Mad Mad Life

Vegas, Sunday evening*

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 04:51:00 +0000

*I am continuing with my ploy to pre-date my posts, making it seem as if I am publishing this on Sunday evening. This is false, but in 100 years, who's gonna care?

I forgot to mention last night that my gambling winnings went from the plus side to the minus side. As of Sunday evening, I'm down $55. My typical gambling budget is $200, but I never like to actually lose that much. Still, I feel that I can gamble for a few more hours yet without exceeding my budget, which is reassuring.

Today, I didn't take many pictures. The day began with my wandering the mall shops in the Palazzo and Venetian, hoping to duck into the Cole Haan store to buy a pair of rock star sunglasses that I had found there Friday night. Alas, it was barely 9:30am, and the shops didn't open until 10. This is about what the shopping mall looks like when nothing is open yet:

While I waited, I cruised over to the Canyon Ranch Grill, which is the restaurant in The Palazzo's Canyon Ranch SpaClub. (I used their gym on Saturday morning, at a rate of $35/day.) This is the kind of restaurant that has calorie, fat, and fiber content listed alongside each item on the menu. It sounds stuffy and stupid, but their menu rocked. For breakfast I had the "Healthy Elvis," a toasted peanut butter and banana sandwich, which had a bowl of fresh fruit on the side. All for just 370 calories and $7.

We don't really know what happened to Sunday. We lounged by the pool all day, but the day sped by in a hurry. I think Sunday is the day that we all begin to wind down. It's day 3, we're still enjoying ourselves, but we're getting tired. So it's a lay-low kind of day. I bet on a horse and lost. I completed my tan. I drank enough vodka/cranberries to keep my bladder healthy for years to come.

Oh, and I had a grass-fed beef cheeseburger for lunch, again from the Canyon Ranch Grill. Most Americans have probably never eaten grass-fed beef. To me, it tasted a lot like über-lean regular beef (corn-fed or grain-fed) or buffalo, but without losing the juice. So here we have a lean-tasting hamburger that is still moist and juicy, not dry, which often happens with the leaner meats. The burger came with artichoke fries, which, while unmistakable for regular fries, were delicious with ketchup. I love eating like this.

We made dinner reservations at The Range Steakhouse at Harrah's. Harrah's is a definite step up from The Four Queens, being on the strip between hotels such as The Venetian and Paris, but it's still somewhat second string in the Las Vegas class structure. Still, The Range beat Hugo's Cellar by a long shot in terms of ambience because it was on the second floor, overlooking the strip and across the street from the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace.

Plus, Elvis dines there:

I had the Surf 'n Turf with a side order of Mac 'n Cheese (really) and the food was grand. Plus, our two waiters, "23" and "25", were delicious as well. This was another one of those $100 dinners like the night before, but since I missed my Hugo's reservation in 2007, I figure it all evens out.

I detest this photo of myself, but this is 25 and me:

Neither one of us looks good. But we're both scrumpcheez.

Vegas, Saturday evening*

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 04:45:00 +0000

*I will now defraud my readers by setting the "publish" date on this post to Saturday, September 20. That's when these photos were taken, that's the day I'm chronicling, and that's the day I should have written this. So that's it, and that's that.

Most of our daytime activity in Las Vegas occurs poolside. The pool at the Palazzo is nice, in comparison to the pool at Mandalay Bay (where we usually stay) for several reasons:

1) The Palazzo's pool is generally less crowded, so we don't need to reserve our chairs by 8am. (Seriously, last year on at least one occasion we stood in line to enter Mandalay Bay's pool area when it opened, just to snag seats.)

2) The Palazzo has seating in the pool. (This was very popular with my friends. I, uh, I like to be dry, OK? So I always chose a chair just by where they were sitting, but on the pool deck.)

3) The Palazzo pool boys and girls come around and distribute ice cold washcloths during the heat of the day.

4) They also provide cucumbers for our eyes. Or, for our bellies. Either way, cucumbers are nice.

5) The food available near the Palazzo pool is much better, you aren't required to present your room key card to gain entry, and the overall setup is much easier-to-navigate.

However, Mandalay Bay is still perfectly acceptable, and meets our pool standards (which are high).

Here is a photo of part of the pool that we spent most of our time in, with the Wynn and Encore in the background:

There are a couple more pools behind that one.

The best thing about Saturday in Las Vegas is that Saturday is the night we typically have reservations at Hugo's Cellar. This is one of those places where you say that dining is an experience. The maître d' starts off by giving each lady entering the restaurant one red rose. Once seated, drink orders are taken, and this was the first restaurant where I was ever given a chilled decanter with my martini (in 2004):

Then, salads are prepared for each of us individually, to our specifications, at the table. (Mine went something like, "Tomatoes? - Yes. - Red onions? - Yes. - Pine nuts? - Yes. - Bleu cheese? - Yes. - Baby shrimp? - Yes. - Anchovies? - Yes. - Artichoke? - No. - Croutons? - No. - Fresh grated cheese? - Yes. - Fresh ground pepper? - Yes." Even before the days when I started eating salads, I loved the salad at Hugo's.

