Dog versus Junior Bacon Cheeseburger

To keep you amused while I drag Pants to Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.
(warning: contains graphic images of a dog eating food)

Also? After 14 months of couch-free living, the new sofa will be delivered hopefully within a week. Woo!

Stop and smell the bandwagon

I think this may very well be my fifth (and final) post for the month of February. It's a long month, I may as well have extra posts.

Of course five posts in February is a ballpark estimate. I could go and actually count my posts, but where would the fun in that be? There I go, justifying laziness as whimsy! Try it, it's fun.

This month has involved much contemplation on the topic of food. Not as in what should I eat to help me lose that 989123 lbs. I'd like to lose some, but more by way of feeding Pants and I healthily, thoughtfully, and deliciously. I've still been ever so obsessed by thoughts and chapters and meals in Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Reading Sarah's thoughts and challenges on eating locally, taking the plunge and chucking all the processed food out to make room for the good stuff invigorates me. Even more so, reading her posts on the Dinner Guest Blog (especially this one) start to light a fire under me.

But...

And there's always a but. I'm looking at my checking account. I'm thinking of the time I spend waiting for the shuttle, then the Metro, then the Bus and the idea of going to the grocery store seems so horrifying. I see the free range, grass-fed meats and eggs and dairy products. I even found a dairy that delivers to DC, heard of a bodega selling local foods at 200 Rhode Island NW. My landlord says I can grow potted tomatoes and chiles in the back yard this summer! I think of the rows and rows of diced tomatoes and tomato sauce that I will have canned to last me through the winter.

But...

That threshold isn't easily crossed. My bargain hunter thinks of the half-gallons of milk that cost $3.50 that are from happy cows who wander around pastures eating grass and contemplating entropy and doesn't want to justify the purchase when I could get a gallon for $3.79. I see the organic chicken who eat worms and beetles and grass and peck at the dirt and wander around but notice that it's $11 for 0.80 lbs when I could get Purdue chicken for $6.00. I open my cabinets and see the lovely, healthy boxes of Pacific Organic broths and soups - organic and gluten-free that have been driven conveniently to Silver Spring, MD from the exotic, far-flung land of Tualatin, OR.

The gluten. That's the other issue. I don't have a lick of gluten in my house.

[Okay, that's a lie. Ernie's food (made of fish and potatoes since he, like his mama, has food and skin allergies) has salmon as the number one ingredient. However, he has barley as the number two ingredient.]

Going gluten-free is better for me. I feel better, I'm happier with my choices at home. i make more foods from scratch and experiment with alternative grain flours. (However, I'm not so gluten-free outside the confines of my humble abode. That's my other issue to conquer) The fact of the matter is Bob's Red Mill is, like so many other wonders, in the Pacific Northwest. 'Cause You're Special is also not all that nearby (Wisconsin). There's also the issue that if I want to bake cookies or bread or birthday cake without gluten, I've got to add xanthan gum to the mix or it will all fall apart. Xanthan gum. You may know it as a thickener in your processed food. That's not part of "natural." So, I can't go to a local grist mill and get some whole wheat, stone-ground flour. I need to get mixtures of rice and starch and exotic things called quinoa and amaranth and millet.

It's clearly not going to be all-local, all the time around here. But I'm trying. The urge is there. It's crossing over into my purchases.

I picked up some garlic, saw the "Product of China" label and put it back down.
I made chicken stock from the leftover carcass of my roast chicken the other night and used it in Esau's soup for dinner tonight. Instead of buying injera from the Ethiopian bodega around the corner, I made it (almost comically dismally) from scratch - I started fermenting the teff and water on Wednesday and by tonight it was wonderfully sour. My coffee is Brazil Organic Fair Trade from Peaberry (okay, it was "local-ish" because I was in Denver when I bought it).

It's a process, and it just won't be 100%. But for me, for us, it doesn't need to be. We have our vices that we're allowing. For me, the biggest is coffee. And until I can grow coffee beans in Columbia Heights, I will work hard to forgo the Dunkin' Donuts in the grocery aisle and support the small farmers who are paid a fair wage for their labors (and make a damn fine yergacheffe... business practices aside, Starbucks can do the right thing!) I will use less and less white rice flour and gravitate toward whole grain flours (sorghum, teff, brown rice, buckwheat, millet) and experiment and play. I will work hard to find a CSA to support local, organic farmers. I will sit down and make a budget that allows me to spend extra on healthy, organic animal products, even if that means - gasp - less yarn. I will clean out my friggin pantry and put some order into it and throw out what doesn't have an expiration date, to make room for the canning I will start this summer.

It's hard for me to recognize that it won't be 100% out of my own backyard all of the time, but I will stop and be grateful for what I can do.

hello? bloggy mojo? are you there?

Every so often The Pants will say to me, "you haven't been blogging lately. It's been a while since your last post."

Ain't that the truth.

Not to mention, the only thing that's been keeping me going lately is the ability to post pictures. But since the demise of my sad camera that I was so excited for when I bought it in NYC, even though I couldn't stand the damn thing, my blogivation has been waning and waning.

But I'm not ready to make a public declaration that I Am Quitting The Blog, so I'm going to post when I want about what I want.

Oh wait, I did that anyway.

However, here is my news for today:

I am doing Christmas baking
I have no Christmas tree
I made butter today with cream from Eastern Market
I made in in an early Christmas present from The Pants' Dad (thanks again!)
Ernie is laying on the floor, as is his S.O.P.
Pants and I are going to the movies tonight
I am knitting legwarmers (1.2 down, 0.8 to go!)
I am knitting the Pants' Autobot hat (doubleknit, 3.0mm needles, very slow)
I am taking next week off entirely, and going in on New Year's Eve (seriously?!)

