Thursday, January 25, 2007

Copacetic

That's how things have been.

The work at work has been busy, my scarf has been growing, we've been cooking most nights, and the sun is shining through my office window. For a garden level office, I receive a good amount of sun.

After knitting a few rows at lunch today, I walked to the campus library to pick up a book (Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close...yeah, we're probably among the few who haven't read it yet). While walking, I took long draws of the sunshiny air and kept a leisurely pace. On the way back, I tried to devise a longer-than-necessary route, but it wasn't long enough.

The sun also shone on Tuesday. It was warmer, and I didn't need a jacket when walking to a meeting next door. For the first time in a few months, my fingers felt alive and part of my body. They usually feel like bendable icicles connected via wire and about to shatter at any second.

I wish I could be outside. Walking with a warm beverage.

Overall, I am glad to be in Missouri, where snow melts the very next day. That was my problem with Wisconsin (and Iowa, but who cares about Iowa?). I couldn't take the snowy expanse of January through March. I have to see the ground, even if the grass is brown and sad. I have to know that the earth is still there.

Oh, Iowa, I am slowly erasing it from my memory. After I receive my Iowa W-2 and send my taxes off, I can forget it completely.

Some day, Porkchop and I will be reminiscing (what we call "relationship reconstruction") and one of us will say, "And then after Madison, we moved to St. Louis." And then the other will say, "Wasn't there somewhere between Madison and St. Louis? Somewhere desolate and that made us sad? Where maybe we cried explosively every couple of weeks? And maybe hated every single God forsaken day?" And the other will shake her head, take the other's hand, and say, "....No, no, I think that must have been a bad dream."

Speaking of memory, the last few books I've read have concerned memory in some form. It's strange...how one will unknowingly start a reading trend. The Memory of Running: reliving forgotten memories and finding one's self again. The Uses of Enchantment: making up memories. Man Walks into a Room: losing 24 years of memories and, for the most part, not wanting them back.

Here is some of what I remember of this past week....

Knitting
As stated, the scarf is growing. I'm well into the second skein. It's still a leisurely pace, made even more leisurely when my left hand starting spasming like you wouldn't believe. I could barely type! That necessitated a 2-day break.

I am bored with my current knitting state. I'm finally ready to broach a sweater, which scares the heck out of me. Gauge-checking, seaming, the possibility of me screwing up big time...yikes! Under consideration are the hourglass sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and a build-your-own from a website that I can't recall at the moment.

I want something simple that won't give me a headache or make me cry. And I want yarn that's a silk/cashmere blend. And green...a nice vibrant spring green.

Baking
Yeah....no baking post this week. I wanted so badly to make brownies Sunday night, so imagine my sorrow when I realized we didn't have enough cocoa.

Porkchop offered to go get some, but I couldn't send her out into the dreariness. So, we made M&M cookies instead. Good, but not brownies.

Maybe I'll be adventurous this weekend and make fancy brownies.

Cooking
Porkchop made yummy chicken with plum chutney Monday night. Her roommate from college, who works and lives at the World Bird Sanctuary, joined us for dinner. We heard a lot of bird stories.

Last night I made a yummy bean and pasta soup using sundried tomatoes, regular tomatoes, navy beans, and pasta. Always satisfying.

We haven't gone to a real restaurant in quite some time. I've been fine, but I can't wait to go somewhere that's super fantastic.

Our Gas Bill
This was $300 last month. Yeah, WTF??

Thanks to Porkchop's alertness, we realized the bill had been estimated. Oh, but not just that bill, all of our readings since we've moved in have been estimates! Who knows if these were close to reality, as we have no idea what the baseline was.

We're starting to read our own as of now. Our next bill should only be $100-$150.

This Weekend
No solid plans as of yet.

Maybe we'll go see Volver, breaking our buy-nothing rule a bit. Last weekend we caved in and rented a movie, Everything is Illuminated. Neither of us have read the book, so I have since requested it. This also explains my trip to the campus library today.

Elijah Wood creeps me out ever since I saw Sin City. Let me note that I didn't realize that the movie I was going to see was that movie; otherwise, I would not have gone. More like Crap City. Yuck.

Photos
Hopefully some will be posted tonight. We'll see.

Have a good afternoon and night! Enjoy the sun!

2 comments:

EBuz said...

Not every day was godforsaken, right? What about the day we went to breakfast in Mount Vernon?

And I'm sure if I thought about it harder, I could probably think of more examples of Iowa-based pleasantness....

Carrie said...

Okay....

Parts of some days were not godforsaken. Some days had blips of pleasantness.