My salad (with flash overexposure correction, sorry):

The menu is 100% steak/meat/seafood. I ordered the no-longer-completely-taboo chilean sea bass topped with "sauce nantua," described in the menu as "crab meat topped with luscious shrimp sauce," which, if you're wondering, has nothing to do with cocktail sauce. This was Scrumpcheez, our new word coined in Vegas 2008.

The thing about Hugo's Cellar is that it is literally underground, below the casino level at the Four Queens hotel. The Four Queens is in downtown Las Vegas, which is, well, the other end of town, the seedier, gaudier, less "classy" end ("class" being a relative term in Vegas). Casino tables are cheaper, everything is older (translating to lots of stuff, such as, lower ceilings in the smoky casinos), and the atmosphere is just plain different. Here is the Four Queens:

If it looks like there is a ceiling over the outdoor walkway, well, there is. But just around the corner we found actual sky, and we also found the Las Vegas Fire Department:

By the time dinner is over we're all stuffed, giddy and drunk. This is us, after our cab dropped us off back at The Palazzo, and I had somehow acquired all the roses:

Vegas, Friday evening

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 04:45:00 +0000

Our suite at the Palazzo, messy but swanky:

Venetian interior (view from my dinner table):

Wine with dinner:

Dinner (a seafood stew - YUM):

At dinner:

Venetian performers:

Just me:

Other than that, I turned $100 into $150 playing Pai Gow Poker. Overall, a bright and successful first day in Las Vegas!

Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:43:00 +0000

Sometimes, I have tomatoes for dinner.

Later, when I get hungry again, I'll have oatmeal.

I'm such a bachelor. Ette.

Except the typical bachelor doesn't grow his own tomatoes.

Apples for elephants

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:34:00 +0000

Last Saturday, my dad and I volunteered at The Elephant Sanctuary.

The Elephant Sanctuary is one of my major charitable organizations of choice. Charity Navigator gives it four stars, and I've personally visited the facility in Hohenwald, Tennessee, twice, and I can vouch for the sincerity and dedication of its volunteers and staff.

Although, I can't technically vouch for the fact that they have elephants. You see, they don't really like the public to get too close. Normally, they don't like the public to see the elephants at all. Because the purpose of the elephants is not to perform for the public, or even to give humans any enjoyment at all. Not technically. The purpose of the Sanctuary is to give the elephants a place to live out their lives, simply being ... elephants. It's the place where zoo and circus retirees go to finally be the animals they were born to be.

Yes, there are Asian and African elephants living on 2,700 acres in Tennessee. 23 have lived there so far. A lot of the people I talked to in Tennessee weren't the least bit aware of that.

Though I can't personally vouch for them, I'm pretty certain they're there. The Sanctuary has an elecam, you see, and every day there is at least an elephant or two in plain view. (During daylight hours, folks.) And I've seen recognizable staff members on the elecam with the elephants, people I've also seen in person at the Sanctuary. So I'm willing to bet large parts of my body that the elephants really do exist.

And if they don't exist, then I sure can't imagine what they're going to do with all these apples we picked for them on Saturday!

Four of us picked all those apples. Normally, the Elephant Sanctuary has one volunteer day per month, and up to a dozen people volunteer. My dad and I applied to be volunteers for September many months ago, but all of the Sanctuary's volunteer positions were filled through the end of the year. Luckily, I thought to contact the Sanctuary last Thursday to see if they had any last-minute cancellations, and they did, so we were able to get two volunteer slots! Which turned out to be fortuitous, because every other volunteer who signed up for that day was stuck in an airport somewhere because of Hurricane Ike. So it was the two alternate volunteers (my dad and I), the volunteer leader (who works at the Sanctuary full time) and a volunteer who was scheduled to work in the office who joined us as well. They said this was the first time they had 100% no-shows. Darn that Ike.

Here are some more pictures of us with those apples. But don't strain your eyes looking for elephants, because you won't find any.

That last photo is of me.

If you are interested in helping fund the retirement of these long-lived, wonderful animals, (and the acquisition and retirement of many more to come), there are many ways to do it. Click on any of the links below for more information.

Acres for Elephants - Donate a Square Elephant (the space required for an elephant to stand at rest), a Sleepy Square Elephant (the space necessary for an elephant to lie down and take a nap - an area approximately 9 feet x 14 feet), a Dumbo (an area about the size of a house at 1,440 square feet), a Jumbo (larger than the Dumbo at about 1/4 acre), or a Mammoth (a full, one acre).

Wish List - Make an "in-kind" donation - the Sanctuary needs everything from air conditioners to safety glasses to jars of molasses.

New Asian Barn - The Sanctuary's new Asian barn is finished, but it still needs supplies.

Feed an Elephant for a Day - A full-grown Asian elephant eats approximately 150-200 pounds of food each day!

Become a Friend of the Sanctuary and receive their newsletter, "Trunklines," for a year.

Or make a VIP Pledge - Donate just $10,000 (specifically, $2,000 a year over five years) and receive the VIP Behind-the-Scenes tour. This is your opportunity to visit with Sanctuary staff and have the privilege of seeing how this operation really works by viewing their state-of-the-art facilities. This is an exclusive opportunity to be in the middle of everything without disrupting the elephants' daily lives. (But, as always, no elephant viewing is guaranteed. I just might have to go down and work there if I want to ever see a Tennessee elephant.)

