Savor the Process

So, I’m becoming the Freecycle master. I’d forgotten how handy the freecycle listserve can be when you’re trying to get rid of things. I never use it for acquiring things…it seems that the list administrators never accounted for that possibility when they wrote up the etiquette suggestions. Most of the suggestions pertain to how you have to give IN ADDITION TO taking stuff from the list. I, on the other hand, use freecycle almost exclusively to unload useless junk. It seems that users should be required to accept other people’s junk occasionally too.

Anyway, so far, I’ve actually given away my tube sand and a laptop stand for holding one’s laptop at eye-height. Currently listed are: a recliner and six plastic hanging-file boxes. I also have an air mattress listed on craigslist, but I’m hoping to actually get money for that one. Come on, junk collectors!

It feels like I just moved recently, possibly because I did. Let’s recap the last calendar year: this time last year, I was living in Champaign, IL. I then moved to Hollister, MO. After I fled Missouri, I moved to Ithaca, NY. Finally, at the end of this month, I’ll be moving to Baton Rouge, LA. Hopefully, I’ll be able to settle down for awhile now.

We’ve been pretty busy attending to moving issues. Most of this stuff is BNB’s, but I’m thinking ahead to when we have to pack up my things, which are still in storage. Here’s the plan: we sell/give away enough stuff in New York to allow us to drive our two cars plus one trailer down to Illinois. In Champaign, we’ll drag all of BNB’s stuff out of the trailer, turn it in to U-Haul, and then take delivery of a trailer from ABF UPack. They deliver a trailer, you load it and secure it, then when you call them, they come and haul it to your destination. So, we’ll pack the trailer with all of our stuff and send it off to Baton Rouge. Then we drive our two cars down at our own leisurely pace. Sounds tiring.

The baby steps are going well, though. Today alone, we’ve managed to get rid of two things, via Craigslist and Freecycle. We unloaded a broken desk (full disclosure…they wanted it anyway) and two 60 lb. bags of sand that I was using as ballast in my truck bed. I won’t be needing it in BR, I guess.

BNB packed some boxes with books already, so things are clicking right along. I’m in charge of posting items online for disposal, so I’m trying to keep up with the list of Stuff to Unload. I hope I don’t have to move again for at least a whole year.

Oh, and my last day at P&C was yesterday. I made some good work friends there, so I’ll miss counting the hours with Tracy and Leila. They are funny people.

I had a strange dream that I’ll post here, in a sort of cop-out posting. I’ll also copy it into the dream blog, but it’ll be the same thing:

I dreamed that BNB and I had moved to what I believe was Tulsa (where I grew up). Because he had a job there, I was looking around for something as well and found myself standing in line in the academic advising office of the law school at my undergrad university. Apparently, I’d decided to look into law school as the next logical step in my career path. I stood in line, waiting to talk to one of the career counselors. The next available one turned out to be a man who, though younger than me, appeared older because he was wearing an expensive suit, lots of cologne, and a big gold tie tack and ring. He was florid and slightly fat and he puffed as we went into his office to chat about law school. His office had these very low couches and we sat down to talk. He was very excited about the prospect of me entering law school and wanted me to tell him all about why I was considering that path. Abruptly, though, he started talking about why he had decided to be a lawyer. He went on and on, and as I tuned him out, I watched the people standing in the line outside his office. They were young and carried backpacks.

• BNB is home (yay!)
• I’m in my final week at P&C, having given my notice exactly two weeks before I wanted to leave
• I really, really want to visit Iceland someday
• The weather has been oppressively hot and humid, but an all-day rain cleared it out, if only temporarily
• Only two weeks (give or take) until the big move to Red Stick
• I’m in the middle of my copyediting job, back to obsessing over commas and semicolons
• I think I want to be a copyeditor when I grow up
• The deadline is quickly approaching, so I need to get going

Because you enjoyed Lone Star, we’re sure you’ll enjoy Classical Baby: The Art Show.

