Birthday Summary

Hi!

I'm off of work today and taking a break from packing for a quick birthday weekend post.

Activities actually started Thursday night when a co-worker treated me to ice cream at Ben & Jerry's in the Loop. And then one of my supervisees picked up my hummus and pita bread at Al-Tarboush (she was giving me a lift and we stopped there for her to get hummus, and I was too tempted to pass it up, and she paid for it). I look forward to eating at Al-Tarboush sometime - the hummus is awesome and the owner gave me a pistachio baclava-type treat because he heard it was my birthday. Yum!

On Friday, Porkchop and I hung out in the morning, and then I took her to Six Flags. Afterwards, I stopped at the garden to check on the tomato progress. So many tomatoes! And an eggplant! For the 4th of July evening, I went back to Six Flags and spent a few hours in the park. Porkchop brought me in for free as a "buddy," and while she went back to work, I had nearly an entire funnel cake and then rode the new Evel Knievel roller coaster (fun!), the Ninja (because there was no line), and Mr. Freeze. Mr. Freeze is super fast and crazy, and here's a video from YouTube:



Saturday was such a perfect day. Porkchop was off of work, so we were able to go to the Tower Grove farmers market together! YAY! We picked up green beans, carrots, sausage from Salume Bedu (one of the market's incubator businesses), tomatoes from Ivan the Fig Man, and mocha macaroons and a scone from 4 Seasons Baked Goods. After the market, we went to Local Harvest for milk and ice cream. I have decided to drink the Jesus Milk because soy milk is just too processed and shipped too far in refrigerated trucks for me to feel comfortable with it.

At home, we prepared the sausage and made a tomato-green bean-basil saute. All local except for the olive oil!


P.S. The sausage was tasty, but I find the shape SOOOOOOO disturbing.

In the afternoon, Porkchop and I went to the Sears appliance outlet near Fenton and found a refrigerator model that we like. Freezer on the bottom with two doors on top. The outlet has a few in stock, so hopefully it won't be a problem to buy one when we need it. I definitely recommend the outlet - one little scratch or ding equals $1000 off.

Katie and Beth arrived from Minneapolis via Columbia in the evening. We enjoyed a tasty meal at Thai Basil Spice on Grand and later had drinks at the Royale. Yay for Katie and Beth!


Sunday morning - my real birthday day - we had brunch at the Shangri-La Diner and returned to the apartment for present opening and more friend time.

I love Porkchop's head in this photo:


So...presents. I feel so lucky to receive such great gifts! Katie and Beth gave me The Splendid Table's: How to Eat Supper, which I'm loving so much already. And my parents gave me another super great book, Great Garden Companions, as well as Deborah Madison's Local Flavors. I also received a yoga block and the cable edition of Vogue's Stitchionary line.

Porkchop gave me the best pop-up birthday card-book ever:


And she gave me a BPA-free Nalgene (so I'm no longer poisoning myself) and the new 70 Grand t-shirt from STL Style. Once the t-shirt arrives, it will be so awesome to have a shirt with my bus on it! Actually, I look forward to it being not my bus! Anyway, Porkchop also gave me the super-duper-best-present-ever:


I can't wait to process things!

Later on Sunday, we had dinner at Onesto (YUM!) and then shaved ice with Suzi and Dale.

Today has been pack pack packing. Tomorrow, I should have my letter of commitment from the bank, so everything is still on schedule. I am excited and nervous, and I wish I didn't have to go to work at all for the next month.

Why, Thank You and You

In the past week, I've had two people say that I don't look any older than 25 and express amazement that I will be 30 in a few very short days.

While this is nice to hear, it makes me wonder...what exactly is 30 supposed to look like?

Down to the Wire

I just received the signed inspection notice!

The seller is fixing everything except a few little things. YAY!

Now to call my landlord and give my last month's notice (and hopefully she won't give me any grief about it being the 2nd of the month).

And...SERIOUS PACKING commences tonight!

It was Time We had Fun

Porkchop and I cut loose last night and had dinner, a movie, and gelato!

Dinner was yummy and from the Little Saigon Cafe in the CWE. Being from the South Grand area, I'm not used to Vietnamese costing more than $8, but the extra money was worth it. We actually had dinner while Porkchop finished closing at the UPS Store, and then it was off to the Chase Park to see Wanted.

The movie pick was Porkchop's because she loves herself some Angelina Jolie. Next time, I will research the movie a bit more before agreeing to go because it was so violent. SO violent! It was violence a la Kill Bill, but it still made me squirm. And Porkchop looked over several times during the movie and whispered sorry. Ugh.

After so much bloodiness, we cleansed our senses with gelato from Gelato di Riso. It was pretty good.

Currently, I am listening to Camera Obscura's Underachievers, working on some data cleaning, and feeling pretty good. Except I'm a bit nervous about house stuff because the seller has until TODAY to return a signed agreement about stuff that he will fix. Otherwise, the contract terminates (unless we send in an amendment and they agree to it). Our realtor doesn't think they're doing this on purpose to get out of the contract (for example, if they recently received a higher offer) because they've been sending us regular updates. We just haven't received anything in writing. It makes me nervous. Because, you know, we spent nearly $500 on inspections! I hate this house buying stuff because it always seems a bit shady. Shouldn't things be more regulated?

You might invest in inspections and get a house, or you might get screwed. What the hell?

Learning
This evening, I pick up my CSA share via bus for the first time. Getting there is no problem, but going home means 3 buses and perhaps 45 minutes - 1 hour.

Still not having a car is teaching me loads about santosha and aparigraha. Previously, I thought I was pretty good about being happy with what I have and not being into possessions, but I really had a lot to learn apparently.

Check out the page on aparigraha. It actually states, "If you notice yourself spending too much time working on or worrying about your car (or home or some other object) – take some time to consider the situation. Perhaps it is not as important as you think it is at first. Perhaps there is a way that you could simplify, with fewer possessions which require less maintenance."

Totally.

Some people think taking the bus must be a drag or seriously hinder my day. Contrary to how I might sound sometimes, it really isn't and it doesn't. Also, hello environmental impact. Do we really need to go all the places we do and consume all of that nonrenewable energy?

Probably not.

If you have a car and never take public transporation, I encourage you to do so for at least a day. You'll learn a lot.

A New Blog
Porkchop likes to start new blogs for new stages in her life. The new and current blog is Big Muddy Editions.

In My Nearly 30 Years...