Another vacay, another storm

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:40:00 +0000

How to make a hurricane

1. Have Jen S. go on vacation
2. Preferably, in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico
3. Voila, hurricane in the gulf!

As with my trip to visit with Gustav in Louisiana, the worst we're getting here in Nashville is a little rain today so far. (Yesterday and the day before were beautiful and sunny.) I'm hanging around the hotel this afternoon because I have some work and stuff to do, and because we're going out tonight to see Boz Scaggs at the Ryman Auditorium. I'm a little old to have enough energy to sightsee all day and then go honky tonkin' at night.

When I can get my pics uploaded, I'll blog about my day at The Elephant Sanctuary, as promised!

9/11/08

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Yesterday was the first September 11th that I can think of, since that day in 2001, that I know I felt pretty OK.

I did not have any friends or relatives who died that day. I was not in Manhattan, near the Pentagon or Washington, DC. I did not know anybody who was.

I was just living in my own private hell, in the middle of a depression-like phase that had something to do with my toxic job, something to do with lingering baggage in my personal life, something to do with a mysterious illness that had recently begun to take me down and would continue to do so for months, and perhaps something to do with genetics. I've always maintained a pretty high level of functionality, but that kind of situation makes it really easy to take a lot of sick days due to one's physical and mental state. And that's what I happened to do on September 11, 2001.

So that's why I was lying on my sofa watching some morning show on television, which is something that I never, ever do. I can't even tell you which show it was or who was reporting, nor did I have a preference. But it was because I happened to be home sick that I was watching TV from the moment the morning show cut away to video of the north tower of the World Trade Center burning, and that I then saw the south tower pummeled by a United Airlines flight, live. I watched television all day that day, and all night, and all the following day, when I again decided that the commute to work wasn't for me.

There is a set of specific things I think about when I remember that day:

I remember watching the initial footage and thinking of the ongoing ramifications of this as-yet-misunderstood attack: "There is going to be scaffolding around that building for months and months while they perform repairs." This is what I thought the event's legacy would be like.

I remember running upstairs after the second plane hit to tell my housemate, "They're flying planes into the World Trade Center." She turned on her TV, and left for work shortly after.

I remember trying to convince my father to come home from work (in downtown Chicago) and him reassuring me that the Sears Tower is blocks and blocks away.

I remember a colleague telling me it took him five hours to get home from work that morning after his company let their employees go for the day.

I remember not understanding what the perceived tragedy was when the towers collapsed. In my mind, though I never explicitly thought these words, I knew that the buildings were beyond repair, and that the buildings must be devoid of people by that point. I was half right.

I remember when I realized that the date was 9/11.

I remember making love to my boyfriend that night, even though I wasn't supposed to because my yearly gynecological exam was scheduled for the next morning. But how could one not make love to their boyfriend that night?

Like everyone else, I have my specific memories. Like many people, I watched TV at every available moment for weeks and weeks after 9/11. Past the point where most people I knew declared they were finished watching all of that tragedy on television. I kept a folder in my bookmarks called "9/11", filled with dozens and dozens of links to 9/11-specific news and information sites. I cried in the shower a lot, in anger and disbelief.

But I think I realized early on that a lot of my upset had a little more to do with me and my primed-for-disaster mental state than it had to do with national security, or even empathy for those who died or who lost loved ones. (And I am a person severely overloaded with empathy, as a rule.) At the time I hated my job and was hiding from it that very day, and as I described above, I was not in a happy place overall. When I thought about 9/11 after that, it wasn't just about the terrorist event, for it was also linked to how miserable I was, had already been, and would continue to be. I remember a feeling of being haunted by the day. By September 11th, 2002, I was working as a freelancer, and I specifically did not accept any jobs that day because I wanted to be free to memorialize 9/11 privately. I remember on September 11th, 2003, making the decision that I could, and should, go to work. But I really did not want to. I wanted to be at home, to obsess, probably to watch TV all day, just as I had two years prior. Alone.

The misery stuck with me for some time, but similar to getting over a cold, I remember feeling bad and I remember feeling good again, but I can't tell you exactly when the transition happened.

And I don't remember what I did last year, or the year before, on September 11th, but I do know that this year, I noticed that I am no longer haunted. I was aware of the date, but I didn't obsess. I took note that I was glad I left my flag up (despite its tattered state; it's past the point where it should have been replaced). In the evening I watched a new television program about it, and I cried. But I think that's normal.

I just don't remember pre-9/11/01 anymore. It's kind of like Pearl Harbor: when I was born, it had already happened. It wasn't an event to remember, it just "was". 9/11 just was, and I don't take it personally anymore.

More on jalapeños

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:56:00 +0000

If you've been reading me regularly, you know that this is the first year I've grown jalapeño peppers. (This is the first year I've had a vegetable garden at all.) And I don't know if this is a weird season or what, but it sure seems like the weather is moving way too quickly for the garden inhabitants. All the bell peppers are still tiny, there are still dozens of unripened tomatoes, the cantaloupe fruits aren't near picking-sized yet, etc. Yet it's getting down to 45 degrees some nights. Is this normal? Is the growing season in Chicagoland just not quite long enough?

