Christian's back
After two months apart, we are once again reunited as of Saturday night. It's great having him back and around the house -- my sense of what I can accomplish in a day has gone up tremendously now that I feel (whether or not it's true on a particular day or not) that the load has been shared with another person and it's not just me doing everything.
It also helps that the REU finished on Friday, so I've also lost a major time commitment. I'll post more on that separately.
Sunday we spent relaxing, doing some light grocery shopping and stopping at Best Video for coffee. I cooked a fine salmon for dinner, but I changed up the recipe from last time, swapping out an ingredient (bell peppers) that I didn't think added much flavor and replacing it with ingredients (fennel and a little spring onion) that I thought would add far more flavor. The end result, however, was that this salmon was far blander than the previous one. I may also have overcooked it a little. The fennel lost its flavor entirely, but the spring onion was an excellent idea and I regret not putting more of it in. I served a pinot noir with the meal, which was a little bit of a mismatch in flavors. Christian found the wine completely dull, but I tasted a lot of subdued strawberry and aromatic woods. He couldn't drink much anyway because of his asthma, which has been bad since he left Mexico in June.
Monday we took Carmen to the vet. Constipation has been alleviated, though her itchiness is still present. Today we dropped off a urine sample and it turns out she has a UTI. Sigh. She's going to be put on antibiotics and then will have another urine test in two weeks. These vet bills are really starting to add up.
Monday we also stopped at an estate sale in New Haven. I thought we'd surely have great pickings because it was a one-day sale, starting at noon on a Monday. Who would have time to go shopping? But when we got there at 12:30, most of the items had already been sold. Nonetheless, the things we wanted were still unsold and so we bought two large 6ft x2ft x2ft bookshelves (not wood, but still a solid particle-board construction) and a Mikasa china set for 12 with dinner plates, lunch plates, bowls, tea cups, saucers, a sugar bowl and cream pitcher with only two items missing. These are two things that we've been meaning to acquire for a while, so we're pretty happy with the results.
It also helps that the REU finished on Friday, so I've also lost a major time commitment. I'll post more on that separately.
Sunday we spent relaxing, doing some light grocery shopping and stopping at Best Video for coffee. I cooked a fine salmon for dinner, but I changed up the recipe from last time, swapping out an ingredient (bell peppers) that I didn't think added much flavor and replacing it with ingredients (fennel and a little spring onion) that I thought would add far more flavor. The end result, however, was that this salmon was far blander than the previous one. I may also have overcooked it a little. The fennel lost its flavor entirely, but the spring onion was an excellent idea and I regret not putting more of it in. I served a pinot noir with the meal, which was a little bit of a mismatch in flavors. Christian found the wine completely dull, but I tasted a lot of subdued strawberry and aromatic woods. He couldn't drink much anyway because of his asthma, which has been bad since he left Mexico in June.
Monday we took Carmen to the vet. Constipation has been alleviated, though her itchiness is still present. Today we dropped off a urine sample and it turns out she has a UTI. Sigh. She's going to be put on antibiotics and then will have another urine test in two weeks. These vet bills are really starting to add up.
Monday we also stopped at an estate sale in New Haven. I thought we'd surely have great pickings because it was a one-day sale, starting at noon on a Monday. Who would have time to go shopping? But when we got there at 12:30, most of the items had already been sold. Nonetheless, the things we wanted were still unsold and so we bought two large 6ft x2ft x2ft bookshelves (not wood, but still a solid particle-board construction) and a Mikasa china set for 12 with dinner plates, lunch plates, bowls, tea cups, saucers, a sugar bowl and cream pitcher with only two items missing. These are two things that we've been meaning to acquire for a while, so we're pretty happy with the results.