I've successfully made crepes a mere three times, and not for lack of trying mind you. The first time was when I was 9 and my mom and I made smoked salmon crepes. The success was due primarily to my mom and her surprisingly good crepe-making skills with a non-non-stick skillet. The second time was when I was 22 and sort of seeing a French woman. Again, I didn't have much to do with the success. I had tried my hand at making crepes solo a couple of times, but with terrible results. So, I was mightily surprised when my crepe-making experiment last night worked! Check out these pretty little crepes:


Did we have strawberry-whipped cream crepes at 10:30 last night? Hell, yeah!


As I told Porkchop, this newly developed skill opens up exciting realms of cooking possibilities. I am already making plans for asparagus-mushroom crepes with a hollandaise sauce for next spring!

I am quite pleased with myself.

****************************

This morning Porkchop dropped me off at the Tower Grove farmers market for free yoga. The instructor was a guy who teaches at South Town Yoga, and there was a very decent number of people attending. The session was a pretty straightforward Ashtanga-type class made all the better by the cool breeze and leaves rustling around. However, the next time I go, I'll be sure to take a sheet to put under my mat because it became quite dirty.

After yoga, I picked up a few things at the market:


Lovely little tomatoes from Ivan the Fig Man. The tomatoes were grown in his solar greenhouse, which sounds like an awesome setup. Next week, I will take more cash to buy his salsa and roasted red pepper sauce - made with his mom's recipes and totally fantastic (also, his mom was at the market...she seems great and must be to make such delicious things). I think the cherries were from Eilerman Brothers. The radishes were sort of an impulse purchase because I really want to buy at least one thing each visit from City Seeds. Click the link because it's a great program.

While walking to Grand from the market (which is a really great walk), I ate a tomato and a couple of cherries. I also stopped at our old apartment because the residents were having a yard sale! I wasn't looking to buy anything, I just wanted to see who was living there. Unfortunately, a friend of the resident was keeping shop (I know because I can be nosy and ask things like, soooo, do you live here? Because I lived here last year.), so I didn't get to inspect the resident.

I was about to stop at the new ice cream shop at Grand and Arsenal, but I saw my bus letting people out at the stop north of Arsenal. So, I ran to the stop and hopped aboard because the weekend buses don't run as often and you have to catch them when you can.

Anyway, the new ice cream shop is Emack & Bolio's, which is apparently a franchise out of Boston. I look forward to trying it because I *heart* ice cream! So much! But back to the name of this shop. My commuter buddy has told me many times that the name of the shop is quite unique, and yesterday evening he said it was Enob and Bobo's, to which I yelled out ENOB AND BOBO'S!!?? Then he said, well, it isn't Enob and Bobo's, but it's something very close. So, I had to laugh today when I saw the shop sign because Emack and Bolio's will permanently be Enob and Bobo's in my mind.

Once I was back home, I made lunch:


Crepes filled with sauteed chard (from my shared garden), a sundried tomato-basil sauce (made with our own basil) and tomatoes from the market. The crepes were accompanied by sliced radishes topped with a bit of melted butter and salt. For dessert, I had a small bowl of cherries.

Nothing makes me as happy as good food. Seriously.

For a snack this afternoon, I had a crepe smeared with honey (from local hives).

For dinner, I'm thinking about pasta with potatoes and more sundried tomato-basil sauce, but I'm also thinking about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I hope you are also eating well!

Ready for the New Season

Here's hoping that the summer season marks a new trend in events. For the past month, it seems I've only written about rough times. Hopefully, this will be the last post for a while that starts with, wow, this past week sucked.

Anyway, it did suck. I stayed home from work on Tuesday (yay!) to take Porkchop to an urgent care clinic (so not yay!) first thing in the morning. I knew getting to the clinic was going to be rough when Porkchop threw up twice before we even got out of the house. It became apparent that Porkchop couldn't sit up or stand without vomiting. After throwing up a few more times before finally seeing a doctor, the diagnosis was a stomach virus or an inner ear infection, with the doctor suggesting it was probably a stomach virus. Porkchop filled up on a couple of bags of IV fluid while at the clinic, so we didn't leave until after 1:00, with a couple of prescriptions.

With anti-nausea medicine, Porkchop was no longer throwing up, but she was still feeling very very rough. Wednesday wasn't any better. Since the primary problem seemed to be dizziness - not nausea - I took Porkchop back to the urgent care clinic Thursday night (side note: everyone should be set up with a primary care physician because it's impossible to walk-in as a new patient!).

We would have gone earlier in the day, but I had all of the house inspections scheduled for Thursday morning. The garage needs to be treated for termites because of evidence of old damage, and there are some other fixes to be done, but everything is really okay.

So...back to the clinic visit. The nurse who took Porkchop back to the exam area was so unbelievably rude and unprofessional, I can't even write about it. Even now, I want to give her a good kick to the head, and I'm usually not a violent person. Porkchop saw a different doctor who ran her through all sorts of balance tests. So, this time, the diagnosis was vestibular neuritis, a swelling of a nerve in the ear, which leads to dizziness and nausea.

There's not much that can be done, so Porkchop just has to wait it out.

On Saturday, she actually went to Six Flags to work! The other excitement on Saturday was that we met with our realtor to draw up the list of things we want fixed on the house, and we ran out of gas while driving down Kingshighway!

I was absolutely mortified by running out of gas - I've never done this before! I knew we needed to get gas, and we were going to soon, but apparently not soon enough. Having not driven Porkchop's car very much, I'm not attuned to how much you can drive it when its "check gages" light comes on.

Porkchop went to work again today (she drove herself, which made me very worried, but she arrived safely), and I stayed home and did luxurious things like stay in my pajamas until 11:30 and then yoga. And pack a few boxes and make cookies.

It seems Porkchop's vertigo will subside soon. Maybe I will purchase a used car in the next couple of weeks, and perhaps we will move at the end of July!

Here's to a Good Summer!

When do we Rest?

This past week has been intense.

There was a work conference, which required a couple of early mornings. There was Porkchop and me putting in an offer on a house. There was a 4-day trip to my parents. There was a counter-offer received and another sent out. There was my mom's birthday and Father's Day to celebrate.

There was a cavity filled this morning. And then there was a call from our realtor stating that our counter-offer had been accepted, and me trying to sound excited through my numb mouth and grogginess. After the call, there was a flurry of inspection-scheduling.

Also, there is Porkchop being sick and vomiting many times today. There is my worry and concern and hoping she is better tomorrow.

Whew.

Local Meals

After having lunch and dinner today, I realized that I'd had meals using only local items. Yay!

