’ it’s last licks in this week. Then again, we could have 90’s in October. One never knows around heah.

Thanks for all the condolences y’all. Charles was a wonderful person and will be greatly missed. I’m hopin’ to find out the particulars for the funeral this mornin’ cause I’d like to go to his funeral on Thursday if at all possible.

Bumba owie! But, like BBBobbio said, it coulda been worse! :smiley:

Hope today is better Butters.

Have fun with pottery Herbs! Soon we shall all be admirers of original Herbs creations!

Shortdrum youm! I loves me some sketties and meatballs. Dindin at da cave tonight shall be salmon patties, smashed N.O.T., English peas and bizkits. I got me a gnawin’ and a cravin’ for that particular meal.

Ok, I need more caffiene and rumbly tummy demands to be fed. Then, alas, irk purtification must commence.

Happy Tuesday Y’all!

59

Blurf.

I have an announcement: tonight, I will be officially joining the Navytown Rescue Squad. I can imagine the tales to come.

Mooooooom, rest assured that the next time you choke on your Red Robin burger (ain’t hard to do; Red Robin -> blech), I will have your back.

60

I am amazed - Scruffy just got up a couple of minutes ago. I could have slept in! Except I didn’t because I happened to look at the clock and it was 5:50 and **FCD **was still abed. Turns out he’d wakened in the middle of the night and wanted to sleep in. My bad. But he got up and going, and so did I. I’m showered, dressed, and fed, and it’s not even 7 yet! I also have a load of jeans in the washer. I’ll hang them out before I leave for class.

I talked to daughter last night - she drives (drove) along the same road to get to work. She told me the detour added 20 minutes to her trip. But she found some free talking books that she downloaded - she said it made the commute much more pleasant, so yay for that. No word yet on when that little washout will be fixed.

**swampy **- guess we’ve reached that stage of life where we’re more likely to be going to the funerals of our contemporaries than to their celebratory functions… :frowning:

**BBBobbio **- I happen to like Red Robin, so :stuck_out_tongue: But if you ever see me approaching the Olive Garden, kindly begin the paperwork to have me committed, because it’ll be a sure sign that I’ve lost it.

**tarra **- I’ve seem parts of episodes of Tanked, and like most similar shows, I find the “drama” annoying. It’s funny, **FCD **and I and the guy who owns the local fish-n-stuff store all had the same reaction: “How do they clean those things??”

If you’ve never owned a saltwater tank, you have no idea how much work is involved in maintaining it. You’re supposed to do a 20% water change every other week - for us, that’s 25 gallons. Some of the tanks I’ve seen on that show would require way more than 100 gallons for a change. That means you have to dispose of the old water and have a mixed, warm batch of new water ready to go in. And there’s no way in the world that they stay crystal clear. Ours was up less than a week and we had an algae bloom!

The other thing is that they toss in a whole bunch of fish all at once immediately after the tank is done. The only way I see that happening is if they have a gigantic tank at their facility that they use not only to store the fish and live rock and live sand, but from which they take water. You can’t just put fish in a brand-new tank of freshly mixed saltwater and expect them to survive. The tank has to cycle - something to do with nitrates and nitrites and ammonia and phosphorus and calcium and I can’t remember what else **FCD **tests for. The tank has to reach its equilibrium before you begin to *gradually *introduce the wildlife. So I gotta figure there’s a LOT that isn’t shown on that program. Or they replace a bunch of dead fish a week or two later.

Sorry, I have little patience for teh stoopit on TV. Which, of course, means most of TV…

Class today. I didn’t take any of my stuff out of the car last week, so I’m ready to go. And I think when I get home, I’m going to sort my class tool box - it’s got way too much stuff in it. Some of those tools can stay in the studio. So it’ll be a clay day.

Happy Tuesday - autumn is just around the bend - HUZZAH!!!