Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

From kitanzi.

1. Reply to this post and I will pick five of your icons.

2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose if you damn well feel like it.

3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.

4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

( Kitanzi asked about these icons a few weeks ago. )

I spent most of the afternoon checking the weather reports. I left around 5:30. I took side streets to get home. There was a wreck about 2-3 miles away from home that I was able to navigate around. I pulled into a Steak & Shake for dinner, and the parking lot was like an ice rink. One car had its rear wheels in a gulley and couldn't get out. After dinner, I took it slow and was able to get out, only to find the hotel parking lot had also turned into an ice rink. My car slid into the curb. I eventually managed to park in a parking spot.

Now the ice has melted, and it's still raining out. Let's hope it stays rainy, and doesn't freeze.

Shout-outs: Happy biorthday filkart!

This morning, I called the Help Desk and received both my domain and Lotus Notes accounts. I met one of the project managers, and he walked me around to meet the team members while they were stress-testing the most recent version of the system. I also started my internal training by reading an electronic copy of "The Red Book", which is $CLIENT's ethics and compliance document. I plan to do required training for the next couple of weeks.

The drive home was an adventure. We were getting freezing drizzle, and the highways were like parking lots as we all moved slowly and cautiously down the road.

Some more bullet points:

* I'm gazing over I-70 westbound, and there's still a lot of traffic. No matter what time I'm looking at the highway, there seems to be light to moderate traffic where I am.

* Indianapolis water tastes funny. Maybe its the hardness of the water, or the chlorine. Or I'm used to drinking filtered water.

* Living a minimalist lifetyle gets boring very fast. There's nothing for me to do, except catch up on my reading and watch TV. Maybe that's why I chose to surround myself with stuff. But I do feel like there's a load off my mind.

* Lots of Colts fans in Indy. Well, duh. They're having a great season. I can't say the same for the Bengals.

A couple of days ago, one of my neighbors asked me to be their designated driver for a dinner gathering on Saturday night. I agreed.

Today, the weather in Dayton was snowy. I didn't feel like driving long distances today. And so I didn't make it to the scheduled housefilk up near Ann Arbor, MI. Instead, I ran a few errands, did laundry, and spent a relatively lazy day around the house. It was another good day to stay at home and drink tea.

Despite the weather, I fulfilled my commitment to be my neighbors' designated driver. As a way of saying thank you, they gave me a gas card.

Last night, I heard on the local weather forecast that the roads would be icy this morning. Sure enough, we have snow on the ground, and probably some ice underneath it.

These are the times I like being unemployed. I can stay at home and sleep in. Except that my body had other ideas this morning. So I made a few cups of tea in the coffeemaker, and took some with me to the computer, where I caught up on email and LJ.

I'm not planning on going anywhere today, so I'll just stay in my sweats, and think about things I'd like to get if I had the money to purchase them.

As mentioned in a previous entry, I'd been wanting to make that cranberry relish that Susan Stamberg talks about every year on National Public Radio. In past years, I'd buy the ingredients and never make the dish. This year was different.

I had some spare time on Friday afternoon, so I went to the local Kroger to pick up the ingredients I needed: raw cranberries and sour cream. I already had the horseradish, sugar, and onion. The cranberries were placed in a food processor to chop them up. The onion was peeled , sliced, and run through the Veg-O-Matic. I added the horseradish, the sour cream, and the sugar, and mixed them all together. I then spooned the mixture into a 1-quart container for freezing, and put the container in the freezer. This morning, I took it out of the freezer and put it in the refrigerator. When it had thawed enough to eat, I tried a spoonful.

I liked it.

The tartness of the cranberries is balanced by the sweeetness of the sugar, the creaminess of the sour cream, the zing of the horseradish, and the pungency of the onion. The flavors all meld together nicely, like a cranberry-onion chutney.

Would I make it again? Absolutely. But I'd only share it with people who are adventureous enough to try it.

A few days ago, athenawindsong invited me to spend Thanksgiving with her and her parents if I was still in Dayton that day. So I took her up on her offer. We watched TV, played cards, talked, and had a yummy feast of turkey, stuffing muffins, asparagus, zucchini, rolls, and wine. And we had a wonderful peach cobbler for dessert.

We were going to watch Kung Fu Panda on DVD after the meal, but there was a manufacturing defect in the DVD: there was a particle of something that was underneath the laminated surface of the DVD, rendering it unplayable. So we watched part of the Thorn Birds instead. I remember this created such a buzz when it was first broadcast 25 years ago, mosly among the womenfolk.

It is good to have friends.

Today I plan to stay at home. I may make a run to the hardware store to get bird seed and glue sticks for my glue gun, or to the grocery store to pick up some food.

...and I should be among friends tonight. Instead, I'm home alone, with the TV, computer, and two cats.

A friend wrote about their loneliness and ennui in their LJ today. I will do the same.

Deep down inside, I'm a lonely person. I seem to have a hard time obtaining and retaining friends. Many such friends turn out to be circumstantial. I'm so used to the feeling of loneliness that I've become accustomed to it, or even numb to it.

I can feel lonely in a sea of people. I can feel lonely with one person around.

But at least I'm no longer needy about my loneliness, as I was years ago. I can be confortable being alone.

Maybe that explains my affinity for solitary projects and pursuits, such as computer work, filing/packratting, and collecting things. I invent things to do to keep my mind occupied.

Shout-outs: Happy brthday to tarkrai and to decadentdave!

Once again, LyricsFreak comes through....

( Don't Give Up )