While coming downstairs this morning @ oh-dark thirty getting ready for hunting, I discovered just how slippery wool socks are on carpeted stairs. Half the trip was very fast, on my ass.
As I am now typing this from relative comfort of my tree stand, one can assume I surived the most dangerous part of the morning.
Heard shots already, 6:45, 30 minutes early. Cheaters!
Day 1915a
I can not determine what the size limit for Quickpress postings is. Is it a Qp limit or a corporate firewall thing?
Day 1914b
Yes, there was a 1914a. Seems to be a size limit on what will get through. Still have some learning to do about limitations, etc. of this portal.
Day 1906
Thought I’d toss out some sort of Top Ten List, a la David Letterman. Then it occurred to me, I need a subject for said Top Ten List. Know what would make a good theme for a Top Ten List? The Top Ten Themes for a Top Ten List. Without further ado, here we go:
#10 – Least favorite foods (individual or dish)
#9 – Favorite vacation spots
#8 – Favorite scenic drives
#7 – favorite actors/actresses
#6 – clearest childhood memories
#5 – Best injuries (mostly my own, or ones in which I was otherwise involved)
#4 – Favorite foods (individual or dish)
#3 – Vacation tragedies
#2 – Remodeling projects
#1 – Defining moments
If there’s others you think might be interesting, let me know and I’ll toss them into the mix. Maybe start a Top 10 Tuesday. Everybody loves a little alliteration, right?
So. Top Ten list #10 – Least favorite foods (with a qualifier for each)
#10 - Anything ending in –melon. Water, musk, Irondequoit (might be a local variety), cantaloupe, those green ones, whatever. I am equal opportunity and intensely dislike them all. I will not eat a fruit salad if there is a hint of melon in it. It just ruins the entire bowl. Also, see #1
#9 - Cucumbers. Unless they’re pickled. Any kind of pickle is fine, but a raw cuke? No thanks.
#8 - Sweet peppers. Red, Green, yellow, orange, whatever. Can’t do them raw in most anything. They taste metallic to me. I can handle roasted peppers as part of a dish, but to just eat a pepper like that dude on the Iron Chef intro? No way!
#7 - Raw white onion. Too bitter. Maybe Vidalia’s are okay, but the average raw white onion? No thanks.
#6 - Radishes. Qualifier? Thickly sliced, they taste like dirt. Thinly sliced, I can tolerate them. When Cindy makes a salad, I can take one of her chunks of radish and get 3 or 4 slices out of that one piece.
#5 - Brazil Nuts. Again with the dirt taste. Sometimes you get a real buttery one, but usually? Dirt. (Anyone call them nigger toes? That’s the name I originally associated with them. I blame my parents. I don’t use it anymore because it seems insensitive)
#4 - Grapefruit. This one is a little weird. I like other citrus fruits just fine. Grapefruit juice I find to be bitter and metallic (again) tasting. Grapefruit itself I’ve only had in small pieces and it reminds me of the juice. Wonder why? But. There is a brand of pop (soda?) that I really, REALLY like in the summertime – Squirt. Made of 10% grapefruit juice or something. I think ‘Wink’ is similar (but local to Pennsylvania?) and I think ‘Slice’ has a grapefruit version. Love ‘em. Can’t stand strait up grapefruit juice though.
#3 - Tomatoes. This is a weird one too. Ketchup? Fine. Spaghetti sauces? Fine. Chunky spaghetti sauces? Fine. Sun dried tomatoes? Love them. Salsa? Usually fine, unless it’s a black bean salsa at an Olde English themed dive of a restaurant in Stowe. Bruschetta? Not so much. Slices on a sandwich? No thank you. Wedge in a salad Nope. I don’t know how to explain this one other than it’s a combination of texture & taste. Maybe the semi-gelatinous nature of the seed cavities. I really don’t know, but I will go out of my way to avoid or remove tomatoes from certain foods. Like tomato soup, unless it contains chunks of tomato. Also don’t care for tomatoes in other soups.