(A tangent: that, I realize, is the stupidest question in the world, especially coming from me. I've long supported the weather in Chicago — I love the hot summers and cold winters — but I still believe the summer needs to be about one month longer and the winter needs to be about one month shorter. That might be a perfect climate.)

So if you read yesterday about my stuffed jalapeño pepper lunch, you know that I've harvested only 5 jalapeño peppers from the garden. There are more out there, but it's hard for me to tell if they're ready. I'm looking for that really saturated green, and for the size, that I'm accustomed to seeing in the grocery store. And that is, for the most part, what I got yesterday.

But some of the peppers are getting striated. Here is a pic:

See the three that have lines on them? Do you think that means they're overly ripe? For the record, they all tasted great. I'm just wondering if I should take that as a sign that it's definitely time to pick 'em.

And I'm still wondering what I thought I would do with all those habanero peppers and chili peppers. In the beginning, I swore to use my entire yield, even if I had to freeze stuff, and I think it's time to pick and freeze some peppers.

Everything's better wrapped in bacon

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:08:00 +0000

My vegetable garden has given me five full-grown jalapeño peppers so far, and today I turned them into one of the yummier appetizers in my appetizer-repertoire:

Stuffed Jalapeño Peppers

Ingredients
1) Jalapeño peppers
2) Cream cheese
3) Bacon

Directions
1) Slice jalapeños in half; discard seeds (to taste; I like to leave a few)
2) Spread cream cheese into each half
3) Wrap each in bacon (about 1/2 slice of bacon per 1/2 jalapeño)
4) Bake in oven at about 400 degrees for about 20 minutes (until bacon is cooked)

Last time I made these, it seemed like I used too much bacon, so this time I thirded each slice rather than halving them. But 1/3 slice really was not enough by the time the bacon cooked down. A half slice is right.

Here is the result:

These jalapeños were nice and hot! I probably could have removed all the seeds and they still would have been spicy enough. (Not usually the case, in my experience ... I like HOT foods!) Even now, six hours after consuming them for lunch and after having washed my hands many, many times, my fingertips are still spicy to the tongue (and, unfortunately, to the eyes).

Getting away from Gustav

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:30:00 +0000

To kick off my travel season, for Labor Day weekend my cousin and I flew to Shreveport, Louisiana, to house- and pet-sit for my aunt while she went on vacation. This is the second time we've made this trip together to lounge in the sun by the pool, grill on the patio, and take care of some cats and dogs while we're there.

And this is the second time that our flight to Shreveport was significantly delayed. I'm now 0-for-2 in making it to Louisiana on time. The first time I honestly don't remember why we got stuck in Dallas, but we ended up staying there overnight. This time, we got stuck in Chicago because of weather in Dallas, but luckily our flights were early enough in the day that we did make it to Shreveport before the next morning.

Ironically, the weather that delayed us was in Dallas, and it was unrelated to Hurricane Gustav which, as you may recall, was making its way toward Louisiana. To kill time at O'Hare airport I did a lot of Tweeting and e-mailing about our status, and overwhelmingly, the replies I received were along the lines of, "You're traveling in the wrong direction!" I thanked my friends for their concern, but tried to reassure everyone that Shreveport is a city that people evacuate to, not from. The worst we'd get hit with would be rain, which is a small price to pay to ensure my aunt's pets get fed, watered, and medicated for the long weekend!

And so we eventually got to Dallas, and then hopped a little flight to Shreveport, where I sat across the aisle from a woman from Best Friends Animal Society, one of the two major organizations I claim as "my charities". (The other being The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee, where I once spent a day painting elephant fences.) I believe she was getting into position in northern Louisiana to swoop down to New Orleans after Gustav did its future damage. And rescue animals, they did!

So we spent Saturday and Sunday lounging in the sun by the pool, grilling on the patio, and, oh, did I already go over all of that? Well, here are my favorite scenes from the weekend:

There, by the grace of god, go some amazing great danes. The two black/white ones are Maggie and Jerry Lee, and the brown lady is Zoey.

In the end, my aunt did end up coming home one day early because her husband's work is affected by heavy rain, and he needed to prepare for it before it hit. Subsequently, we came home a day early, both because our services were no longer needed, and because there would be less chance of being caught in a rain delay on Monday than Tuesday. Having an extra day off after a vacation is never a bad thing, and we didn't want to needlessly risk missing any additional work on Wednesday or even Thursday.

And our flights home went off without a hitch: I am now 2-for-2 in making it out of Louisiana on time. We got home safely, everything in Shreveport was tended to, and Hurricane Gustav wasn't the storm of the century as previously billed. Gustav, I know you did a lot of damage and respect your power, but we thank you for not being worse than you were.

OMFG Free People socks!!

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:22:00 +0000

Free People, owned by Urban Outfitters*, who also owns Anthropologie, is a little hippie for me. Yet I still receive their catalog in the mail (probably because I do drop quite a bit of cash at Anthropologie) and love to look through its photos of the crazy things the kids are wearing these days, and in the latest issue, the back cover sports the cutest socks I've ever seen.

Here is what I mean:

It's nearing tall boot weather, people. I have tall boots in black and brown leather. 4" heels. This is what I'm talking about, guys.

To die for, right? Luckily, one need not die: one need only spend $24-$28 per pair. Next to death, that seems like nothing.