This morning, I took Porkchop halfway to Six Flags and then stopped at the garden for weeding, thinning, and carrot seed planting. I thinned a ton of beets and kept the greens. When I arrived home, I made this lunch:


Scrambled eggs with sauteed mushrooms and green onion cheddar cheese, served atop bread from Companion Bakery, accompanied by sauteed beet greens.

Dinner was similar:


A bison burger with regular cheddar cheese and more greens.

I didn't know if I would be too keen on the greens, but I like them. Hopefully, I'm not sauteing the goodness out of them.

Also, bison...it exceeded my expectations.

So, when I was at the garden this morning, I noticed that the garlic was putting out twisty little shoots. I had a feeling that I recognized these from the Madison's farmers market, but I couldn't remember the details. Once I was at home, I learned that the twisty things are "garlic scapes" and should be picked off so that the garlic clove grows larger. I also found some recipes for the scapes, which are supposed to be quite tasty.

It's true! Scapes are yummy! I went back to the garden to harvest them this evening:


I read that scapes are not supposed to have the "bite" that garlic does, but oh ho, some of the scapes here do. Many of the larger ones are downright spicy! (Yes, I taste-tested a few.) I look forward to trying these in a couple of recipes.

Meanwhile, here is Porkchop's idea of eating local:

Slider from the White Castle at Grand and Gravois.

First (and Second) Fruit

It's a great feeling to be munching on lettuce straight out of the planter, checking out your plants, and catching a glimpse of your first fruit. Behold:


There is also a second fruit here, barely visible but peeking out from the flower on the right. This makes me happy. Sorry for the bad shot here, but it was the evening and this plant is freaking tall.

Also, who knew that oregano flowers would be so pretty?


I love their little delicateness.

******

This week has been a mixed bag. Work has gone swimmingly with just a little pre-conference craziness...but the house stuff...Argh!

This week, I learned that because of the foreclosure mess, the special loan programs and down payment assistance funds intended for low-to-moderate income people have been restructured and sucked dry.

So, when people say that this is a "buyer's market," keep in mind that it's only so for people who are already financially advanced.

But, despite these setbacks and the $40 I dropped at Acorn for credit reports that did NOTHING for me, we hope to make an offer next week on a house. Cross your fingers. Fortunately, the $5000 from my insurance company (new tires = $200 more dollars) will provide a bit more of a cushion in terms of closing costs and all that jazz. Not that I'm going to blow the insurance money on a house down payment, it will just be good to have in the bank.

After the house stuff settles, we'll think about the car situation.

I hope we get a house. I can't wait to move! So much that I already have a nice stash of moving boxes.

With each move, I get more and more brutal in terms of things I discard. This time, absolutely no mercy.

Except for these:


How can I part with my Swatches from grade school? Since these are really the only reminders of my childhood that I keep with me, maybe I'll hold on to them.

Maybe I'll even buy new batteries and wear them! Except not both simultaneously. Apparently my arm is no longer small enough to pull that off (see the picture for a visual of my arm fat being squeezed).

******

Another change of subject.

I've been craving salty foods like nobody's business today. My mind keeps revisiting this food memory: I'm 8 years old and having dinner across the street at a friend's house. Her dad grilled steak, corn, and the best potatoes I've ever had in my entire LIFE.

Seriously. These little red new potatoes had been grilled to perfection and were kissed with the perfect amount of salted butter.

I really want some of those potatoes again.

Or popcorn with butter and salt. Or guacamole. But I would prefer those potatoes.

In other food news, a former funding partner of our center sent us a 5-pound bar of dark and milk Belgian chocolate to congratulate us on the successful launch of a Big Experiment in Oklahoma. It's a bit excessive, but mainly it's hard to break off a piece because the chocolate is at least 2 inches thick.

Have a great Friday!

If it's Quiche, it must be the Weekend

Friday afternoon, I suffered a spell of life-loathing. I don't know what other people do when this happens, but I like to exert control over my environment by cleaning and straightening. So that's what I did Friday night.

On Saturday, I scheduled a full day to keep myself occupied. After taking Porkchop half way to Six Flags (she caught a partial ride with a co-worker), I did things like the following:

• Buy more basil plants, potting soil, radish seeds, and a pot.
• Go to the Tower Grove farmers market for spinach, beef jerky, and a cherry-chocolate scone.
• Go to a total of three grocery stores. One for regular things like tea and oranges, one for Dutch processed cocoa, and one for garlic (which I forgot at the first store and didn't like the looks of the stock at the second). I can't wait until our garlic plants are ready for harvesting because grocery store garlic is always so sketchy.
• Inquire about a good deal on a car posted on Craigslist and later realize it's a scam. It's unfortunate that all of the good car deals are scams.
  
• Drop off a pile of things to Goodwill.
• Drop off recycling.

After doing the above, I made another quiche.


Spinach and sun dried tomatoes sauteed in garlic with the green onion cheddar cheese from last week. This time, I used 5 eggs...and we still have so many left!


It's pretty good. I would prefer Parmesan cheese, but I was more interested in using my stock of cheese.

After suffering through the heat of cooking the quiche, I of course decided to bake more. My plan was to bake, pot plants, and then pick up Porkchop. However, I did not realize that the baking would take nearly 3 hours!

But we have a ton of cookies as a result.


These are homemade Oreos using this recipe from the Smitten Kitchen. The recipe is terrific (um, yes the filling is nothing but pure badness - powdered sugar, butter, and (horrors!) vegetable shortening - but sooooo tasty), but the recipe author and I evidently have very different ideas of what a "heaping teaspoon" means. While the recipe is intended to make 25-30 sandwich cookies, I ended up with more than 60! This is nice because the cookies aren't as overwhelming, but it meant I sent baking sheet after baking sheet into the oven in what had to be a 100+ degree kitchen (except for a ceiling fan, I have no air conditioning source in the kitchen)! And then I stuffed them all with the filling and ended up going back and restuffing them because there was so much filling left!

But it was worth it.


We do, however, need vanilla ice cream to enjoy the cookies even more.

This afternoon I potted plants, and now I'm waiting for the sun to go down a bit more before vaccuuming the back porch of its loose dirt.

Tomorrow will begin another tiring week of car fixing, car inspection, insurance dealings, and going to Acorn and hopefully putting together a house offer. Oh, and work will be full of pre-conference craziness. I am exhausted already.

Grrrrrr

Anyone know where I can get a gently used, low mileage car for $4800 that will last me for at least 5 years?

