Things I Love: Installment 1

Have you ever realized in the middle of doing something or enjoying something that you really LOVED that thing - whatever it was - that you were partaking or participating in right then and there? Of course you do. Or at least I HOPE you do. I'm going to post some of mine here and there as they come to me. This is Things I Love: Installment 1:

1. Dogs. Especially my dog, Howie, who just woke up from a nap, stretched, nearly fell off of the couch, caught himself, yawned, gave me some kisses, and curled back up to nap some more . But in general? Dogs rule.
2. Beer. Cold, icy, tasty beer. I love beer of all sorts: stouts, lagers, ales, pilsners...just BEER. But not the crap American beer, and by crap American beer I primarily mean the ones you see advertised during a Sunday football game. Except Sam Adams. Sam can stay. He's cool
3. Books. There is nothing quite so comforting, entertaining and just wonderful as reading a good book.
   
4. Cheese. Lordy lordy, I do love cheese. Tonight I had some dill havartie - creamy creamy dilly havarti. But I don't discriminate amongst cheese, either. I'll eat it all.
   

That's enough for tonight. Thankfully all four of these lovely things are readily available to me pretty much at all times. Lucky me. :-)

Just Can't Win: The Story of the Ultimate Curmudgeon

I enjoy read Slate.com, so much so that it holds a prized position in my Google Reader, and one of my favorite columns to read is Thursday's "Dear Prudence." In one of Prudie's (as her regular readers fondly call her) responses, she references Joseph Epstein's article "The Kindergarchy" in The Weekly Standard.

Curious to the applicability of Epstein's article to Prudie's response I navigated my wee little self on over to the article itself. Yes, yes...this means I actually READ part of TWS. I know. The gist of this guy's article is that recent years have demonstrated a shift in family attitudes to have familial life completely centered around kids, and a bit of nostalgia about how Epstein himself was raised. Whereas I think Epstein has some good points regarding the excess parents can shower upon kids, he criticizes current parents to comical proportions that even the curmudgeoniest curmudgeon you know would be proud of. This is, of course, after writing over half his article about how wondrous his own childhood was...the irony of which instead of being guilty about raving and obsessing over his children's upbringing, he raves and obsesses about his own.

From his article: "The names Mackenzie and Gideon are a reminder of how important the naming of children has become under the Kindergarchy. No more Edward, Robert, David, when you can have Luc, Guthrie, and Colby; no more Jane, Barbara, Lois, when Lindsay, Courtney, and Kelsey are available. Sometimes, in the naming of children, there is a dip back to the deliberately out-of-date--Jake and Max, Emily and Becky--but such names are tainted by an historical falsity..."

So....apparently you are supposed to refer to your child as "hey you, kid!" lest you become too trendy or too falsely modest in naming your child.

In all honestly, I can't say I read the article to the end....the boring self-righteous nature out-weighed the irony.

Home Again, Home Again

Luke gets home tonight! He was in Ireland all week, and is currently waiting for his flight home at JFK! Hurrah! Howie and I have missed him this week.

Because Luke has been gone, I've been trying to leave work early every day and work from home for a chunk every afternoon to spend more time with Howie. My sister checks on the pooch at mid-day, but I leave earlier and get home later than Luke does - especially this week when it's taken me an HOUR to get home every day! Howie has been a little moody without his "papa" around anyway, but it gets to comical proportions when I'm home working. He loves having me HOME, but he *really* wants me to be playing, snuggling and otherwise paying him undivided attention. Currently is lying on the floor next to me, staring up at me with his soulful hound-dog eyes, sighing, moaning, and a bit of crying. Last night he did the same - quickly remedied when I quit for the day and spent a good 1/2 hour snuggling him on the couch.

Of course this behavior only makes me love the dog more - I mean, C'MON, think about how NEEDED he makes me feel! It's wonderful. If you don't have a dog, I highly recommend you get one. :-)

WEEDS!

I spent some time weeding tonight, and though I am not a moron clueless of the art of pollination, I must ask myself where all the WEEDS in my garden come from?! How do they prosper in such numbers? Why don't my plants flourish in such a manner? What I've planted is doing well, but if the intended plants were prospering in the same ratio as the inevitable plants are, my tomatoes would be as tall as my garage.