I just realized that I'm not sure any of my blog readers are female. Oh wait, yes, of course they are. I can think of three.

Anyway, for all my marketing friends, if nothing else, I offer you this: this is proof that even to this die-hard internet-shopper, printed catalogs still serve a purpose if they drive you to the web site.

*For the sake of completion, I'm "meh" on Urban Outfitters. I only shop there when I'm in Vegas, because there's a store in the hotel we usually stay in. I find them mostly miss on a hit-or-miss scale.

Sam Adams, in the lounge, with a red pillow

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:44:00 +0000

I took a little vacation over Labor Day weekend, and have been having trouble getting back in the blogging swing. I have begun several posts in my head, but haven't managed to ferry them over to the internets yet.

So for now, because Maple and Dazzle have already been honored, I'll continue in that fashion and move on to the felines of the house.

Sam Adams, as the kitty gods intended:

Yes, that's the Sam Adams I accidentally cut open a few weeks ago in a grooming mishap. He seems to have forgiven me. (He never acknowledged the wound at all, nor the stitches, in fact.)

Something is coming....

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:40:00 +0000

There is a monster in the veggie garden.

It's large. It's long. It's winding. It threatens to take over.

It's coming.

It scares me.

Tune in later for photos of the creature. Until then, here is a hint:

The mysterious eggplant

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:15:00 +0000

Apart from my shocking forest of healthy parsley, the three varieties of eggplant in my vegetable garden are generally the healthiest and most consistent things I have going. It's funny that I planted them at all, considering that I'd never even tasted an eggplant until earlier this year. And decided that they don't taste very good. No, not very good at all.

The eggplant is a perfect example of a food that, before this year, I would have never eaten, because as I like to say, if you have to do a whole bunch of stuff to a thing to make it palatable, why even bother? I'm sure one could make balsa wood taste good, with enough seasoning. This is why I am the quintessential steak eater. Throw a slab of beef on the grill, and really, it's very difficult to go wrong. No seasoning required. Delectable.

So I never messed around with veggie dishes because you have to do all this stuff to them to make them taste like anything. All the sauces, spices and the like: what's the point? Why not leave these poor plants in the ground, to live out their lives as nature intended?

What happened was: I started tracking my food intake at fitday.com, and learned that there are whole groups of vitamins and minerals that my diet is lacking. Where on Earth does one get Vitamin K, anyway? It turned out that a lot of the nutrients I lacked (not to mention fiber) are found in vegetables. This wasn't a complete shock to me. But since for once I had the proof on paper, right there in front of me, I decided it was time to take action.

And that's when the idea for the vegetable garden took hold, and when I started bringing home things like eggplants from the store. Kind of like exercise: this seemed like yet another necessary evil that I would have to embrace if I wanted to be healthy.

And the eggplant on its own: it's not something that you want to just slice up and munch on as a snack. It's kind of spongy and not wildly flavorful. But it turns out that if you cook it, yes, with a whole bunch of other stuff and with spices and sauces, it makes for a good ingredient. A favorable part of an ensemble cast.

So today's post over at Always Order Dessert, Salting the Eggplant, was an eye-opener for me. In some of my eggplant recipes, "salting" has been indicated, but they always just give some quantity of salt to add to water, and sometimes the eggplant is only sliced in half before it is dunked and soaked. But this entry on eggplant salting is much more revealing. It is very detailed and it explains the procedure. It even makes the eggplant sexy. And possibly, salting the eggplant in this way might make the solitary eggplant taste better to me.

Coming soon: an eggplant taste test. Whopper vs. Ichiban vs. Fairy Tale. May the winner find herself in greater numbers in next year's garden.

Moody Maple

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:00:00 +0000

My girl Maple, pensive as usual:

We had just finished watching the Travers Stakes. She was probably feeling nostalgic for her racing days.

RIP zucchini plant

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 23:44:00 +0000

It seems that my zucchini plant is a goner. Suddenly it just kind of shriveled up. At first I thought it might just need some water, but some water did not help.

It was miraculous that the plant lived at all because the stem, very close to the ground, was always a bit broken. It had been hanging on by a thread its entire life. In the end I got one gargantuan zucchini, one perfect zucchini, and today, I harvested a questionable zucchini from the nearly-dead squash plant.

Next year: more squash plants.

Today's harvest yielded quite a few tomatoes, a whopper eggplant, two ichiban eggplants, and some banana peppers:

In addition there are four questionable tomatoes, a bowl full of not-store-worthy kale and collards (for the iguanas and tortoises), and I also have a pocketful of super chili peppers.

I have no idea what to do with all these peppers. Some good news: there are some jalapenos growing now, and I do know what to do with those. I hope I get some bell peppers someday. Snap, this reminds me: there are some ripe habanero peppers that I forgot to pick ... and I don't know what to do with those, either.

Next year: fewer pepper plants.

What do you do with hot peppers? I think it's time for me to look for hot salsa and chili recipes.

The ghosts of Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:30:00 +0000

Facebook is getting weird.

Well, it always was weird. But you become accustomed to it, and then it becomes normal.

But then it gets weird again.

