Jump with your eyes open

Feast of Love? I liked it. (Chris Kelly, eat my socks ... as usual.)

And, of course, it didn't hurt that they used a Glenn Hansard/Marketa Irglova song in the soundtrack.

And, did I mention that we are going to see those lovely folks in Austin in November? Well, we are. Only 10 days after we get to see the one and only David Wilcox in Ft. Worth. November is Marvelous Music Month for Julie.

And, also, if you are the least bit sensitive to nudity, this is not the movie for you. We, obviously, will not be taking Kristen to see this one for, say, 10 years.

Gosh, a food and a soapbox 2-fer

I'm going out on a limb tonight and visiting both of my recent ruts. Food and a soapbox, for your reading entertainment. And maybe something to think about.

Does anyone remember my post about my o/c tendencies and Salad Day from many moons ago? Well. We have carried on that tradition, my mother and I. Mom still picks up Southwest Chicken salads most Tuesdays for our lunches. We've expanded a bit. Some weeks, like this one, she gets it on other days. I know, it just doesn't seem right, but it does happen. Like today.

We've also expanded our menu a bit, and sometimes she gets the salads from McDonald's instead of Jack in the Box. They are enough different that it mixes things up a little.

So, today it was Jack in the Box. And I was thinking, as I finished off my salad and began to load up all the trash items and throw them out, of how they've changed in the last several months and how they've kind of let me down, to tell the truth. (It's okay, you can cry.)

Only a few months ago, that salad came in a plastic container with everything edible inside it except the dressing and some chip-type things. Some extra packaging there, but you can maybe understand how you might want to keep those things separate and fresh until you eat them. A fork and napkin came wrapped in a plastic sleeve, too. Then there's the plastic bag it all gets dropped in before it's handed to the customer. A lot of packaging and trash. Already. Container (2 pieces), fork, napkin, wrapper, plastic squishy dressing and chip holders, bag. Yep, that's 9 items. (And I'm gonna try to do the math right this time, Heather, but I might mess up. Heh.)

Now, if you know me well, you know I'm kind of Johnny-come-lately to all this green stuff, so please don't think I'm trying to act like someone I'm not. But yeah, I'm trying. Todd's got me trained on the recycling thing pretty well now. I panicked just a little this morning when I realized it was recycle day and my bag of plastic bottles hadn't gone out the door. But, phew, I got them out there before the truck came. (And yeah, I do have a lot of plastic bottles. Texas water and all, you know.)

But now Jack in the Box is having to keep up with the Joneses (a/k/a McDonald's SW Chicken Salad), and somehow they've decided to do that, they need to have the grilled chicken breast freshly cooked and in one piece instead of chopped up and thrown on top of the salad, and that it needs to be in its own separate container. Which, of course, necessitates tossing a plastic knife in the mix as well.

So, we've moved from 9 disposable items to 11. For one little (well, not that little) salad. It is tasty, for sure, but I have a few problems with that.

First, if you're buying a salad in a drive-through, chances are, you want to eat fast, and you don't really want to have to cut up your own chicken. Hence, the title "Fast Food." Call me lazy, but dudes.

Second, McDonald's has managed to convey their equally tasty, yet slightly different, SW Chicken Salad in a two-piece plastic container, with the wrapped napkin, knife, and fork, and the dressing in its plastic squishy thing, bag, and that's it. Sliced chicken and chips are thrown on top of salad in the container (still fresh and warm). So, they've managed to keep it at a still high, but certainly lower, 8 disposable items.

Now, I'm probably not going to stop eating these salads, nor is my mom going to stop buying them (crossing my fingers, anyway), but just maybe there's a better way for them to do this.

In a recent post, Paul from Colorado (who is also the super green husband of a friend I've known since high school in Denver, by the way) suggested taking your own plastic cups to fast food restaurants. I'm probably not going to take my own bowl for the salad (I think they'd look askance and throw me out on my ear right after they called the health department to report an unruly consumer.)

But, for my part, perhaps I can ask Mom to have them leave the plasticware out, and just maybe I will write Jack in the Box a nice, friendly email asking them why they didn't leave the chicken alone.

Four things about food

Taking a break from home improvement for a few days, so I thought I'd talk about another favorite topic.

1) I discovered this week that Albertson's brand semi-sweet chocolate chips taste almost exactly like Dove Dark Chocolate. Oh, my. I snack on a few chocolate chips to keep the junk-food monster at bay sometimes, and I might have to make this my "brand" of choice.