#2 - Mushrooms. WTF is the attraction to mushrooms? I’m not a fan of their texture, their lack of a defining taste (other than ‘woodsy)
#1 - Bananas. Banana bread, muffins, banana anything. Ever since I was 3 or so, the smell of bananas just sort of triggers my gag reflex. It’s the #1 reason I would probably fail at Survivor. My mom says I ate them fine as a baby, but somewhere around age 2 I rebelled and haven’t had one since. In a fruit bowl? The whole bowl is considered tainted. (Not to be confused with the ‘taint’ which, well, I wouldn’t want to eat that either.)
Could also toss in eggplant as something I’d just as soon not eat. Liver too. But liver is a little more universal. To balance the Top 10 disliked foods, here’s a list of foods I do like that are often disliked (just to show I’m not really that hard to cook for) And if you think I AM hard to cook for, I’ll just cook it myself, thanks.
Asparagus (LOVE it grilled)
Okra
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Brussels Sprouts (deeeeelish roasted)
Turnips
Beets (had them tonite even)
Artichoke
Any kind of olive
Any kind of hot pepper (mo hotter = mo better!)
Liverwurst (go figure)
And then there’s the list of favorite dishes that oddly enough includes some of the foods I don’t really like (I’m looking at the peppers, onions & tomatoes mostly) But that’s another list.
Cindy has relinquished the role of the cast iron bitch of late. We had a little date nite Saturday, went out to diner and had a beer while waiting for a table. Well, I had a beer and didn’t have a conniption when she ordered one too. Sunday, she announced that she was having a glass of wine after we finished wrasslin leaves for the day. I didn’t have a conniption then either. I think I also did not have a beer. Raising my arm high enough to take a sip woulda hurt too much.
Her sooper seekrit stash of extremely cheap vodka (Mr. Boston? Well variety at best) has also been dipped into a bit, but really not a lot. I think she’s at the point where she’s trying to figure out where the boundaries are again. Or she’s trying to desensitize me a little, make me drop my guard, then WHAMO! Start the binge drinking again. But I have noticed that in the meantime she’s trying hard to not be a jerk. I will give her points for that, but the guard isn’t coming down.
Annette was also going to call Janine and compare notes. I’ll find out how that went Wednesday evening – after our couples session. I may have mentioned this in an earlier entry, but Annette is all for taking a harder line with the drinking. Her aim is to support me in my efforts to not become the person I was 2 years ago and enter into another illicit affair in the event Cindy’s drinking gets to be habitual again. Janine sees the past drinking as a problem, but at the same time she wants to help us make progress as a couple. She acknowledges that the underlying drinking issue could still hose everything. In their 1 on 1 work though, Cindy hasn’t budged an inch on acknowledging that her drinking could be a problem.
I think Cindy recognizes that it WAS a problem and was a huge factor in my even meeting and getting interested in Paula. But. I’m afraid she thinks her drinking was a direct fallout of her mother passing away 6 ½ years ago. I will grant that her mom’s passing made it worse, but the problem was there all along. Even her mom commented on it at times. What I am working hardest at right now is not building up any bitterness over not having any real apology offered nor any amends made to me for the years of crap I put up with. That’s a tough pill to swallow and might even become a theme at a couples session soon.
Aha! Another top 10 list – top ten themes for a couples counseling session. Coming soon to a blog thing near you!
I gotta go organize pictures to send to some Korean Regulatory Agency. The flaming hoops they make us jump through to get approval to sell a product in their country are incredible. But that’s a whole ‘nother entry.
Day 1905
Finally home to post this . . .
Dang it! Left my brain at home. I have this little 2GB thumb (pinkie actually) drive that I keep my blog/journal crap on. I think it’s on my dresser. I hope.
Had two other entries started, scrapped one after having time to think about things. It was about an extended family scuffle. Old wounds, held grudges, unexpected behaviors, all out of my realm of control. After the dust had settled, I think I’m just disappointed in how some people reacted. I guess some things just trigger Jr. High school reactions from people, no matter how mature you thought they were. Only thing left to do is file it away for future reference. There’ll be some hurt feelings, but none of it caused by me. There’s also nothing I can do to make anything go away. I’ll just be myself, let folks know I’m not in 7th grade any more and take it from there. I think it’s all sourced from petty BS anyhow – people are just looking for a reason to not deal with each other.