You start off by being friends with your actual friends. Then acquaintances find you, then people from work. Then old classmates, maybe from college, maybe from high school. Even the ones you haven't seen or heard from in 18 years, even ones who you weren't friends with when you were in school together. But that's OK because, if nothing else, that's where Facebook started: among students. And then you get bold and start sending friend requests to old classmates that you became really estranged from during school because that's what happens as we mature and splinter off into our own separate, sometimes rival, cliques. All of that can be forgiven, because we were just kids.

That's how my Facebook friending experience has gone, anyway, though I know it's not been the same for everyone.

But we can all agree: "normal" now includes using "friend" as a verb.

But set aside all that newly normal stuff ... want to know what still feels weird?

Weird is when your Facebook friends start friending guys you hooked up with when you were 15 years old.

Ghosts from your past.

Names you recognize because ... why? Oh ... yeah. My parents' sofa. And my parents were upstairs. Well, that was a fun evening.

Oh dear, are my parents reading this? Well, whatever; they no longer live in that house anyway.

And now you're left wondering: is it a matter of time before one of those guys sends me a friend request? Or will I friend them first? Or will we just go on, pretending we haven't noticed each others' names in our friends' lists of friends?

And you know you're overthinking things, because you checked every bit of your he-loved-me-then-kicked-me-to-the-curb feelings at the door decades ago. Besides, you're hotter and much more interesting now than you were then. You have nothing to worry about.

And then you're struck by the realization that it's all perfectly normal. Because remember the very first guy who invited you to join Facebook? You hooked up with him, too.

Budget 1: "mandatory" monthly expenses

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:09:00 +0000

Initial disclaimer: This information is of interest to me, and basically, to hardly anyone else. So this is mainly a way for me to figure out, "on paper," my financial situation, and explore ways to improve it. It may be of future interest to other people like me who are searching the web for data on the expenses and budgeting methods of others, but just so we're all clear on this: I don't expect most of you (all 7 subscribers) to really care.

Month after month I marvel as my bank account balance goes to zero after a minimal percentage of my income is set aside for paying taxes, saving for retirement, and a little investing, after a set credit card debt payment is made, and after the bills are paid. It doesn't seem like I should be in this situation. So here I am beginning a series of posts on my expenses, to try to figure some things out.

I am starting this series on my personal budget by looking at my mandatory monthly expenses. This is the group of expenses that I like to say, "just cost what they cost." These are the things that I'm billed for monthly, things that I have to pay for to keep living my life the way I do, where I do. There are gray areas, such as with cable TV: I don't need it, but since it's bundled with my internet service, which I do need, I'm keeping cable TV in this "mandatory" category. Plus, cable TV is something I have to pay for to keep living my life the way I do. Cable TV is also an example of one of the items I can work on: I'm thinking of downgrading to a more basic cable package, for instance. But I can't/won't eliminate this expense completely.

Mandatory expenses do not include clothing, personal care such as haircuts, business expenses (which I write off at tax time but still cost me money), dining out (or delivery), home and gardening expenses, pet expenses, doctor visits, prescriptions, or any similar expenses that are not technically mandatory but that most people would agree are reasonable or necessary to ensure quality of life. Quicken would disagree with me on some of that. But all of that, for this exercise, still falls under discretionary income to me, and I'll address that next time.

(Disclaimers: I did include health insurance as "mandatory", because I went without it for a very long time and now that I have it, I consider it indispensable. Yet I didn't include doctor visits or prescriptions ... I guess I'm still healthy enough that the insurance is more important to me, as my doctor visits are more routine and I could actually skip them if I had to. And I included home insurance, because if you don't have your home, all you have left is your health, which is a lot harder to take care of without a home. And, even though having pets is really mandatory for me, I can not compare my "mandatory" expenses to anyone elses' if I include the thousands of dollars I spend on my pets each year. So "mandatory" vs. "discretionary" is a bit subjective. But from my point of view, for this exercise, these are my mandatory expenses.)

My averaging methods: I have saved all of this information in Quicken for several years. This is why I choose to pay for as much as I can with credit cards, because when I receive each bill, I enter each item into my Quicken file. It's much more of a pain to keep track of cash. (I should note that all the credit card debt I wrote about recently accrued before I started paying attention to my budget. Mostly. Regardless, I'm not in debt because I pay for groceries with a credit card.) So, I averaged my monthly bills (such as utilities) over the 12 months of 2007. Auto fuel and groceries, again, were averaged over the 12 months of 2007. These amounts might be different in 2008, but this is what they were last year.

Mandatory monthly expenses:
Auto insurance: $65.
Health insurance: $107.
Home insurance: $27.
Rent: $1200.
Cable TV/modem: $138.
Electricity: $92.
Gas: $132.
Cell phone: $58.
Wastewater treatment: $6.
Water: $17.
Auto fuel: $109.
Groceries*: $476.
Total mandatory monthly expenses: $2427.

*"Groceries" includes all my food and drug items. "Drug items" are the things that I buy at the drug store that is attached to my grocery store, such as toiletries and personal care items, medicine (but not prescriptions), etc. "Groceries" also includes alcohol (of every kind -- here in Illinois it's all available at the grocery store). I used to separate out all the different categories of items I purchased at the grocery store, including pet food, personal care items, liquor, human food, etc, but it was too much work. These days if I see I'm spending more money than I'd like to spend at the grocery store, I simply tone it down across the board.