3) oops 2) My next-door neighbors are Vietnamese, and always have interesting things growing in their backyard. Tonight, Sam peeked over the fence to talk to Todd while Todd was grilling burgers and showed him, and subsequently me, the things he's growing. They have a persimmon tree, and he said he'd like to have two, but doesn't have enough room, so we should get one. Hmm...I'll have to get back to him on that one. Then he has this arch close to the fence between our yards and I've always thought he was growing zuchinni, and that the ones that ended up over our fence had simply gone to seed. Turns out they are bitter melon. Who knew? He gave me one and showed me how to prepare it. Said many Asian and Indian people eat it or use it for tea, and have for centuries, and it controls blood sugar, which is why so few people of that ethnicity are diabetic. He told me to be sure NOT to let my mom eat any, because she is diabetic, and somehow a person who is taking medicine for diabetes can get sick from it. Maybe it lowers the blood sugar too much? Anyway, I took it in the house and sliced it up, added salt and lemon juice, as Sam told me, and ate a few bites. At this point, I can tell you it is definitely an acquired taste.

3) Speaking of trying different things, this summer while I was visiting my brother in California, I tried Indian food for the first time ever. I have to say I wasn't crazy about what I had, but I probably need to try something else. I had chicken tikka masala, and it didn't taste bad at all, but just didn't overwhelm me as it obviously did my brother and my five-year-old nephew. I have never seen that kid eat so much food! He was just shoveling the chicken into his mouth and sopping up the sauce with naan bread. This reminded me of pita bread, or flat bread, and I liked the taste, but each piece was a bit scorched on one side. Is it supposed to be like that? I'm the one who always guards the rolls in the oven and the pancakes on the griddle to keep them from getting very brown. They also brought something before the meal that kind of reminded me of a chips in a Mexican restaurant, but it tasted a little like fish to me, and I'm not a fish eater. At all. No, not at all. Anyway, my brother did comment that it wasn't the best Indian restaurant he'd been to, so someday, I'll have to try again. (Bungi, if you read this, you'll have to let me know about the bread. Is it supposed to be like that?)

4) Tomorrow, I'm doing a copy cat meal for dinner in the crock pot. When we were in Chicago last summer, we went to an Italian restaurant and had one of the best meals I've ever had. They called it "Mama's Gravy." It was basically pot roast cooked in red sauce and served over pasta with a little of either asiago or gorgonzola cheese melted over the top. Todd and I split it, and it was served in this huge bowl and could have fed four or five easily. I was sad because we had to leave some behind as we didn't have a fridge in the hotel room. So, I made it (or something like it...I'll never achieve the quality of that sauce, let me tell you) a few months ago, and I'm trying again tomorrow. Everyone liked it, and it's a fun twist on the traditional slow cooker pot roast.

You'd think I was a foodie and actually liked to cook or something, huh? I think it's growing on me.

Scoreboard

Aesthetics and the Environment 1
Ease of Installation 0
Status Quo 00000000000000000000000000000

Yes.

(And lest anyone think I'm getting out of this easy while Todd's doing all that work, I'm removing old wallpaper border and the underlayer AND the primer that's covering up the texture. I wonder who will finish first?)

Isn't this pretty? You can click to see it larger. I like the porcelain accents on the ends because I like stuff that is simple and a little old-fashioned. Not ornate Victorian or angled Craftsman...can't ever quite find the right word to describe my style. Classic, I guess. Restoration Hardware on a budget.



And isn't it nicer than this? (Sorry, I just can't find a picture ugly enough. I could have used PhotoShop to add in the scratches and dust, but you'll have to use your imagination.)

Soapboxes R Us

Well, I had one very pleasant post before I got back into complaining mode. I think I'm going to change the name of my blog to Soapboxes R Us. Too bad I don't have a plug-in to make the R backwards, or I'd be all set.

What kind of idiot installs a bathroom light fixture off-center? In fact, what kind installs all kinds of fixtures in the same house off-center? Probably the same idiot, I'd guess, but I'm still not sure what kind.

We are trying to replace the outdated "makeup lights" in our bathroom with some more modern fixtures. Perhaps the universe is trying to tell us to be content with those old ones. BUT WAIT! The old ones have EIGHT light bulbs each. That's 16 total bulbs, which cannot even be replaced with the new, energy-efficient bulbs. I'm sure you know what I mean by "makeup" lights. Flourescent bulbs wouldn't be very pretty in them. Kind of "Mork from Ork" style, perhaps, but that's just not what we're going for. (And if you don't know who Mork is, you're too young to be reading this.) At any rate, surely it would be very green of us to replace those power suckers with relatively inexpensive ones that have only 4-5 lights. You would think.

When we (as in the Todd part of we) removed the old fixture over one sink, it turns out the junction box is not centered. The STUD is not centered. I'm not talking an inch or so. I'm talking about six inches. The old fixture didn't connect the same way. The new fixture, thus, when installed, looks pretty dang goofy.

So, now we're faced with a dilemma. Redo the junction box, which involves adding some kind of horizontal brace, which involves cutting a large hole in the sheetrock, then replacing it, taping and bedding, repainting (which we're doing anyway, so that's not a big deal). All for a 80 dollar fixture. Or...find another ugly light fixture? Or, put the cheesy one back up and deal with the ugliness and the major sappage of energy?