Yeah...I didn't think so.

Let's see, maybe we should make that $4300 since we've spent approximately $500 getting Porkchop's car in full operating order (sans AC, of course).

I really hate the way things are currently going.

Phone Calls I Don't Like

Dude, I know that Porkchop doesn't like my car because she complains about how slow it is and stuff whenever she's in it, but can you believe she went and did this to it this morning?


I mean, come on, it's not like I MADE her drive it to her parents for the holiday!

But, seriously, Porkchop is fortunately in fine shape.

On this rainy morning, Porkchop was outside of Rolla on I-44 after her visit with her parents. She was a ways behind a semi truck when suddenly the truck threw on its flashers and quickly swerved into the left lane. When the truck moved over she realized that there was a giant piece of metal on the highway. Although she was at least 4 car lengths behind the semi and going the speed limit, this left her little time to react. As she swerved on the wet highway she fishtailed and then began to spin and spin and run into the steel posts and cables in the median. In fact, she rode on top of the cables facing backwards! Crazy! Luckily, the cables did their job so that Porkchop didn't flip or cross over to the other side.

This is what the posts looked like when Porkchop was finished with them:


So...the car is pretty beat up on one side, the gas tank is ruptured, the posts punctured different parts of the car's undercarriage, and there are holes/gaps where the trunk and the engine area of the car join the body. Will State Farm rule this as totaled or fixable? Bets, anyone?

Can You Tell I'm Bored?

I've been at home for 3 days largely by myself.

I'm bored and am actually looking forward to going to work tomorrow.

In my boredom, I made pan fried trout and some asparagus, mushrooms, and potatoes sauteed in butter. It was pretty good.


But the apartment smells like fried fish now.

I'm so bored, I'm starting to second guess my liking of The House:

• The backyard isn't level and would really need to be terraced in order to do things like gardening. How much would this cost? Could we do it ourselves? Can chickens live on terraces?
  
• Many of the cabinets in the kitchen aren't very deep. So, lots of cabinets, but shallow. Would this annoy me to no end?
• Why did they have to use sliding doors for the bedroom closets?
• Are the wood floors on the second level in such poor condition that they put down carpet? Or could we redo the floors later?
• The bathrooms are small. Would we start to hate this a lot?
  

Sigh.

I Hope this is not A Sign

Yesterday, I spent a good part of the afternoon assembling documents for my in-take session at Acorn that was scheduled for today, Memorial Day. I already had my and Porkchop's tax and W2 files prepared, along with some paystubs. But there were newer paystubs and newer checking and savings statements to PDF, as well as a budget form and application to complete.

When Porkchop returned from Six Flags, we went directly to The House so that she could see it. We agreed that we should go for it, and our realtor laid out the steps to take after meeting with Acorn today (see how it all relies on this Acorn meeting?).

This morning, Porkchop dropped me off at my office so that I could scan her driver's license and social security card, and so that I could print out two copies of all the paperwork that I needed. Since I had this Acorn appointment lined up, I decided to stay in St. Louis while Porkchop went to see her parents.

It took a while to print and assemble everything, so I only had enough time to stop by Kayak's for a bagel to go for lunch. And then it was on to the Central West End busport so that I could catch a bus to the Acorn office.

See the complicated arrangements here and how I went into my office on a HOLIDAY? (of course, it was personal work, but I was still there! I saw that I have many new emails to attend to tomorrow!)

So, imagine my chagrin when I reached the Acorn office and NO ONE WAS THERE. Hmmmpphhhh....

Another guy on the bus was going to Acorn, too, because he does some political organizing work for them. He thought the office was open as well, but when he called his supervisor, his supervisor confirmed that the office is closed today.

Oh, but see, we were confused because the office door was unlocked! After the guy hung up with his supervisor, we heard someone coughing upstairs. I asked the guy if he thought it was D----- (with whom I had an appointment). He doubted it but yelled up the stairs. When no one answered, the guy said, Nah, I think that's just someone sleeping up there because the door was unlocked...I wouldn't go up there if I were you.

I took his advice and left with him.

And while waiting for the bus, I left a scathing voice-mail for D------. Because there is no better retribution than a scathing voice-mail.

The Plus Side
I rode two different bus lines today. I like being knowledgeable about the buses. Let me tell you, bus number 93 seems to go everywhere.

On the Grand bus, I saw a young guy with "Barack" tattooed down his right forearm in at least 1-inch high capital letters and "Obama" tattooed down his left. That's bold.

I see a lot of tattoos on the bus, but this is the first time I've seen a political one. People on the Grand bus are more likely to have their boy- or girlfriend's name, or their own name, tattooed on their neck than to have political-themed ink.

Anyway, seeing the Barack Obama tattoo kind of made all of this mess worthwhile.

I just hope we can still get The House.

Li La Li

Yikes! A weird winged bug just flew past me and landed on the wall! I can't wait to get out of this apartment and the window screens that don't do a proper job. Seriously, SO many bugs come in through the screens.

Hopefully we can be out of here by July. I didn't think it would happen, but I saw another terrific place today - 3 bedroom, 2 bath, new pretty kitchen, backyard, garage, located near Cherokee, and near our price range. On Monday, I have an in-take appointment at Acorn Housing, so hopefully we can get in on one of their mortgage programs. No down payment and no mortgage insurance? Sign me up. I'll post more info on Monday because 1) it's freaking hard to find details online, and 2) it's been difficult to get in touch with the Acorn people in St. Louis. Maybe because it appears only two people work at this office.

Maybe you have figured out that Porkchop is back in St. Louis. Here are snippets from her return trip...

Thursday
I flew down to Albuquerque, and my flight was only 20 minutes late. For a while, I was worried that there would be no flight because a fire alarm went off in the terminal, and we were evacuated. Fortunately, the cause was some jackass pulling an alarm in a shop. If there is ever a real emergency, I hope to god I'm not at the airport. It was the most half-assed, disorganized, f'ed up evacuation I've ever seen (not that I've seen a lot).

But, so, Albuquerque! Thursday night was a tear-filled goodbye graduation ceremony/potluck. I didn't even attend Tamarind and only met Porkchop's colleagues a few times, but I wanted to cry too. All the kids were such good people! And good people are hard to find (kind of like good houses are hard to find).

Also, can I say that any graduation ceremony that includes a custom-made unicorn pinata totally rocks? Here's Patrick spinning Porkchop around for her turn:


The pinata was awesome and heavy-duty and required several rounds of beatings before its contents of candy and mini alcoholic beverage bottles spilled forth.