Lone Star: When two men discover a human skull and an encrusted badge buried near a small Texas border town, the investigation of lawman Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) reveals a 40-year-old murder in director John Sayles‘ acclaimed drama. Sam’s late father, the former sheriff (Matthew McConaughey, in flashbacks), is a town legend, and Sam’s discoveries threaten to tarnish his dad’s reputation and touch the lives of nearly everyone in the community. [Just FYI, this is a great movie. I love Chris Cooper.]

Classical Baby: The Art Show: Some of the greatest, most iconic artworks ever created are on display in this fun and educational program for kids. A soothing (and appropriate) backdrop of classical music provides a fitting soundtrack as works by masters such as Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock and the forerunner to all modern painting, Vincent van Gogh, are unveiled. Enable the “artist within” to come out via this exciting video that helps youngsters learn about art.

How does this follow????

Last night, I met my friends for a drink after the sun went down and it had cooled off. We went to a neighborhood bar near their house, which is only a few blocks down the street. The bar is inside an old house in the neighborhood, with more or less of the existing rooms still in use, which creates an interesting maze-like interior. In one front room is a pool table, in the other is the bar and a few tables and a lot of TVs. Most of the customers were congregated in here, watching the Yankees game (very enthusiastically).

We sat down and Stefan went to order us some beers. At this point, several things happened: a guy at the bar (inebriated) recognized me from my job at P&C; another guy (also inebriated) asked Stefan if he was gay; Guy Number 1 came over to our table to say hello, and introduced us to Guy Number 2, who turned out to be his dad. Suddenly, Guy Number 2 felt that he had to explain and apologize for the gay remarks, and so spent a lot of time attempting to return to the Yankee game but realizing he had forgotten (or failed) to make some small point in his apology. He’d then return to our table, or just shout over the sound of the TVs: “AND WHEN I SAID I WASN’T SURE IF THIS WAS A GAY BAR, I DIDN’T MEAN THAT I WOULDN’T GO TO A GAY BAR. I ONLY MEANT THAT IF THIS WAS A GAY BAR, I MIGHT HAVE GONE INTO IT WITHOUT KNOWING WHETHER IT WAS OR NOT.”

Anyway, since I now had a friend in the bar, we received a bit of attention throughout the evening (HEY, SHE WORKS AT P&C! SEE, EVERYBODY? I KNOW HER FROM P&C!). We also got to hear the best jokes and updates on the Yankee score (MOTHERFUCKER! HOW COULD YOU SWING AT THAT?!). One of the more amusing jokes was when Guy Number 1 staggered over to our table and said, without preamble, “Wanna see a penny screwin’ a nickel?” Before we had a chance to wipe the blank stares from our faces, he showed us a penny, a screw, and a nickel in his hand. Very good.

Eventually, we discovered a back room in the bar where the sound system didn’t have speakers (goodbye “Sweet Home Alabama”) or TVs and we could have a nice conversation, which was fun. But it didn’t have the glamor of the bar.

At P&C:

“Hello, how are you?”

“Fine, how are you?”

“Good, thanks. Do you have your P&C shoppers club card?”

“Oh, I sure do, honey. I don’t want to miss any of those deals. By the way, those hot dogs should be ringing up as buy three and get one free.”

“Right. Paper or plastic?”

“Well, I’d like each of my grocery items individually double bagged in plastic bags, please. And I’ll grab another handful from the rack on my way out for mysterious purposes that I choose not to reveal.”

“Ok. And do you need this pack of Trident bagged as well?”

“Double bagged, please. I don’t want the bag to break on my way from the car to the house.”

“Ok. How will you be paying?”

“I’ll be using a combination of WIC checks, personal checks, food stamps, and $.87 in pennies. In short, all the methods of payment that take longest and are most subject to error.”

“Great. Wait, where are you going?”

“Oh, I forgot to get the beef jerky. I’ll be right back.”

*5 minutes elapse*

“Ok. Here’s the beef jerky. The tag on the shelf says that if I buy ten jars of mayonnaise, I get two packs of beef jerky and a box of dryer sheets for thirty-five cents off. Can you scroll through my 80 items on the screen and see if the computer subtracted that thirty-five cents?”

“Sure, here it is. See, after I rang up the ten jars of mayonnaise, the beef jerky, and the dryer sheets, the computer subtracted $.35.”