The second entry was a revised version of the first, which, upon further reflection, got distilled down to that tidy little paragraph above. You’re welcome.
In other news – OUCH! Spent Sunday blowing, raking & hauling leaves. I am SO glad we had that big, old silver maple taken out this year. Seems that most of our leaves (from two Norway Maples) came down in the last week. Two thirds f the back yard was covered with them. Then there were the oak leaves that get magically transported from the grove to our east (down-effin-wind people!) and settle in every nook, cranny gap, stairwell, garden – just everywhere. Maybe as much as 25% of that I hauled yesterday was oak leaves, and there isn’t an oak tree within 100 feet of my yard. Weird.
So the process goes like this. Blow and/or rake all your leaves into piles. Move the leaves from these piles onto a big ass tarp. Skull drag the tarp to the front yard, dump the leaves by the curb. Repeat until either the leaves are done or you are done. My problem is that our lot is on the outside of a 90 degree bend. This makes for very small frontage, but a pretty large back yard. With lots of trees. I don’t have room for all the leaves our trees generate.
I borrowed some of my neighbors curb, some from the guy across the street and some leaves I just hauled off into the woods. I was putting all the oak leaves back where they belonged. Along with a few of my own to over the handling fees.
By 4pm yesterday both Cindy & I were beat. I have bruises on my shoulders from where the tarp rested (heh – rested, sure) as I hauled leaves. A couple loads got kinda heavy – more maple seeds, sticks, wetter leaves & branches – those did some damage. But we really won’t have too much more in the way of raking to do.
Want to know how beat we were? Instead of cooking a batch of Chicken Chipotle Chowder for dinner, we did pancakes & bacon. When enjoying a little horizontal time after, there were muscle spasms, but not the good kind. It’s pretty hard to relax when your muscles decide to get all spastic on you. Mine were fine, but Cindy’s legs were dancing all on their own. Much rubbing of the legs ensued, and things eventually settled down. (Get your minds out of the gutter.)
Saturday involved more abuse of the legs. Replaced the last window in Eric’s former bedroom. The one on the end of the house, where all the work has to be done off an extension ladder or from inside. Zach stopped over to help and we got it banged out on a few hours. Finally got smart and managed to position the window so that I didn’t have to take down any of the shingles on the sides of the window opening during the replacement. Then we got even smarter and jut cut the new trim to fit the gaps in the openings. Now we have something like 4 original, drafty, inefficient windows left to replace. Soon. Maybe next spring.
Powder room update. It’s now fully functional. Still looking for a mirror and some sort of artwork/wall hanging to finish it off, but all the essentials are in. The toilet is one of those long ones. Didn’t really notice at first, but it really barely fit. For a guy (here’s some TMI for you) there’ barely enough room to stand in front. Your butt cheeks kinda brush the wall behind you and your knees are nearly touching the front of the bowl. It DOES make it nearly impossible to miss though. I guess that’s a good thing. And it’s one of those super efficient, 1.6 gallons per flush jobbers. So far, even with the low flow it seems to function pretty well. Haven’t tried flushing a washcloth, 6 or 7 votives, an African Violet or dog food (a la the Kohler commercial), but it does what it needs to do.
I did make one little faux pas though. Got the water feed lines goofed up. Swapped cold & hot. It’s a little disconcerting at first, especially because they’re separate control valves. Easy to fix though. It’s been a low priority, what with the gorgeous weather here. Seriously. All that leaf humping Sunday? Jeans & t-shirt. Before lunch, in November. Call it Indian Summer I guess.
Biggest news of the weekend involves the garage. For the first time in nearly 6 years, we have both our vehicles parked inside. No more project storage, garage sale sorting, kids cars, NOTHING. Just adults cars in the garage. Both of them. It was so moving, I got a picture of the blessed event. I also had to practice backing out of the garage. Those mirror thingies on the sides? I’d like to keep them intact.