My mandatory expenses, the stuff I need to pay for in order to live the way I do where I do, cost me $29,124/year. This is for one individual. And it doesn't include a single sandwich at Jimmy John's, or a concert ticket, or a pair of socks, or an oil change, or any other transportation expense other than auto fuel, or one tomato plant, and it certainly doesn't include a single pet.

I got the idea to start talking about budgeting back when I wrote that post that I referenced earlier. At the end I touched on the cost of living where I do, compared to my should-be-decent income. Back then, I wrote:

The thing is, I make a decent living. [...] And day to day, I don't live extravagantly. (I keep my cars for many years, I've never bought a diamond, etc.) [...] But the main thing that kills my budget is the cost of living where I do. So over the next few days I'm going to start talking about budgets, linking to other blogs that are doing the same, and analyzing any and every possible place I might start looking to save money that doesn't involve moving or not enjoying life.

So in the next posts on budgeting I'll continue the discussion by talking about topics such as:

1) Finding places I can save money in my "mandatory" expenses;
2) Adding up my "discretionary" expenses;
3) Finding places I can save money in my "discretionary" expenses;
4) Comparing my expenses to that of others;
5) Whether or not I need to take drastic measures (like moving).

It should be fun and entertaining. And in the end, maybe I'll move to Mexico. Join in the discussion, won't you?

Out of character

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:32:00 +0000

Lately, I've been finding myself wanting strange things. Things that, historically, I've held strongly negative (or strongly indifferent, which is just as bad) opinions of.

No, I do not want an iPod, or any other Apple product, but I fear that may be next. (When pigs fly. Which is looking a bit realistic at the moment, from where I'm sitting.)

1) I want a boat. Most of my life I've not wanted anything to do with water-related hobbies. No fish tank. No pool. No water skis. No boat. To me, anything water-related is so much harder to take care of (and to keep clean) than anything land-related that it destroys the hobby. Nearly by definition, a thing that is wet is already much dirtier than a thing that is dry. Water leads to slimy stuff, and to rust. At least if the thing is dry, it may be dusty, but at least it isn't a slimy, rusty mess.

Yet I find myself wanting a boat because, well, I love sitting in the harbor on the water. I imagine, if I had a boat of my own, I'd also go out into the lake with it. Having a boat gives you something to do every weekend. You don't even need friends or a significant other to go out on the boat. Ideally, I'd have a boat with enough room for the dogs. (Scratch that: my boat would be required to have room for the dogs.)

2) I want a web cam. I don't have much to say about that. I used to have one, but I gave it away. If I get a web cam again, I don't ever, ever plan to use it for work, or even chatting with people. (I don't chat on the phone; why would I chat on the computer?) It's just my exhibitionist nature, I guess, to want to have a camera on me, and my office, at all times. I don't know why this has come up again for me.

3) I find myself liking the Escalade. Or, "Excesscalade", as I call it. In that weird, pearly white color. It's a ridiculous vehicle (c'mon, it's the Tony Soprano-mobile, though I think the Tony Soprano poor taste, starting with their McMansion, kinda went over the heads of many viewers). It probably gets negative gas mileage. It's the pimpmobile of SUV's. But I like looking at cars and I keep noticing those Excesscalades in that pearly white color. I probably lust after the Excesscalade as many men lust after skanky looking ladies. You know it's wrong, but damn, they're hot. I will not get one. But it's OK to look.

OK, so you're NOT king of the world....

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:57:00 +0000

Future self, take note:

If you ever find yourself, three weeks after RAGBRAI ends, during which time you did not bike at all, and, to be exact, you exercised only your TiVo remote control finger because you spent much of that time sick in bed, and it should also be said, eating like a madwoman; if you ever find yourself with the sudden ability to bike to work in 1:47 (compared to previous times of 1:54, 1:57, 2:00, 2:03, and other similar times), do not take it as a sign that you have become a biking goddess. Do not presume that by watching track bike racing from Beijing all week, you have somehow improved your own biking skills through some form of osmosis.

No, no, no.

If you ever find yourself with the sudden ability to bike to work in 1:47, just wait 'til your bike ride home, where you will more than likely experience the brutal headwind that, it turns out, helped you secure that 1:47 time. And brace yourself for the frustrating, mind- and body-numbing ride through what feels like molasses, as it takes you 2:04 to get home.

(FYI, NONE of those are good times, not even 1:47. My dad used to ride the same distance/route to work fairly regularly, and when he was in shape he clocked around 1:30. I hope to get there, with regular riding.)

A Dazzle in the sun

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:45:00 +0000

Dazzle is an expert sun-seeker, second only to a feline.

I'm sure she comes from a long lineage of expert sun-seekers.

Oh, how I love this dog.

Recent dishes

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:00:00 +0000

If you're wondering what I did with yesterday's harvest, I made ratatouille:

I'd never tasted ratatouille before, much less cooked it, so I was unsure what to expect. I altered the recipe a bit, to suit my tastes and available quantities of ingredients. Verdict: delicious! Seriously, I'm stunned. Lots of good flavors. I think I'm getting the hang of this eating-vegetables-thing. Because it looked like a pile of plants, I tell you; to every fiber of my being, it looked like a pile of plants. But it actually tasted like food. I used the ichiban eggplant (long and thin), and its dark purple skin turned green while cooking. Ratatouille would be great over pasta or rice, but I enjoyed mine plain.

