You haven’t changed a bit – a post-reunion MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

I finished the toe shaping on the sock. Hey, it actually looks sock-like. I’m going to wait until class for kitchener stitch, since it’s been over a year since I learned how. I also finished my swatches, and knit 5 rounds on my purse. And, I ripped 6 CDs tonight. At this rate, I’ll be finished ripping them in, oh, June, maybe? Why do I have so many CDs? Overall, I was quite productive, but now I have another migraine, so I’m off to bed.

DB, maybe my vicodin-influenced dreams will come up with a Dogalect -equivalent.

82

The taxes were completely done and I just received notification that the IRS accepted my return, so I need to finish the process now, I guess.

On the girls vs. women vs. gals thing. I think it depends on the company I’m in. I’ve been ma’am’d for so so long, that I eventually got used to it. That’s what working for military does to you. It doesn’t bother me now, but when I was first called Ma’am, I about freaked out.

When people first started calling Mrs Last Name, I didn’t like it, and my first response was always to say, “My name is First Name; Mrs. Last Name is my MIL”. Now, I’m used to it. If it’s someone I’m going to work with on a regular basis, I ask that they address me by my first name. I will, however, address someone by Mr., Ms., Mrs, Rank Last Name or title unless they ask me to use their first name. I was brought up that way, and I can’t shake it. Most ask me to address them by their first name.

My Dad called me tonight. He and my step-mother are finally moved into their new condo, sans some of the furniture that was supposed to be delivered last week. They keep calling the place, but the business is not calling them back. The furniture was supposed to delivered around Valentines Day. I advised my Dad to contact the State Attorney General if seeing them in person doesn’t nudge them in the right direction. I’ve done it and it works. Amazing how the mention of the State Attorney General makes businesses move to correct themselves.

He also was very sad because his little dog, Tess, died. They had to put her down because a painful cancerous growth showed up on her backside. She was in a lot of pain and diabetic to boot. She was rather old, but they’ve had her since she was five weeks old. He was pretty choked up over it. I felt really bad for him because I’d be upset if my dog had to be put down too. I luuurves my dog.

I should finish the taxes thingy now. Sigh…

83

It’s funny how no one I know now was every in the “cool” crowd in middle/high school. The “cool” kids I knew in high school - at least the ones I’ve heard about after graduation - all ended up doing nothing much afterwards. I have been to a few reunions but ended up being bored and leaving early - the conversations and the drinking games were all exactly as they had been when we were 17.

Interestingly, I ended up being in the “cool” group here at grad school - or at least, one of the more socially inclined groups. There are two main groups of people who congregate for reasons other than studying - the other group is a bit crazier than we are, almost in an undergrad way. We tend to be more low key in our pursuits, but at this time in my life I enjoy a relatively quiet evening with a handful of friends at a local bar more than going clubbing as a mob.

Seems like everyone had a more or less pleasant Monday. I actually got some work done. Though not enough, I’m afraid. Night all. :slight_smile:

84

Thank you, Spats, for answering Dottie’s question.
For anyone interested:
Rosh Hashannah (alternate spelling) is the Jewish New Year - Rosh = Head, Ha = The, Shannah = Year.
Yom Kippur correctly translated as Day (Yom) of Atonement (Kippur); the correct pronounciation, for those who care, is “yome key-POUR” but many folks say “yum KIH per”
Thus endeth the lesson for today. Any qustions? :smiley:
I spent the day watching TV, instead of doing anything productive, tho I did put the elastic laces in the new sneakers with the good treads (which I’d bought in April but not yet worn)
I saw the most interesting juxtaposition of two consequetive movies on the guide, and thought “tack on one ST:TOS episode and you get: While You Were Sleeping With The Enemy Within” I think I’ll start a game.

85

It is interesting to to note that some, not all, of the “cool kids” I knew went on to do nothing huge with their lives. In reality, though, who does? Most of us grow up, get married or obtain lifetime SOs, have kids, pay our bills, and trudge into jobs that, if the truth be known, we’d really rather not go to. Although, there are some very lucky people who love what they do for a living and look forward to going to work.

Life after high school and college must be a huge let down to those folks who “had it all” in high school. The popularity, the cool clothes, the cool cars, etc. I had to work for everything I had and drove a POS beater. I run into folks from high school very, very occasionally. Some of them “cool kids”, some of them the “tweeners” (like me, they moved between the different cliques, but didn’t “hang out” with them on a regular basis), the jocks, the nerds, the druggies, etc. Most have done nothing more exciting than I have with my life. Some led some screwed up lives, some succeeded. Most have moved on and left high school waaaaaaaay behind, thank goodness. Others seem bitter that their real lives didn’t turn out the way they thought they should have. They didn’t understand why they weren’t top of the heap/coolest anymore. It’s quite a wake-up call to go into the big, bad, cold world, I guess.