I sort of miss the conception of blogging, but don't have the motivation.

But, dude. I made butter.

Ernie is 8

Ernie is 8, originally uploaded by swandive00.

Eight years ago tonight in November, a hairless blind puppy was born on a horse farm in Winterville, Georgia.

Seven weeks after that, I took him home, and named him Ernie. Since then, he's driven to wherever I've gotten an inkling to move (Georgia to Maine via Ithaca, NY; Maine to California; California to Colorado; Colorado to California where he lived with the Pants and his family; California to the District of Columbia where he lives today.) He's been too rowdy for words, peed in excitement before my friends, played fetch with my mom, delighted and intimidated my dad, and maybe bitten one or two along the way. I have been less than ideal of a friend to him sometimes (he just wanted to play, I just wanted to knit...) for such a sweet, silly high energy mutt. But he's never been anything but extremely devoted and loyal to me.

So today, Ernest P. Givens XVIII (Not his real last name), in honor of you eighth birthday, you are presented with a bacon double cheeseburger, a Nerf basketball backboard, and an unlimited amount of belly rubs.

Ernie gives thanks

Ernie gives thanks for a blurry dinner, originally uploaded by swandive00.

I am a day late and a dollar short. In saying happy Thanksgiving and that I am very thankful.

I started off yesterday taking pictures of my Very First Thanksgiving Dinner that I have ever made. I took pictures of the turkey in process, of the roasting pan with a Built In Rack, of the gluten-free bread (which may or may not have been gluten free...) for the gluten-free stuffing.

However. And there always seems to be a however. I lost my enthusiasm with the blinding migraine that forced me to push away my dinner for fear of tossing my cookies. I did, however take a picture of the spoiled dog's thanksgiving dinner because his begging paid off in the form of turkey, gravy and mashed potatoes on top of his kibble.

And because I went to bed at 8:30 last night after a mid-morning migraine nap that lasted 4 hours, I've been up since 2 am. Today, I am still thankful, and doing laundry and getting ready to pack for my 10 day business trip to Tokyo.

On my Tokyo agenda: Sushi, yarn shopping, avoiding chikan, and I suppose working.

I'm bringing my camera, I'm bringing yarn for the flights. Here's to hoping my needles aren't confiscated.

Things that are good and girly but good nonetheless

• First and foremost, Maryam is coming to town today!!
• We are going to eat Ethiopian food and Persian food and laugh and knit and...
• Have an Anne of Green Gables (The Kevin Sullivan flavor) movie marathon with Pandles.
  
• I finally got a new bedspread and sheet set to replace my polyester "Quick! I just moved to town and it's snowing and I need sheets and a bedspread!" The new one is cotton. And polka dotty. And brownandgreen. And it's from Target. And I am pleased. I also got a mattress pad. The mattress pad is not pictured. And it is wrinkly because I haven't washed it yet and I can't be arsed.
  
  
  
• Ernie is wearing a batman (well Bacardi) bandanna so that he can fight crime.
  

soap. glorious soap.

wowee! with no job you'd think i'd be posting like a maniac!

alas, i'm lazier than a... dang, the redneck expressions aren't coming to me right now. anyhow.

this is what's going on that's good lately:

• the pants. he's a good pants.
• the ernie is a good ernie, too.
• i finished a sock for my mom. i finished one the night before i moved to DC, i finished the other last night. however, i am currently charging my rechargeable batteries which may have been recharged one time too many and so i may still not have pictures until i get more batteries
• i got all my boxes, including my yarn box which is full of yarn which i insured for a grand, but mainly because it would be a major pain to re-enact my yarn stash including needles and notions.
• i still have all my stuff in denver like sofa and winter clothes which isn't the smartest need in the world.
• i love public transportation in DC. it's expensive, liike most things in DC, but still good.
• this is a boring blog post. i fear i've lost my blogging mojo.
• i've considered more than once making this a knitblog only, but don't knit enough for that lately.
• the end.
  

i say, i say

i sold my car at 50% less than i wanted to sell it.

pants and i left on monday.

yesterday, a depressed beagle tried to run in front of our car going 75 mph in texas.

pants swerved and missed it.

ernie's okay.

we're in forrest city, arkansas this morning, where the mobile phone service is spotty, but we have free wi-fi.

more later.

jinxing be damned, i need some good karma

so, i sort of got that job in DC for which i had a phone interview in december and later flew out to interview in person for.

i heard that they want to hire me from the department head, but that HR has to process me and give me the final job offer (within 2-4 weeks of that conversation; we're at about 2.5 weeks). i've also heard that HR has never cut a candidate once they were recommended by the department. that being said, i was in DC last week for another interview (just to cover my bases and whatnot, because although i'm foolish, i'm not completely foolish) and wound up getting an apartment in an amazing neighborhood (hence the somewhat foolishness), with great people in the building.* also, ernie has to move out of pants' house in the next few days, so the pants and i are leaving for DC next week, all without having received a final job offer... which makes me feel VERY nervous (not to mention the driving across the country with the dog and the pants in february), but what can you do? the job is fantastic, and i'm really excited about that, but sort of of trying to couch my stupidity at getting a house and putting a deposit down on it with no concrete job or forseeable start date.

so what to i need from you people inside the webbernets? good karma that HR will call me ASAP. lots of good karma, warm fuzzies, and entreaties of the almighty. please? and also help with packing and shipping.

*interestingly, the woman who owns the house whose basement apartment** i'll be renting is in the same field as me. she works for a different organization, but works very closely with my organization. which is freaky in the good way.

**the ceilings are much higher than in my tiny house basement apartment in denver. they're 8'. and the windows will accomodate a window a/c unit. and there's a fenced backyard with a proper fence. also, there are pics on flickr, to which semaphoria added some helpful notes (mouse over the image).