8.5 – 9 hours of sleep last night and I’m still pooped. Hauling those leaves really put a whupping on me. No kids to help this year either. That’s only going to get worse too. Eric is living in Syracuse and Zach now has his own to worry about. Makes it hard to recruit help. I’m going to need a rider with a big bagger attachment. Or a chain saw.
Day 1899
So. Powder room. Toilet? Check. Sink? Check.
Still have to hang the paper holder, but isn’t that what tank lids are for? Still have to hang towel holders too, but I have pants legs for drying my hands.
So really? No hurry.
Counseling was interesting tonight. I still don’t have answers to questions like “What are you hoping to get out of AA?”, “What is your definition of social drinking?”, “Where do you want to be in 5 years?”, and the biggie – “Are you going to AA to learn to be sober, or are you doing it just to shut me up?”
No answers to any of that yet. But tonight I once again was reminded of a few of my faults and how that is impeding any progress we might make. Yeah, right. I just pulled the same crap she pulled last week – I feel like you’re taking my inventory and attacking me. But it’s funny how much better she seemed to feel knowing she wasn’t in the hot seat for a night. Well, that and the fact that she’s got a little stash hidden and can look forward to getting a little buzz on some day soon.
On the work front? Was threatened with the need to get a passport. Boss said that without a passport, I can’t be sent out of the country on business. He failed to see the logic in my NOT having a passport. My view? No passport, no trip to China or India. No problem. We’ll see how much water that holds.
Ugh. Gotta get some shut eye. Later folks.
Day 1898
Saturday morning, I don’t recall precisely when, things got a little funky for a while. I was installing the lat piece of molding. It was a bit of a struggle to get it to fit as I’d like, took several attempts. Then, as I’d start to nail it in it would shift, necessitating repositioning it, again. Got a nail going in the pieces midsection, then drilled a small pilot hole for a nail out towards the edge. Placed the nail, hit it a couple times to get it going and promptly split the piece of wood.
That little mishap nearly broke the camels back. I was having a hard time getting any traction going as it was, was feeling very frustrated by recent (non) events and was just full ‘to here’ (holds hand 6” over head with that flat waving motion, you know?) and one thing after another was not going smoothly. I needed to take me a little time out.
It’s weird. When I get all frustrated and pent up like that, I get this urge to throw things. Doesn’t matter what it is, I just want to pick stuff up and fling it across the room and watch it disappear through the wall. I don’t act out on it, but MAN, it would sure feel good. I also have no doubt that were I to throw something baseball size-ish at a wall, it WOULD go through the interior drywall and I really don’t want to have to be fixing that up along with everything else.
Instead, I laid down on the couch, let the frustration sort of wash over me for a few minutes then sat up, wiped my eyes and got on with things. Cut yet another new piece of molding (third one for that spot!). It fit, it went in ok and I got on with my day. Which involved (of course) more molding.
The trim molding above the bead board went in very nicely and looks great. I splotched in the nail holes and Cindy did the touch up painting. Really can’t recall what else I did Saturday, except skipping out on the Halloweeners and going out to dinner. It was just odd that I had that overwhelmed feeling just take over for a while there. I think it’s a realization that I’m really power less over something that causes that – knowing that nothing I can do will have the effect I want on the outcome. Seems to have been brought about by finding that new bottle in the stash.
The new bottle that got moved too by the way. While on my quest for chocolate Friday nite, I wasn’t careful. There was a box of stuff from the powder room in front of this one particular hutch that I moved to gain access. After discovering no chocolate in the cache but stumbling across the vodka instead, I was disappointed, flustered, distracted and a little angry. Consequently, I couldn’t remember the precise position of the box. Next day? Gone. Moved again. Now, that could have been because I was planning on working in the powder room Saturday and the move was pre-emptive in order to maintain access to the supply. Or – it could have been because the hider noticed something was fishy and decided to move the stash to sooper seekrit hidden location #14a – a little commode type thingy done up in an asian theme that we keep by the front door. Nice piece, old, and hard to get into/out of quietly. The spring loaded latch is difficult to operate quietly. But! I will persevere.