Oh my, the party also included some of the best food I've had in a while. People in Albuquerque know how to make mean tamales....yum.

Friday and the Weekend
Friday morning came waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy too early! Porkchop and I returned our rental car at 7:00 am and picked up a different rental car for the one-way drive. Then we packed it totally full! Fortunately, Porkchop has had lots of experience driving without being able to see out the back window. I, on the other hand, do not like it so much.

Patrick and his girlfriend Chelsey then met up with us with their equally full car for The Long Drive.

It was such a long drive. But, it went by rather quickly. I guess Porkchop and I had lots to talk about. And we had crossword puzzles to do and XM radio to listen to. By the time we reached Missouri at 10:00 pm, however, we had to resort to singing Simon & Garfunkel tunes a cappella. We pulled up to our apartment around 2:30 am, unloaded the rental car, and then returned it to the airport. So...we finally got to sleep around 4:30 am Saturday morning. Blech.

We were all tired heads on Saturday because we had to get up for the 12:15 Cardinals game! It was an exciting game that ended with a home run in the 10th inning (I totally called the home run, by the way). Not only did the Cards win, Porkchop scored an Albert Pujols dinner plate:


The plates were given to kids 16 and under upon entering the stadium. Porkchop managed to get one by wearing her huge baseball cap and looking wide-eyed and innocent. Also, Patrick made a discreet hand signal to the plate-passer-outer, indicating that Porkchop should get one. Porkchop has yet to use the plate, but I'm sure she will later.

After the game, we checked out the Arch:


And then it was on to dinner at Schlafly's Bottleworks, then home for a nap, and then out to Ted Drewes for custard.

The next morning included brunch at La Dolce Via and a sad goodbye to Patrick and Chelsey. Murrr!

The Rest of the Week
I'm not really sure what happened. I spent way too much time talking to mortgage people and thinking about houses. I know I worked some, and Porkchop and I did some things.

Here is one thing I remember:


This week's share! Porkchop picked it up, and it was a good one. We have trout, bread, mache (which I've never had before, and I love it!), parsley (ummm...don't know what to do with it), fake pork, Dogtown pizza, Ropp green onion cheddar cheese, sticky toffee pudding from Schlafly (YUM - the caramel sauce by itself is worth it), and Pilgrim's Acres eggs.

Pilgrim's Acres is another example of the hybrid of religious conservatism and sustainable food practices. I love (seriously) that their bookstore section includes The Omnivore's Dilemma, along with the Bible.

Anyway, their eggs are super tasty. But, after this week's pick-up, we had nearly 20 eggs. So, I'm making egg-y things.

Like quiche! I took the bus down to the Tower Grove farmer's market this morning and picked up some asparagus, and then my realtor took me by Local Harvest for mushrooms (I was car-less today)...so I was able to throw together this kick-ass quiche:


It is super-yum. I used whole wheat and white flour for the crust. The filling consists of the green onion cheddar cheese; asparagus, mushrooms, and garlic sauteed in butter; fresh tarragon (I think it was tarragon - it was included in the herb bouquet from my previous share); eggs; milk; and salt, pepper, and nutmeg. I was worried about the quiche overflowing while baking, but I could have even used another egg because of their smaller size.

The asparagus is awesome by itself. I only used half the bundle, so we'll do something else with the rest.

Also at the farmer's market, my creepy stalker ways at the market last season totally paid off. This morning, the 4 Seasons guy gave me an extra mocha macaroon. Yes!

I cannot wait for the rest of the summer and all the vegetables that we will have. Our garden is currently producing yummy lettuce and radishes. But we're really waiting on carrots and beets. And tomatoes (hopefully).

Another Big Sigh

Sunday evening, Porkchop and I looked at the Perfect House:

• Great location on Hartford. Three and a half blocks east of Grand, so close to everything we need.
• Two story solid brick.
• Perfect size and layout.
• Wood floors.
• Big closets.
• Best backyard ever with raised beds and room for chickens.
• Two car garage.
• And...could be had within our price range.

On Monday, I called around to get new pre-approval letters, and I set up a time to meet with our realtor today to draw up an offer.

Last night, our realtor called to let us know that the seller had received an offer on Monday.

This morning, our realtor called to let us know that the house is now under contract.

I am unbelievably sad.

All the other houses in our price range are stupid and shit and in bad locations.

Right now, I hate everything.

Sometimes

Sometimes you might be on the verge of tears and call someone so that you can yell and swear about all sorts of minor injustices which might be magnified because your body is about to slough off your uterine lining.

And, instead of telling you to suck it up, that person might send you your favorite flowers.

[Thanks, Porkchop!]

And then later you might have a bacon-lettuce-tomato-avocado sandwich and potato chips and a pickle and a cherry Italian soda, followed by an hour and a half of nothing but fiddling, and you realize that the world is okay (until you read about the 3 shootings in 1 day that killed 5 people in North St. Louis - seriously, that is crazy shit).

Also, sometimes Keetah might like to pick out her own toys.

I love that she has finally discovered the cat toy basket.

ONE MORE DAY! (and part of another one, but who's counting?)

I Would Kill for a Drink Right Now

That is all.

Wintry Sunday Boredom

This Sunday finds me rather bored. I wanted to do garden-y things, but with this cold wind, I don't even want to pot basil and peppers for the back porch. Neither do I want to knit, practice the fiddle, or read.

Part of this discontentment is, I believe, due to the nearness, but not-yetness of Thursday. On Thursday, I go to Albuquerque, and then on Friday Porkchop and I caravan to St. Louis with Patrick and his girlfriend Chelsey. Since Pat didn't make the second year, he's moving back to Milwaukee, and then he and Chelsey will volunteer for a year in Chile.

Thursday is so close, but I still have 3 days of work and 3 days of anticipation.

So, even though I haven't been knitting (um, at all for the past couple of weeks), I have been cooking! This morning, I made French toast, which is something I never really eat. But it made sense since I still had bread left over from my share, eggs, and bit of cow milk. Behold:


The stuff on top is that wonderful apple butter. Also, this is actually a French toast sandwich! I cooked it with peanut butter (also from my share) and more apple butter in the middle. YUM! I really should make French toast more often since it's super easy.

Before making the French toast, I put together a chili for the crockpot. I soaked black beans last night and sauted ground beef this morning with onion, garlic, and spices. I can't wait to eat it...the crockpot is just taunting me. I have 49 minutes before I test the beans for doneness. Also, for the chili, I chopped up part of the smoked chipotle peppers that I received in my share. The peppers smell wonderful - I was tempted to take a bite out of one, but I knew that would be foolish.