For those of you who love the 90's....

Not Meant For Children

After yet another weekend day spent listening to two of the neighbor boys yell and scream incessantly, I am thoroughly convinced that I am not meant to be around some children. We think this is a great neighborhood, in part because parents feel comfortable letting their kids (and there A LOT of them on my block) roam, however the irony of this is that regardless of what we want to do: relax, entertain, read a book, take a nap, watch a movie, work in our yard, we MUST hear screaming and yelling next door. ALL. DAY. LONG. As I write this it is nearly 4:30 p.m. I will be generous and say the two ~10-yr-old boys started at 10 a.m. this morning. Non-stop. I kid you not. Right now they are yelling "PORTAL HOLE" and L., the boy from the other side of the alley and down a few houses, is doing his patented girlish screech with every "portal hole" found.

Let me explain about this screech, lest you think I am being sexist in describing it as "girlish." This is the highest pitched, hair-raising, nail-on-chalk-board-make-my-dog's-hackles-raise, squeal you have ever heard. When we first moved in last summer, we thought a neighborhood girl had been seriously hurt and were more than a little befuddled when we rushed out of our house to find a tow-headed, buck-toothed boy to be the source of the un-godly noise. He's quite proud of his ability to make such a noise. On the occasions that a few of the neighbor kids are in our yard petting the Howster, I've had to tell him that he CANNOT make the noise in our yard, if he does, he has to leave. I say it's because it agitates Howie, which it does, but honestly it's just the most obnoxious sound I've heard in a long time.

Where are the parents of these children, you may ask? In their houses. Getting sauced. No joke. Occasionally we see them wander out to their garages, toasting us with a beer and shuffling over to chat over the fence. How do we tell them that their kids are THIS close to driving us insane? I say "us," but actually Luke is surprisingly more tolerant, perhaps having been a 10-yr-old boy once himself. He also has a younger sibling. Me at 10? I was either reading or biking...possibly running through the sprinkler with a couple of the neighbor girls. And I'm the youngest in my family. Truthfully, I probably made similar hellion noises. And this is my punishment.

When we first got Howie, the boys delighted in taunting him, poking him with grass, etc. We had zero tolerance for that and told them so immediately. If Howie was barking or howling for 6 1/2 hours straight, my neighbors could call the the city and complain and we could get a noise violation. But is it ever appropriate to gently ask them to SHUT-UP for even ONE blessed hour? No?

See, this is why I fear I am not meant to ever have children.

New Stuff

I purchased the above items online yesterday, and just think they are the darn-purtiest things (and handy to boot....I'm hoping at least). Oh, and I might have purchased the sassy grocery tote, as well. Might have...just maybe...it's a possibility....

LOVE IT!!

Naughty, naughty Howie

Sooooo...Howie ate my bookclub book today. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, I mean, only the back and front (hard)covers are missing and chewed, as well as two pages from the back of the book. But, he did leave all the pages with actual writing untouched, and the dust jacket is PRISTINE - almost as if he carefully removed it before the carnage began. Perhaps he was planning on putting the dust cover back on when he was done, carefully placing the book back on my nightstand, and hope that I wouldn't notice that anything was amiss. As it was, I interrupted him as he was still using the book as his pillow. *Sigh* Naughty, naughty dog.

Limoncello

One more today: I found a recipe for homemade limoncello, which states that homemade is THE best. Before I give this a whirl, has anyone tried to make their own before? AND, does anyone like limoncello? I have a feeling I'm going to have about five bottles at the end of my little experiment.

