Tag Archives: food

Work and relaxation with friends

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After I got home mia_mcdavid and I went to colgaffneyis work party to load our newly repaired trailer for the Farmington show this weekend. There were enough people, all in good spirits, so this went well. Just took a while because we had changed how we pack for shows, and twolodge had to rethink how to load the stuff. Since he will be towing the trailer with his truck, he gets to have it loaded just the way he wants :-)>

Afterwards c_nocturnum, her husband, Mia, James, and I went out to dinner at the Bulldog Restaurant a couple miles away. This was a delayed birthday dinner for me. Excellent beer, food, and company. I had a Kobe beef hamburgers (rare) and French fries with Parmesan cheese and truffles. First time I ever had Kobe beef, and it lived up to expectations. Kobe beef and truffles–I was reminded of a line from one of Poul Anderson’s SF stories about Dominic Flandry: “What is the point of living in a decadent age if you don’t know how to enjoy the decadence?”

Good Day

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mia_mcdavid and I spent some time this morning on post-snowstorm house maintenance. We cleared some snow from the deck, and unplugged a downspout that had frozen up. A heat gun and boiling water did the job here.

After that Mia went out to visit redwingkali. I ran some errands, then went home for the rest of the day. I did some hand sewing on a 17th century style coat/doublet to wear at colgaffneyis events, while listening to the Met Opera broadcast(Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra) on Public Radio. I got a lot done, and enjoyed the music. Exactly the kind of afternoon I wanted. Pleasant, productive, and cheap.

After Mia got home I made some hot-and-sour soup for dinner, following (more or less) a recipe we have used for many years. As usual, I had to greatly increase the spice levels for our taste, but after that it was very good. All in all a quiet, but satisfying day.

Diet, Ethnicity, and Heart Disease

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Found at Scéala na Wombait in Irish and English. Here is the English:

The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans.

On the other hand, the French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans.

The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans.

The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans.

Conclusion: Eat and drink whatever you like. It’s speaking English that kills you.

Not quite snowbound

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mia_mcdavid and I were able to shovel out enough of the driveway yesterday morning to get our (smallish) cars out. Our local streets had already been plowed, so we could get around somewhat. We followed what has become our usual Sunday pattern: Pick up Tom at his group home, take him to church with us, then to our house for lunch. After that we relaxed at our place for a while, then took him home.

This worked OK, but the side streets around Tom’s home in Minneapolis had not been nearly as well plowed as those in Roseville, which added considerably to the driving stress there. After taking Tom back I needed a nap.

Mia went out to visit some friends in St. Paul. The side streets there were no better than those in Minneapolis. She made a very nice curried chicken dish for dinner, but we were both quite tired and were asleep before 10. Summary: We coped, but it was hard work.

Saturday

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As so often happens, I was quite tired from the work week last night, and went to bed about 9 PM, sleeping until 8 AM today. The forecasted snowstorm had not yet left much on the ground, so about 10 AM I drove into Minneapolis. As I wrote last month, Irish Books and Media was going out of business. Their lease expires at the end of the month, so today the owners were having a big move-out event. I have been involved in countless moves over the last 35+ years, including two previous bookstore closings. Most of the friends I have helped move have large collections of books, as do Mia and I, so I have a lot of relevant experience :-)>

This was one of the best moving sessions in my experience. There were plenty of people there to help, and lots of tools for taking down the shelves. I helped package several pallet loads of books to be trucked away, took down some furnitures, and hauled lots of boxes, bookshelves, and whatever. I also helped take a truckload of books to Irish on Grand in St. Paul. We got pizza for lunch, as is almost universal at such events. One of the pizzas was Pizza Lucé‘s “Pizza Athena”–the best commercial pizza I have had since we moved to Minnesota. The plan had been to work all day Saturday and Sunday. By 2 PM Saturday we were finishing up, and the owner was cancelling Sunday’s session.

So, with more of an afternoon than I expected, I drove down to c_nocturnum‘s, for colgaffneyis “camp drill”–a sewing and fabric work session today. mia_mcdavid and rillapins were there, along with a couple other members and haddayr, who had just joined. It was a pleasant time.

We are back home now. The much-heralded snowstorm seems to be finally here, but we have done our important weekend things. I am particularly pleased that the bookstore move went so well–they don’t need to worry about tomorrow’s weather. We hope to go to church and visit Tom tomorrow, but if we are snowbound we will be fine.