Also on the food front...remember my tomato plant as pictured last week? If not, here it is:

And here it is this past Friday (a mere week after the previous photo):

It has grown A LOT.

Here it is today - it's at least a couple of inches taller than on Friday:


It has been trying to put out flowers, but I'm pinching them off because the plant needs to grow a bit more before producing tomatoes.

Sometimes I just stand on the backporch and look at my plants.

Keetah would rather I pet her if I'm going to just stand around. Here she is today, not staying still long enough for me to focus on her face:


Sometimes, she is so very cute.

This afternoon, I had to leave the house for cat food and litter. Whenever I'm at Petsmart, I always check out the cats - we won't get another one as long as Keetah is around, but I still like to look. Today was kind of heartbreaking because there was a mini Keetah!! And the sign said something to the effect of: "I was at the city humane society for a long time, but no one ever picked me." Murrr!

If you want a little Keetah, go to the Petsmart at Chippewa and Kingshighway and look for Siren (and maybe change her name).

Big Sigh

Finding a house is hard, especially when you know you can't have a huge monthly payment because of all of your other bills.

This morning was...interesting:

• I saw one SUPER pretty place. The downside: it's a townhouse, and I could faintly hear the other people walking up and down their stairs. Also, because of the big front yard, the backyard is a little shared brick courtyard. Where would the chickens live?! And, finally, I wouldn't really call the neighborhood transitional just yet. Still boarded up buildings and falling down places....no where to really walk.
• The mixed use building that I looked at was gross, gross, gross. Ugh.
• The other work/live place that was recently rehabbed is just WEIRD with multiple add-ons and sloping floors and odd bathroom configurations...among other things.
  
• One house would have been super-great, but it was a half-assed rehab job. Things would definitely be going wrong soon. Also, the backyard was all paved.
• The place I was most excited about looked okay in person...I just had issues with the condition of the wood floors, and there were little details that hadn't been finished. Like the closets didn't have rails or shelves. Some trim work needed to be finished more neatly, and some caulking was coming off around the bathtub. Also, the showing was generally weird because my realtor and I discovered that someone had stolen all of the kitchen appliances (dishwasher, stove, microwave, and refrigerator) (and scratched up the wood floor in the process of carting them out)! It was a bit awkward when the seller's agent came over because he was trying to tell me about other properties, and we were just like, dude, someone stole all of the appliances here - shouldn't you call the police or something. We determined it had to be an inside job because there were no signs of forced entry. The back door had been taken off its hinges, but that had been done from the inside. Someone totally knew the lockbox code.
  

So, I continue looking.

I mean, I like the place with the stolen appliances and it's right in my price range, so maybe I could just write some stuff in the contract for them to fix.

My Second Share

This is my second share, which is quite abundant. To me, anyway. I'm still finishing up stuff from my first share!


We have bread, lettuce, apple butter, an herb bouquet, more black beans, wheat tortillas, eggs, 1 lb of grass fed beef, popcorn (it was coffee, but I traded it), white cheddar, meat sauce from Maria & Sons, and two dried chipotle peppers.

I hope my share partner Deborah of Ephemeral Chaos has similar luck next week!

Here's my plan for the beef...use half of it to make a beef and black bean chili-type thing (as Rebekah suggested) and then freeze the other half for burgers (as Deborah suggested). Porkchop might like a burger when she returns next week! Alternatively, we can have tacos or burritos so that she does not become homesick for Albuquerque cuisine.

After picking up this huge share, I ended up having a salad and leftover pizza tonight! I didn't want the pizza to go to waste, and I jazzed it up with stuff from my share. For the piece of cheese pizza, I added black beans from my first pick-up. For the piece of tomato-mushroom pizza, I added basil from the herb bouquet.

For lunch tomorrow, I will have 1) a salad using the lettuce and an apple that I already have and 2) a sandwich using the bread, cheese, and apple butter.

The apple butter won't last long. It's from Centennial Farms in Augusta and is a total revelation.

Taking Suggestions

What do I do with a pound of ground beef?

This will be in my share this evening, and I have no clue what to do with it. I need something where the beef isn't super noticeable (no burgers, no tacos, and no meatloaf).

Ideas?

Shaking and Yelling

Shaking
I thought I felt a little earthquake this morning, and I did! A little microquake of 2.7 about 4 miles away.

Yelling
Recently, I've had to start yelling at some kids around here.

Yesterday, two kids were in the gangway shooting what I think were BBs at either my or my neighbor's window unit. I spied them from my back porch and commenced yelling at them: Don't run through here shooting that in my yard! To which the kids looked up, scared, and said okay. When they started to run off, I yelled: And close that gate! Because I hate open gates as much as I hate open drawers and cabinet doors. The kids closed the gate and took off.

This evening, there were older kids playing with the same gun, which didn't seem to having anything in it at the moment. As I walked out to my car, I KNEW that they were going to shoot at my car when I drove off. To me, it doesn't matter if a gun has anything in it or not, or if it's a BB gun or an airgun or a cap gun, it's the intention behind the action that I can't stomach. So, yes, the kid shot as I drove away, I threw the car in reverse, rolled down the window, and yelled: DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!

The kids and I went back in forth a couple of times:
Kids: But there's nothing in it!
Me: I don't care! Don't shoot it at me!

I was hoping that the kids were still outside when I got home so that we could have a conversation about this, but they weren't there.

I mean, I don't like kids pointing anything at me and shooting. But, the larger issue is their safety. There are people on our street and larger neighborhood with REAL guns, and they aren't afraid to use them. I'm worried that one of these kids is going to mess with the wrong person.

I really don't want to see that happen.

Craptastic

I am so ashamed, embarrassed, and angry that my university is giving an honorary degree to Phyllis Schlafly.

I don't toss around the word hate lightly, but I hate Phyllis Schlafly.

Let's Talk about Other Things

My work week was incredibly draining and is the reason I haven't posted in a while. So...moving on to other topics...

Friday of last week, my parents met me at work and I took off a few hours early. Their visit was much better than I anticipated. Not that I thought my parents would be bad company or something, I was just really worried about them staying with me and perhaps my dad making comments about my neighborhood. Just because there are signs posted at nearly every intersection that read, "This area under mobile camera surveillance," it isn't really that bad. (As long as you stay in at night and aren't a post office letter carrier, since people around here tend to shoot their letter carriers. Ha - see, things aren't so bad!)