Ah, taxes completely, completely done and refund should arrive around the 2nd. Sooner, would be nice.

I’m still a “tweener” I guess. I move among various social circles. My next door neighbor is young (turning 30), but he and his SO love to have my husband and I over for parties or to go boating with us. I am just as comfortable with older folks and have no problems in relating to them. I have other friends or aquaintances closer in age to me, some just as old, some in their 60s, some in their mid-thirties, some in their 20s. I move between all of them with ease. All come from different backgrounds. I love it, there’s much to learn from all of them. Plus, most of them are just plain fun to be around.

Well, I think I’m gonna watch some television now. I have to trudge back to work tomorrow.

86

please play my game

87

Morning all. I lazed last night. I was supposed to go to the gym but I was so tired when I got home, I decided to put it off until later in the week.

I stopped off at the doctor’s surgery on the way home to make an appointment to see the nurse for a meds test. It takes me an hour and a half to get there from work, and medical stuff has to be done in my own time…and the latest appointment the surgery can offer me? 4.10pm! How bonkers is that? I might just as well take the whole afternoon off.

Tonight I have to do a bit of studying so that I don’t get behind on the course, the next paper is coming up soon and I haven’t planned my writing time yet (still got coursework to finish). So I suppose I’d better get started, hadn’t I?

88

Morning!

Happy Pancake Tuesday! I’m going to thaw bacon and make tea.

89

Any of you wonderful people mind posting a recipe for pancakes which does not require pancake mix? Until I got to De Yu Es, I’d never encountered panqueques except as a reference in an Argentinian comic strip, all I knew about them is that apparently they were some sort of dessert they had in Argentina (makes sense to me, since they’re sweet).

Pancakes, yummmm!

90

Here you are! Pancake recipe

91

Nava,

Here’s the one i’ve used forever; the original is from the Joy of Cooking that my mother received as a wedding present in 1956. I’ve updated the instructions and added variations.

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 or 2 eggs
3 tablespoons melted butter (or oil or bacon grease)
1 cup milk

Mix dry ingredients together (you can sift them, if you like) in a large bowl. Blend liquids together (yes, eggs are liquid). Make a hole in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in liquids. Stir together with as few strokes as possible; don’t worry about lumps. You shouldn’t need to stir more than about 20 seconds.

I’ve added vanilla to this as well as cinnamon. We used this for apple pancakes when I was growing up (just add cinnamon and chopped up apples).

For those of you who may not know how to make pancakes: What I’ve always done is poured just a bit of oil in the pan/on the griddle and then wiped it off so it’s just a film. Heat the griddle (I think about medium heat winds up working well; I adjust as I go) and then test it by sprinkling a couple of drops of water on it. If they bounce and spatter, then it’s hot enough.

The Joy says to pour the batter from the tip of the spoon to get a round cake. You can turn the pancake after a couple of minutes, once there are bubbles on the surface and the top starts to lose its sheen. It’s OK to peek and see if the bottom is the shade of brown you’re looking for.

On preview, I see that BooFae has posted a link. I looked at the recipe and saw that both the ingredients and the method were rather different. (No baking powder in the BBC ones…)

Happy Pancake Tuesday! Guess I’ll have these for dinner…

GT

92

Thank you very mucho!

Think I’ll try to subject my mother to those one of these ages :slight_smile:

93

What a difference a day makes.

Yesterday morning started out at around -12°C (~10°F) and rose to about -5°C (~23°F) but still felt more like that original -12 or colder. This morning on the other hand, it’s +3°C (~37°F). Yay! Spring is back! Or at least El Niño II. Either way, welcome whatever it is. :slight_smile:

I did battle with my PC again last night. On Sunday evening, having figured that for the most part I’d wrested control back from the Bug Monster, I treated myself and bought Stardock’s Object Desktop suite, along with ObjectDock, which I’d been meaning to do for ages. Yesterday I’d installed the main components I was interested in (WindowBlinds and ObjectDock, both of which I was running older versions of) and then decided to play around a bit. So, I installed DesktopX (a desktop object/widget thingie – I already have Yahoo! Widgets nee Konfabulator, but I wanted to check it out) So, I installed and rebooted like a good boy. Suddenly, my system had supposedly run out of resources such that it could no longer find any more free resources to run the drivers for video, audio, primary IDE, and several other bits 'n pieces. It was a load of crap since it’d been running these for ever, but there it was. I suspected DesktopX at first, but it has nothing to do with drivers or driver resources (IRQs et al) and anyway, this had happened earlier in the weekend when I was deep in the trenches fixing my system up. On subsequent reboot, I had still no luck. So, since I knew I was already having trouble with the S-ATA drivers I decided I’d just go download and upgrade to the latest nForce and ForceWare drivers. Thankfully, that did the trick despite the fact that I had reboot troubles between installing nForce drivers and the ForceWare video drivers. But it got sorted.