Sunday. Cindy did more molding touchups. I got to go outside & do leaves. At least the front & one side yard. Then Zach stopped over and we hauled out the garage. All the garage sale stuff went up in the loft, a whole lotta crap got tossed, and except for my small table saw and the yet-to-be-built cabinet for the powder room, I think we might be parking in there in the next night or two. At least I really hope so, because we had a really nice thick frost on things this morning. Being garaged would help eliminate that. And I KNOW this is tempting fate, especially around here, but it’s Nov. 2 and I don’t have a scraper or snow brush in my truck yet. I have GOT to get one before I get reduced to scraping my windshield with an ATM card or something. At least, unlike SOME parts of the country (I’m thinking Colorado & Wyoming here) we aren’t buried under 2 – 3 feet of snow. Yet.
Had dinner at the kids house Sunday night. Very neat. We brought bread, they did lasagna, salad & an apple pie for dessert. Even had my mom over too. After Cindy had left for her meeting, we learned that my long lost brother from Tennessee will be in town in a couple weeks with his whole clan – wife, their 2 kids and their kids spouses. My mom wanted to get the extended family together at her place – close to 20 folks. Hmm, I just counted – it’s exactly 20 folks, and there are 3 that can’t make it so I didn’t even count them. Bottom line? Mom’s place is too small, lacks parking and is central to no one. My place on the other hand is the opposite. Big enough (almost), good parking, and I’m central to all who would visit. I need to tell Cindy we volunteered.
Monday night now. Need one stinking part to compete the sink install. The drain tail pipe is about 2 inches short of what I need. Quick stop at the local Home Despot ought to do the trick. The room formerly known as the family room is starting to look normal again too. Good thing – we’re going to need it when the clan gathers in a couple weeks!
Day 1896 (or so . . .)
So therapy last night – no answers. Cindy headed to her meeting afterward, I stopped by the kids, then headed home to get dinner going. Had a sudden, inexplicable urge for a bite of chocolate. So I started checking all the normal chocolate stashes. Never did find any chocolate. But I DID find that bottle of vodka that disappeared a few weeks ago, after the last ‘I’m not comfortable with the current level of your surreptitious drinking’ chat.
That particular bottle was nearly empty. But it had a friend that was ready to take over. I think I now have my answer.
Got 95% of the powder room moldings in. Filled the nail holes, touch up painting will happen Sunday morning. Then, finally, the throne will get installed. That and the sink. Floor cabinet & small wall cabinet will follow in short order.
The other big plan for tomorrow is to get the garage fit for parking BOTH vehicles in it again. Morning frost season is fast approaching and I would really rather not have to deal with it.
Totally bailed on Halloween tonight. Wrapped up housework around 5 – 5:30, shaved, showered and headed out to dinner. Killed a bit more time at the home improvement store and a home furnishings joint. Exciting, I know, but it kept us out of the house till the sugar hounds were done searching. Besides, I know from experience, if you go looking for chocolate, you’re likely to find vodka instead.
I’m off to bed so I can go fall back an hour. That extra bit of sleep is going to feel pretty sweet.
Day 1893
So we went to Vermont, did the touristy things & came back. I am happy to say my truck thinks it gets about 27.3mpg when doing highway type traveling. Counting miles, putting gas in and doing the math yields more like 26mpg. When compared to the whopping 20mpg the van got? I still can’t complain.
I have 150+ pictures from the weekend. Friday’s pictures were mostly from the ferry trip across Lake Champlain. Saturdays the weather was horrendous. Mt. Mansfield, the highest point in Vermont was supposed to be visible directly out the hotel room widow. Couldn’t tell by looking out. Seems that the clouds were hiding everything above 2000-ish feet.