But, my parents didn't say much about my neighborhood. Probably because we were so busy buying gardening supplies and plants and looking at plants and eating.

We ate so much Friday night at Sidney Street Cafe, none of us were very hungry on Saturday. We hit the Webster Groves herb sale in the morning, and were surprised at how many people were there! We had to wait in this looooong line to get in:

It was like a night club where you have to wait for people to leave in order to go in. Only it was an herb sale.

After the herb sale and after stopping at Serendipity for a few scoops of ice cream, we went to the Botanical Gardens. Although the Niki de Saint Phalle show didn't officially open until the next day, we saw plenty of sculptures. Like the Niki-gator:


We also saw someone who might possibly be the Chinese ambassador to the US, but that's another story for another post.

We were at the gardens for a long time and certainly got our money's worth. That's a bit of humor because the gardens are free to City and County residents before noon on Saturday...so we didn't have to pay anything. But I would have paid because the gardens are great.

Anyway, I made dinner for my parents Saturday night using the black beans and tortillas from my CSA share. Sunday morning was breakfast at Missisippi Mud House (because La Dolce Via doesn't open until 10 on Sunday), and then my parents were off.

Here are some other plant-related updates...

My tomato plant on the porch is doing terrifically well! Here it is with a companion sweet basil plant that I picked up at the WG sale (its other basil buddies are in the garden):


I have a lot of lettuce to thin out. I think I might have a very baby lettuce salad this weekend:


Here's a thyme plant and a pistou basil plant, also from the WG sale:


And an oregano plant from the sale:


I can't wait until the basil plants are big and there are tomatoes to harvest!

My only wish is that it wasn't allergy time. I'm actually faring well this season thanks to a steady regimen of sinucleanse, allegra, and flonase. However, my throat is getting a bit sore now, and my nose is full of snot and some other yucky stuff. But, you know, at least I can still breathe without too much trouble. It doesn't help that there's a thick coat of pollen on everything in the living room - I intend to clean up that crap tomorrow.

My plant goals this weekend are to find and plant two red bell pepper plants, a banana pepper plant, and possibly an eggplant. In the garden, we currently have the following sprouting: radishes, carrots, beets, lettuce, chard, peas, tomatoes, basil, sage, garlic, and chives. In mid-May, we'll plant watermelons, cantaloupes, and cucumbers. Awesome!

Oh, also, Porkchop and I have decided that it would be best for us to purchase a regular house at the moment. So, I have identified a few around Cherokee street to look at next weekend. Like most people, we have certain requirements that potential houses need to meet. We've nixed a few already because the yards would not be able to accommodate chickens.

Yes, we are basing our housing purchase options on chickens that we don't have.

But we will get them, oh yes, we will. We are so excited about having chickens!

Porkchop wants to buy one of these Eglus, but I'd rather we build a chicken tractor ourselves instead of paying $500 for wire and plastic.

Anyway, that's what we're talking about now...chickens.

My First Share!

Okay, so I received neither trout nor fig jam, but I'm happy overall with my first pick-up from Fair Shares.

Buttercrunch lettuce, a huge bag of shiitake and oyster mushrooms, cheese from Heartland Creamery (um, you know how I feel about them, but fine, I will eat their cheese), spaghetti from Mangia, black beans, a 2.5 lb. chicken, San Luis flour tortillas, peanut butter from Sappington Farmers Market, and salsa.

The chicken is a bit small, so the family who raised them included a note explaining the cold weather had kept the chickens small. Future ones will be around 3.5 lbs.

But, oh my gosh, check out the mushrooms!


For dinner, I cooked half of the spaghetti, combined it with sauted mushrooms, carrots, and ginger (I already had the last two in the refrigerator). Then I topped it with a yummy peanut sauce (using my new peanut butter). Awesome! I also topped some lettuce with a carrot and lemon juice salad that I made over the weekend.

Not too shabby for a thrown together meal.


And I have leftovers for two more meals.

Trying to Look Up

I have some things going against me right now:

1. My favorite pair of summer pants (and it's summer-pant wearing weather right now) are coming unsewn below the zipper. Unfortunately, my seamstress is living in Albuquerque at the moment. Hmmm....
2. Squirrels have savaged three of my tomato plants. The plants have been in the ground for not yet 36 hours. I'm quite sad about this, but I know I can replace the plants this weekend after the Webster Groves herb sale. But I'm also QUITE sad because I've cared for these little plants for more than two months now. It hurts. So much.
   
3. I've only practiced my fiddle twice this week, and I have class tomorrow. Oh, and I never bought a digital tuner. I'm such a slacker.

On the upside:

1. Porkchop comes home in less than a month.
2. We've been pre-approved for an FHA home renovation loan. The approval amount is alright, but I hope we can buy a place and get it done for much cheaper. The monthly payment amount makes me gasp. I mean, really, I'm glad Wells Fargo pre-approved us for this amount, but ARE THEY NUTS??!! Have they REALLY looked at our income-debt ratio? I sure as hell wouldn't lend us such money.
3. Hmmm...I'm trying to think of a third. My parents will take me out to a nice dinner Friday night at the Sidney Street Cafe.
   

And, I don't know how to feel about this...

When I came home from work this evening, I observed an unsettled atmosphere on my street. People sitting outside, but quiet and uneasily watching a guy with a dog standing outside one of the 4-family flats. Then I noticed a police car parked in front of my apartment and a police woman taking a report from a guy who lives across the street. My neighbor told me that the guy with the dog had been reported for animal abuse.

I don't know how to feel about this because I'm sad to hear that this guy was beating his dog, but I'm glad that no one was shot, which is what I thought had happened.

On that note, have a great Tuesday!

Sometimes It's Hard to Breathe

I wish today were May 15.

If it were May 15, I would be at the airport, ready to leave for Albuquerque to help drive Porkchop back to St. Louis.

It's going to be a long three and a half weeks.

WTF, KETC?

KETC has some really great shows...unfortunately, the powers-that-be like to schedule all of the best shows at 10:00 pm on Sunday night.

For example, I've been wanting to see King Corn since I first heard about it. KETC is showing it right now as part of Independent Lens. Great, terrific, I have to go to bed in about 15 minutes.

What - do they assume everyone has cable and a DVR? Grrrr.

Other Things
My whole weekend centered around food-related activities.

This week is the first pick-up for Fair Shares, so the organizers held an open house on Saturday. We sampled food, met some farmers and other food producers, and learned more about the mechanics of the CSA.