C-R-A-P!!!!

Is that a pancake your wearing?

We had breakfast for dinner tonight, always a favorite around our house. What's something you like to eat for dinner that's not quite the normal thing?

Barbara Samuel got me started thinking about family food traditions because of reading her fun post tonight about biscuits and wonderful home-cooked breakfasts.

Weird family food story--

Last Friday night I found a mix I bought on clearance at Target a month or so ago. Krusteez scones. Sounded like a good dessert with a handful of chocolate chips squished in on the kneading part. They were quite delicious, if I do say so myself. Light and fluffy and melt in your mouth good.

Well, my mom talked to my brother a few days later, and it turns out he took his little boy to a family potluck dinner at school one night last week. They were supposed to take an ethnic dish representing their family roots. Guess what he baked and took? Chocolate chip scones. From a mix, no less. How weird is that? I'm not sure either of us has ever eaten chocolate chip scones at the same time or in the same place, so it was a little eerie.

I guess those Scottish roots run deeper than I thought. (And being cooking-from-scratch challenged is hereditary as well, obviously.)

Yes, that, or no, actually. Maybe. Or not.

I posted this on my writing blog, but thought it was so funny, I had to post it here as well.

Is it spring break yet?

Fifth grade is hard. I have a lot of homework this year.
(And let me just say that it is good I am not a teacher. I am not a patient homework helper. My poor kids.)

Not quite ready for prime time

My kids have always been pretty mature for their ages. Really. Other people tell me that frequently; it's not just my humble opinion. Of course, there is Ryan, who maybe reached the peak of his maturity and is going backwards now that he's in college. But anyway.

Tonight Todd and I decided to take our 10-year-old out with us for a slightly more cultural and in-tee-lect-ual evening than we usually attempt with kids in tow. We like our date nights, hadn't had one in a few weeks, and Kristen didn't have plans, so we just dragged her along.

First stop, First Fridays at the Modern. Kristen loves art, talks of becoming an artist one day, or, for plan B, an art teacher. So, we figured a short visit to the Modern was not a stretch. She's been there before with my in-laws and enjoyed it. She frequently refers to "I like to call him Andy Warhog" as her favorite artist, and really digs his flourescent green and black self-portrait hanging at the Modern. So, the special exhibit right now is sculptures by Ron Mueck. Amazing lifelike sculptures of people, only larger or smaller than the real thing. We've seen lots of news ads and reviews for this collection and thought it would be fun and Kristen would enjoy it, too. There was, however, the small matter of (in the museum's own words) mature subject matter, including nudity.

I led Kristen around this exhibit for 30 minutes or so with her arm intertwined with mine and both of her hands covering her eyes. She kept warning me not to lead her up or down any stairs without letting her know ahead of time, and asking, "Can I look now?" I kept telling her she could look all she wanted, but she'd only peel her hands away from her eyes if I placed her directly in front of a sculpture that wouldn't alarm her and promised there weren't any scary ones in her peripheral vision.

We got lots of sidelong grins and guffaws from other patrons.

Moving right along, when the museum closed, we went to Sardine's, a local Italian restaurant that's been around forever but I'd never been to. We didn't expect it to be quite so ... dark. As we walked in, Kristen said several times, "It's very dark in there. It's too dark, let's just go to Dickey's BBQ," which was right next door. We were able to read the menus by holding them very close to the candle.

The food was delicious, despite the fact they didn't have any kids' entrees. Kristen and I just decided to split spaghetti con pollo (a/k/a spaghetti with chicken), and they went ahead and put it on two plates for us. (Of course, that was $3 extra when we got the check, but they really did give us a ton of food for the money--we probably brought half of it home.) Kristen ate a few leaves of lettuce from the salad we split three ways and announced she was full. I convinced her she should try some of the spaghetti and said I'd pick off the green things and put all the chicken on my plate so all she'd be left with was plain old spaghetti.

Well ... in the process of handing me her plate, we knocked over a glass of Coke, and had to throw our cloth napkins over the rapidly spreading puddle before it ran into our laps. Our waiter came by shortly and offered to let us move to a new table, but we preferred to stay in our very dark corner. He brought new napkins, but for some reason dropped Kristen's into the remaining puddle. Really, he was very gracious and nice, but when we said we still needed another napkin, he brought several, and when I said I needed a new straw, he brought four. Hmm. Rough night for our waiter.

Kristen proceeded to entertain us with our favorite family party trick--sucking her nostrils totally in without touching her nose with her fingers at all. She also enjoyed dancing all over her side of the booth to the jazz combo's fortunately LOUD accompaniment.

All in all, it was a lovely evening. I had fuzzy memories of what it was like to go out with the kids when they were much younger, and a reminder that as mature as we like to think our kids are, they're not always quite ready for prime time.

Gotta love 'em.