Screen-Free

We made a new rule in our house: no TV watching or Internet surfing on Tuesday or Friday nights. Essentially, we're "screen-free" those nights (though we are allowed to watch movies together). It stemmed from us finding ourselves mindlessly watching BAD t.v., bored out of our minds. Back before we were married and not living together, Husband canceled his cable. We spent our time at his place reading together, listening to MPR together, watching movies together, playing cards/games together, walking together...notice a theme? So in the midst of our busy lives and the added responsibilities owning a home (and a dog) brings, we wanted to minimize our mindless boob-tube time, and up the time we spent enjoying leisure time together. This also means that I can't post tonight. Which really is why I'm covertly posting today. ;-)

I AM slightly concerned, however, that I am missing the season finale of Hell's Kitchen. I keep telling myself that this break is good for me, that I'll be a stronger, better person because of this. But really, I want Petrozza to win. That lil' chica is too cocky. To be honest, we chose Tuesday and Friday nights primarily because those nights are the nights with the crappiest t.v. Is that cheating? Which nights would you choose to go "screen-free?"

Monday Night Guacamole

*Sigh* - ah, Monday, why must you be so long? I have a longer drive to work, which I just ADORE (20+ miles...one way), which means that on any given evening I get home around 6 p.m. Since we all need a little time to unwind, read: greet and snuggle most adorable husband and most adorable dog, and factor in time it takes to prep and cook even the simplest meal, by the time we actually get around to eating supper any particular night it's around 8 p.m.. Guess who's starving as soon as she walks in the door? ME! Here's something that I like to whip up for a (I tell myself) fairly healthy gnosh before supper. It's quick, easy and not too bad for you!

Janna's Monday Night Guacamole (Serves 4)
2 ripe avocados
juice of 1 small lime
hot sauce
1/3 cup small-dice red onion (or other sweet onion)
1 small-medium tomato (I use one vine-on), seeded, small-dice
kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Cut your avocados. Oh wait, you don't know how? Here's how I do it: take your nice, sharp chef's knife and slice the ripe avocados around length-wise. Twist the halves to separate. Remove the pit by tapping your blade into the pit and twisting. Use a spoon to scoop out the smooth, buttery flesh and plop it into a bowl. Immediately add lime juice and loosely "cut" up avocado with spoon. Add hot sauce (start with 6 dashes), onions, salt and pepper. Stir. Add tomato. Taste and adjust lime juice, hot sauce and salt and pepper until peak of deliciousness is attained. Fresh jalepeno, seeded and deveined (or leave veins in if you want it spicier) and small-diced can be used in lieu of the hot sauce.

I love this as a snack. I don't know that I'll be posting many recipes (I don't want to take my friend Lynn's bag), but after a long Monday and a paltry lunch from my work's crapeteria, this really hit the spot tonight. For the few readers I may have, what is your favorite way to make guacamole? Or your favorite quick-after-work-eat-something-now-so-my-stomach-doesn't-implode snack?

Happy Monday!

P.S. - Who else is excited for Antique Road Show? Just how much of a nerd does that make me?!

My First Blogpost Ever...Sort Of

Welcome to my first blog post EVER....sort of. I mean, it's my first blog aside from my ever-so-brief flirtation with livejournal (whatever happened to that site? Note to self: must search and destroy.) and my longer affair with Xanga. Whoo-boy do those Xanga posts get self-righteous, and heated...but then, by-and-large, so are blogs.

Livejournal was my first brief foray into blogging during my college years...I think I made A post. Xanga was my "just-out-of-college-and-I'm-so-hip-know-it-all" phase. Here you would find a lot of "quizes" that were insightful to my deep, dark personality, summarized nicely in a "What Disney Princess Are You?" format, a bunch of liberal ranting (don't worry, I'm still liberal...as if you cared), some really sarcastic and probably insensitive posts and comments (because I was a fiery-know-it-all recent college grad...not that all recent college grads are...but I was) and I believe some nostalgic posts here and there. Both times, as with this blog, I was persuaded into the blogging world by friends - different sets of friends each time.

So what is different about THIS blog? WELL, this is my "I'm an adult now with real responsibilities (husband, house, dog, career) and I know just enough now to know I don't know anything" blog. AND I was persuaded by my bookclub friends, so maybe it's more literary? Nah, more likely this will just reflect what I actually like after about 10 years (or 30) figuring it out and deciding to embrace it: reading and cooking/baking, primarily and perhaps some social commentary and personal updates on the side.