I'm excited for the first week! One of the farmers at the open house has a fig farm, and I'm hoping that we receive some of his fig jam. Yum! Forty-five people will also receive trout this week - crossing my fingers because I love trout.

Today started out rough because I went to La Dolce Via to knit, but I forgot my knitting! Argh! I had tea and a scone anyway and bought a newspaper.

I used the newspaper when I got home to make new bedding for my worms. Then I set out on the task of separating the worms from the worm poop.

This is harder than people make it out to be on the vermiculture websites. They make it sound like you'll end up with a neat pile of worms if you use the method of repeatedly halving the poop pile and letting the worms crawl to the bottom. The reality is that you still have a big mess of worms and poop.

And then there are the baby worms! It's impossible to separate the itty bitty worms from the poop.

Hard work, folks. It took me about an hour. In the end, I had a half-gallon of worm poop (half-gallon because I used the container in which my red bean ice cream came).

I used some of the poop when I planted my tomatoes later in the afternoon. Hope we don't have a big frost...that would be just my luck.

I offered my next door neighbor some worm poop for his plants, but he declined. Later, however, his son accepted my offer of a cherry tomato plant. I hope he takes care of it.

Man, I'm tired. Off to bed now. Work is going to be super busy this week...sigh. And my parents arrive on Friday for a weekend visit. And they're staying with me, so I have more parent preparations to make.

Hrm...

So, uh, did anyone else just feel that earthquake?

At least, I think it was a little one...

That, or my downstairs neighbors were having some crazy sex.

Something woke me up and was shaking the house, anyway.

***********
Edited to add...5.2!

Three-Minute Update

Ack! I still don't know where the time is going! Not...enough...hours...

Today, my main accomplishment at work was buying gifts for a baby shower tomorrow (yes, ANOTHER shower - this time for a co-worker who leaves May 1 to meet her son in Ethiopia). As Porkchop said, I'm learning a lot about crib sheets, changing pads, and other things I've never fathomed before.

After work, I attended my third fiddling class. Tonight we learned part of the Tennessee Waltz and Liza Jane (or is that Eliza Jane?). Fun!

Fiddling makes me HUNGRY. It's a crazy core and arm workout.

When I returned home, I found that my tomato plants have taken off. It's amazing what the sun can do.


Speaking of plants, during the snow showers Saturday morning, my supervisor and I planted some garden things....carrots, beets, chard, peas, lettuce, and onions. We'll see what happens.

After hanging out with Suzi Saturday afternoon, I started a baby raglan for the baby shower tomorrow. It definitely won't be finished.


When I wasn't working on the raglan Sunday, I made food to get me through the week. Robin (aka Poppy Mom) wrote about Martha Stewart's green chile chicken enchiladas on her newish food blog. For an accompaniment, I prepared rice and beans with roasted sweet potatoes. Yum for both:


(that freaky stuff on the lower right is sour cream)

Tomorrow - I hope to make knitting at Companion Bakery - yay!

April 10 is Finally Here!

Do you know how excited I am that The Office and 30 Rock have new episodes tonight?!

So excited!

And I'm not afraid to admit it.

Look - A Real Update

It appears that when I try to balance a lot of things, my blog is what I drop. But, yay!, I have time to write a little post tonight.

Knitting
Sunday night, I finally finished my stinking Jaywalkers. Here's a bad picture:


The jury's still out. They fit fine, but they're a bit itchy. Maybe because the yarn includes a bit of mohair. I'm sure I'll like these socks more during the winter.

I continue to work on my Interlocking Balloons scarf. Next week, I hope to make Wednesday night knitting at Companion Bakery.

Fiddling
Last night, I had my second fiddling class. I'm improving a little, but I find the class kind of difficult. I like to have music in front of me, but the instructor mainly teaches by playing. Even when he recites the fingering, it gets jumbled in my head because I have a hard time with spoken numbers (and letters). But, it's still fun and pretty low pressure.

This week, we continue to work on scales and variations of "Boil Them Cabbage Down."

Plants
Despite a brush with mold and frantic repotting last Friday night at 10:30, my tomato sprouts are doing well.

Here's the group:


This is one of the stars, a Fox Cherry:


I think I should take off the little lower leaves, but I'm not sure.

My supervisor and I will try to plant some seeds this weekend. I have some beet and carrot seeds to put in the ground. Melons and squash and tomatoes will follow a couple weeks later. Oh, and I'm looking forward to the Webster Groves herb sale on the 26th!

Food
Last weekend, I ate a bunch of grease-laden food and felt quite disgusting. On Sunday, in an attempt to reverse the state of things, I juiced a lot.

Juice is pretty and tasty:


Mixed-Use Buildings
I spent nearly 3 hours scoping out a residential/commercial building on Cherokee - once with a realtor and once with Porkchop's dad. Did I ever write that Porkchop is moving back to St. Louis in May? Well, she is, and we're both ready to get started on finding a building for a print shop and for us to live.

The building has some nice features - a complete tin ceiling in terrific condition and enamel bricks inside - but it would be a lot of work, of course.

Rain Barrels
Suzi and I trekked out to Bonne Terre on Saturday to pick up some barrels that will be converted to rain barrels. The license plate of the guy with the barrels read "IAMNRA." We were a bit intimidated, but he turned out to be a really good, ecologically minded guy.

Right Now
I'm watching a great show on PBS about Zora Neale Hurston. It's great because it focuses a lot on her work as a cultural anthropologist, something which is often ignored in discussions.

Have a great night!

City Haiku

Gunfire, squealing tires.
Montana on a weekend
Night. Still alive, thanks.

Kicking it like Claud

Like my grandfather and a couple of my great-aunts, my great-uncle Claud was a mean fiddler. All of my memories of him include a fiddle being played.

I find it quite sad that the fiddle tradition on my dad's side of the family pretty much died out with the older family members.

In an attempt to bring it back, I had my first intro to fiddle class at the Folk School of St. Louis tonight.

I have no grand visions; I just want to be able to play a little something-something. I don't think I absolutely suck for tonight being the first time I've ever tried to play a violin. Tomorrow night, I'll start my much-needed daily practice.

If the fiddle doesn't work out, maybe I'll try the dulcimer.

Sunday Morning Annoyances

You know what breaks the peaceful Sunday morning silence on Montana Street?

The church vans!

These vans sit outside people's apartments and HONK HONK HONK until the people come out.

Isn't there something wrong with church vans ruining quiet Sunday mornings? Couldn't the horn at least sound like a harp or bells or something church-like?