“Great. That’s sure a good deal. You should get some yourself ’cause this promotional ends today.”

“Yeah, maybe after I get off work today. Ok, here are all of your receipts from your various methods of payment.”

“Oh, shit. I forgot to get cigarettes. Ok, I need two packs of Newport 100s and three packs of…(HEY, DWAYNE, WHAT DO YOU WANNA SMOKE THIS WEEK?)…ok, whatever are the cheapest cigarettes you’ve got.”

“Ok, five packs of cigarettes with tax comes to $35.42.”

“I’ll be paying with food stamp cash and spare change.”

“Ok, thank you. Have a nice afternoon.”

“Thanks, you too. Can I have those double bagged?”

Girl 1: Who’s that girl, the one with the baby?

Girl 2: Oh, Jasmine. Yeah, I associated with her for, like, a second. But now she’s in jail.

A few points:

• We caught two shoplifters at work on Sunday: two girls, sisters, about ages 12 and 13. They drank half of a vitamin water and left it on the shelf, filled their pockets with Little Debbies, and tried to pay for one Twix. The manager had been watching them, though, and after confronting them, he called their mom. I guess when she showed up to pick them up, she was PISSED. Ray (manager) said that her first words were, “What the FUCK were you thinking? Your summer is OVER!”
• I took out the recycling yesterday, finally. I also cleaned the kitchen floor, a major undertaking.
• I watched the entire first disc of Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth…*sigh*). Then I had strangely Victorian dreams all night, filled with elaborate dresses and a lot of courtesying.
• Last night, the temperature got into the 50s. I had to get up and put a blanket on the bed.
• Barring any unforeseen mishaps, I may have rented a house in Baton Rouge yesterday. I spent a long, hot day running around Ithaca (walking, really), from Kinko’s to post office to Kinko’s to home to post office again. I think, however, that in the process I may have actually signed a lease and mailed off a deposit.
• I really want new earrings…my usual ones seem to be irritating my ears lately.
• I got my Economic Stimulus Payment from George Bush the other day. I sent it straight off to Visa. I stimulated the economy last fall when I had to buy tires for my car, so you can’t say that I don’t do my part.
• I just learned that I’m off work on July 4th, which is nice, but I also learned that the city of Ithaca puts on their fireworks display on July 2nd, which is when I’m working. What’s up with that?? July 2nd? And the 4th is on a Friday night this year, too. Makes no sense to me.

Also, because Daniel asked, here’s what I did in my latest attempt at bengan bartha.

It seems that most of my mistakes in the bengan bartha department have been texture-related, so this time I baked that eggplant for almost 2 hours, turning it about every 30 minutes. It was collapsing, wrinkly, and oozing liquid when I took it out. (I used two smallish to medium-ish eggplants.) I scraped the insides out of the skin and tried to mash up the pulp with a fork. It still seemed kind of stringy, though.

I sauteed 1/2 of a biggish onion until it was getting soft, added garlic, ginger, and one minced jalapeno pepper and continued cooking for a bit more. I added the following spices, from most to least, though I didn’t measure: cumin, coriander, turmeric, cardamom, garam masala. I didn’t add cayenne pepper, since I had added a whole jalapeno.

After the spices had fried for a minute, I added a can of diced tomatoes (no salt added) and cooked that for a few minutes. It wasn’t looking tomato-y enough, though, so I added about 1/2 a can of tomato paste. Then I stirred in the eggplant mash and some more water so it could cook without burning. I added S&P and let it simmer for 20-30 minutes. I checked it and it still looked kind of stringy, so I decided to puree it.

I put it all through the blender, though in retrospect, I probably should have only done about half of it. It tasted right, but the texture is still wrong. As I tasted it for salt, I noticed that it was a bit up front in my mouth, so I added a couple pinches of sugar to even out the background. That helped, I think, but it’s still not perfect.

I think what it’s missing is richness, so I might try adding coconut milk to my next attempt. I realize that I should be adding ghee, but I can’t bring myself to purchase a whole jar of it, knowing that I’ll probably use it once a year. When I served it this time, I stirred in some yogurt, which tasted good. I didn’t have any cilantro, or I’d have used some of that too.