So, at the risk of incurring the mischief of Loki, I think I’ve got all of the major system troubles sorted. I’d better since I’ve pretty much replaced all of the drivers in the system with the latest and greatest. I still have a few programs that need to be reinstalled due to corruption from before, but those are the easy bits. :slight_smile: Oh, and I need to uprade my BIOS because I’ve discovered that some of the instabilities of my system boot process are caused by the BIOS version I’m running so I need a newer version. Trouble is, my system doesn’t have a floppy drive so I’m trying to find a quick 'n easy way to make a bootable thumb drive so I can flash my BIOS from it.

Mmmm. Pancakes. Or rolled crepes drizzled with raspberry coulis and topped with whipped cream.

In other news it’s been one hell of a busy morning. I started this message about 45 minutes ago. Sheesh, people, let me finish typing!

94

As I’m eating my mushy, semi-cold MacD’s pancakes, you guys start showing off homemade pancake recipes. Thanks. I want a do-over on breakfast.

It’s Fat Tuesday! I don’t generally do much of anything for Lent - but the wife does, and this day every year is one of my favorites, because whatever culinary no-no she decides to give up for 40 days, she overindulges in today.

Tonight, after my meeting (because it’s what I do, is have people tell me to go to meetings), we’re off to eat fried foods, which I shall wash down with a beer or 4.

95

Good morning, everybody. I’m sitting here caffeinating, and will be off shortly to see the surgeon’s assistant for a preop visit. Such a thrilling life I lead.

It’s actually well above freezing outside this morning, a whopping 44° (7C). Maybe the rest of the icepack will melt. There’s a couple spots near the front of the house where we have solid ice at least an inch thick; it’s quite amazing.

Ah hah, just heard the yell from Palebunny about her first knitting project! My work is complete. :smiley:

96

Ok, so I’m pissed. Last night in class, my prof assigned us this huge homework project, due Monday (I work this weekend, folks) AND told us we had to have this other HUGE project done by on-campus day which is next Saturday.

So, I now have 2 huge projects due in 10 days. Gee, thanks, prof. Grrrrr.

Off to be shelf serf. Work as nurse tomorrow, then more shelf serfing, then day off (but will be doing at least one project), then work all weekend…

Where is there time for a nap in there, I ask you? Hmmmph.

97

I’m about to eat a blood orange.

They’ve been out of my favourite tangerines for like two weeks now and it’s annoying me, so I’ve been buying navels in the mean time. Their recent batch though is a little underripe – hard to peel and the segments stick together like glue. So I tried something a little different this morning.

Hey … they’re not bad. Sweeter than normal, and slightly mushier, but they have a very unsettling appearance. I feel like a vegetarian vampire.

98

The king of pancakes are banana buckwheat pancakes. Going from “How to Cook Everything”, this would go like:

2 cups of buckwheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
[sup]1[/sup]/[sub]2[/sub] teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 or 2 eggs
1 [sup]3[/sup]/[sub]4[/sub] to 2 [sup]1[/sup]/[sub]4[/sub] cups milk
2 tablespoons melted butter (or use oil)
1 banana (overripe works) cut into [sup]1[/sup]/[sub]4[/sub] inch slices

  • Preheat griddle or skillet over a medium-low heat

  • Mix together the dry ingredients

  • Beat the eggs into the milk, then stir in the melted butter. Gently stir this into the dry ingredients, mixing just enough to moisten the flour; don’t worry about lumps. If the batter seems thick, add some more milk.

  • Butter or oil the griddle if needed (before each new pancake), and cook the pancakes. Each should take about 2-4 minutes to brown the first side, so adjust heat as necessary. Flip and brown the second side after the first is done.

  • Banana slices are added just after you pour the batter onto the griddle, pushing them down into the batter.

99

KeithT’s kitty is going to be put to sleep tonight. :frowning: She’s the one who was diagnosed with kidney failure back in November. She’s been declining slowly, but took a turn for the worse last night. We should have had it done last night, but the vet couldn’t work us in. The poor kitty’s so uncomfortable. How long does it really take? They couldn’t spare 5 minutes to end the kitty’s pain? :frowning:

Anyway, after the appointment was made for tonight, we looked at old pictures and video clips of her and it really hit home how far down hill she’s gone. It’s the right decision at the right time. But we’re still sad.

I’m off to have pancakes and listen to jazz at church tonight. I’m also helping out with the dinner so I can’t really skip out to take the kitty to the vet. :frowning: I’ll have to see if I can bring pancakes home to KeithT.

100

At home we always use those for juice. One half sanguina per glass, the rest of the glass from regular navelinas. They’re very juicy but tend to be sour.

The tangerines they sell here are definitely “export” :frowning: pretty but nowhere near the best taste.

ETA: dang, that poor cat sure deserves the :frowning: a lot more than my lack of proper citrics.