As for my gargantuan zucchini? Oven fried zucchini sticks, just as planned. I used the most basic recipe I could find, based on the ingredients I already had in my kitchen. This was, surprisingly, amazingly delicious. I was concerned, not being the biggest squash fan. I did not peel my zucchini because I do not discriminate against skin, but I must say, the sticks without skin were the best. But the skin did keep the sticks with skin from breaking. Mmmm:

I ate the whole plate.

Today's bounty

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:26:00 +0000

Today I picked one zucchini, one ichiban eggplant, one whopper eggplant, one super banana pepper, several super chili peppers, and two tomatoes from my vegetable garden:

It's always amazing to me when things I grew in my garden look just like the real ones that you buy at the store.

Tonight I plan to make one of the following:
Roasted Eggplant and Tomatoes With Parmesan Cheese
Stuffed Eggplant With Tomatoes
Baked Eggplant and Tomatoes
Ratatouille
Stuffed Eggplant with Tomatoes and Butter

This recipe is calling to me strongest, though. It appeals to my "My, that salad was good, now I need a sandwich" tendencies:

Eggplant Patties
Do you have any other ideas for things I can make with eggplants and tomatoes, and/or any of the following (ingredients I already have): zucchini, peppers (green, red, banana, hot, etc), cheese, rice, pasta?

There is also the option to just grill 'em up, of course.

A dining room of distinction

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:55:00 +0000

Or ... squalor no more!

Remember this? Wait, wait ... if you don't feel like linking, here's a reminder of what happened to the first floor of my house on June 24:

That situation came to be because I was having some work done on my basement, some work for which I had to empty the basement's contents. In other words, my basement exploded into the rest of my house. Specifically, my dining room became unusable, and because the dining room connects the kitchen to the living room, it's really the main thoroughfare of the house, so my most-used hallway became nearly impassable.

My house is not large. It's a good size for a single person like myself, but it really is difficult to get around corners with two greyhounds and an underfoot cat constantly in tow. There are, from time to time, collisions, resulting in barks, yelps, and lingering moans. So when I had to stack all that crap in my dining room and surrounding areas, it actually depressed me. It seriously affected me in a way that was perceptible to others for some time. It was so horrendous being anywhere on the first floor of my house that I didn't even bother to clean around the crap, stating that once I cleared out the area again I would give it a thorough cleaning. So I've lived not only in the midst of crap stacks but also mounds of dust bunnies and animal hair for the past seven weeks.

But not anymore. As of last weekend, my dining room is crap- and crud-free! Take a look and see for yourself:

I am now going to appreciate and utilize my dining room like I have never appreciated and utilized my dining room before. It really is a privilege to have a room like this in which I can sit, read, eat, relax, and gaze out the window at the tippy tops of my tomato plants. And I shall now treat it as such.

One more for the road:

Is cold fueling my cold?

noreply@blogger.com (Jen S.) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:21:00 +0000

So I've had this cold/flu thing for two weeks. It's not actually bad. I don't even have a fever. But it's the kind of thing that keeps you up all night coughing (and I do mean YOU, if you're anywhere near me, though to be fair there aren't that many YOUs sleeping in my house, and anyway, my main concern is ME) and keeps me tired and sluggish all day. And then there's the throat-on-fire thing. A few recent days have passed where I've gotten nothing done at all, save the bare essentials. (The bare essentials consisting mainly of feeding the dogs and letting them into the yard to potty. Because cleaning up dog pee inside is a worse thing than dragging my sluggish ass out of bed to open the back door for them.)

And so while lying in bed, waiting for the Tivo to fast forward between episodes of Law & Order, I have time to look around and think. And right now I'm thinking: should I close my windows? We've been having an unbearably gorgeous summer here in Chicago ... except for the humidity, that is ... but the temperature has been wonderful. Wonderful in that it's 80-90 degrees during the day, as a proper summer should be, but 60-70 at night. Nowhere near hot enough to cause the house to overheat. So at home, the practice is: open the windows at night, close them (and the window shades) during the day, if it's hot. You barely even need to turn on the A/C ... if it weren't for the humidity. And lately, the days have been drier and no A/C has been required at all during the day.

So, for the past couple weeks, my windows have been open all day and all night. It's constantly breezy, and at night, that breeze is blowing in air that gets down to the low 60s. Every now and then, an upper 50. Which has made me wonder: might I not be as sick if I'd just close my windows and keep the temperature constant in here?

I've long screamed from the rooftops that you don't catch a cold from being cold. But you have to admit that there is something about temperature change, about cold breezes, about breathing cold air at night. It gives you the sniffles.

But all winter long I yearn for the days when I can open up the house. When I can leave the big, heavy doors ajar and have nothing but screens between myself and the outdoors. So I hate to miss even a day of that.

Right now it's 75 in my bedroom, and 66 outside. It's 9:30 p.m. It's time for my slug of a body to get some rest. It's still cooling down outside. Inside, the heat from the lights and the computer will soon be gone. I eye the window much like, on any normal day, I'd eye the Stairmaster. Knowing that there is something I should get up and do. But tonight I don't resist a workout; I resist closing that window.