Took a trip through Smugglers Notch. So named because it was a prime route for smuggling alcohol down from Canada during Prohibition. Large buses and tractor trailers are forbidden to travel through the notch. After being there, I know why. Pictures just can not do the place justice. I have many from the area and will post links (eventually), but a picture showing two switchbacks with house sized boulders marking the inside of the turns just doesn’t match the impression of watching it unfold before you as it comes into view.
The birch trees are oddly stunted at that elevation (around 2400 ft.) At least they don’t seem tall enough when compared to their trunk diameter. They just look wrong.
We clearly missed the peak leaf color as evidenced by almost all my pics (and the rate of our room 2 weeks prior to our visit!), but at the lower elevations the oaks were hanging tough, all rusty looking, and some of the non-sugar maples were a gorgeous golden tone.
Sunday the weather improved to the point where we could see the top of Mt. Mansfield (4300ish feet). Impressive hunka granite. Littered with ski slopes. We re-ran the trip through the notch, just to see it when it wasn’t all foggy. It’s beyond words. Also impressive were the views we had of Vermont’s Green Mountains and New York’s Adirondacks on our trip back Monday. Monday’s weather was perfect. Cool, crisp, low humidity, visibility good for miles.
The food in the Stowe/Waterbury area is very good too. Maybe not up to New Orleans standards, but still quite tasty. Only one word of caution. When dining at The Olde English Inne for breakfast, don’t order the egg dish with the black bean salsa. I can only begin to list the problems with that salsa. The short rundown is this:
1 – last I knew, black beans did NOT look like cannellini beans. They are at the very least a very dark brown, not white.
2 – Ripe tomatoes are a rich, deep red. Not pink with tinges of green.
3 – Cilantro, garlic, chili powder, and Mexican oregano? Use them.
4 – Mango? In black[SIC] bean salsa? Sadly, it was the best part of the dish.
5 – Corn. Hot peppers. A little mole sauce. The last bb salsa I had featured all of these. The Olde English Inne version did not.
If you can’t guess, the salsa consisted of this – Cannelini beans (white kidney beans), coarsely chopped unripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped red onion, chopped mango all mixed together. No salt, no pepper, no chili powder, no flavor of any kind. The worst part? The waitress never said anything. I had a few bites & sent it back. It wasn’t even close to what was intended.
Conclusion? Don’t expect much from a salsa at an English style restaurant. British cuisine has always been laughed at. Now I know (one of the reasons) why. They took enough time making the dish, they could have made the two mile trip to a grocery store and bought a jar of black bean salsa and done better.
Ok. Food rant done. Food rave? Maple muffins. Oh my! It was really, really good. Unfortunately, crumbs of it are now ground into the seat of my truck. That was my breakfast while we were headed north through the north on our way to checking out a bunch of covered bridges. And yes, they are every bit as quaint as they look in pictures. The other really, really good food? Ben & Jerry’s. Did the tour, learned how ice cream was made, learned a whole lot about the history of the company (now owned by Unilever – Ben & Jerry are no longer actively involved with operations!) and got our free sample (mint chocolate chunk – delicious!!) Of course, after that little taste, we got in line at the real scoop store and got a real sized dish. I might have a new favorite – Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Ice Cream. Gotta try it with honey on top too.
What didn’t get accomplished was any sort of resolution to the questions I posed to Cindy in out last couple of counseling sessions. She did eventually thaw some, but wouldn’t venture into any conversations dealing with “the issues”. Being isolated together, I didn’t want to push things. That’s what Friday’s counseling session will be used for. Unless I start pushing things a bit before then.
I’m trying to decide – does she hold the power by refusing to put an answer to my questions, or do I hold the power by continuing to live my own life and seek my own happiness in spite of her unwillingness to really accept her condition? Interesting, no? Then the question becomes “for how long?”
Before that gets answered, there’s bowling Thursday. Figured something out. Been sticking my thumb into the ball too deep and it’s hanging up. Causes some inconsistencies in the release which leads to adjustments that don’t need to be made. Bowling should be simple. Don’t over think things, be consistent, react to what’s real.
Kinda like good advice for life too. Hmmm.
Hmmm again. Someone’s been poking around a bit. I need a stat tracker. Hmmm.
