The semi-eventful weekend
Well, at least in the context of my usual, sit-in-my-room sort of weekend, this one had some stuff going on.
First I got a commission for a peerage scroll, specifically to be trompe l'oeil. Cool! I haven't done one of those in a while, and that sounds like fun. So I started practicing my callig and fiddled around with the wording of the scroll to make the important parts fit. Lots more practice to do.
Today I invited harleenquinzell and zihuatanejo over for dinner. I fixed Lemon-Roasted Chicken (yum!) and a recipe from my new cookbook- Confetti Kale, which was.... interesting. Gorgeous, but interesting. It had a red pepper and some white corn cooked with the kale. Now if the kale weren't so bitter it would have been very good. Oh, well, it sure was pretty! Along with that I was going to serve pasta with an alfredo sauce. I had bought some sauce and thought, hey, why not just heat it in the jar? Well, now I know why NOT to heat it in the jar, and I think I can even guess the physics behind what happened. See, there was this big POP! sound, and then there was pasta sauce allllll over the inside of the microwave. Heh. Dripping off the top, running down the sides... I fear that there may even be sauce inside the vents, which will smell just lovely in a few days. Ewwww. Anyway, I'm guessing that an air bubble formed about halfway down the jar, and had no way to escape. The jar just directed the bubble the only way it could go-- straight up. Whee. At least there was enough left in the jar to coat the pasta, so all was well. Messy, but well. Since that was my fisrt explosion ever in a microwave, I don't feel too bad about it. Oh, yeah-- and for dessert I made one of my mother's apple pies. Yummmm, indeed! I really don't generally care for apple pie, but her recipe is worth making. It was a suitably tasty meal and I'm still stuffed.
Minutes after everyone left, I got a call from Mother. I mentioned the other day that my aunt fell and broke her hip, and I've been waiting for Mother to call and tell me how the surgery went. As it turns out, they haven't been able to do the surgery. When they were examining my aunt, they found out that she has three blockages and needs heart surgery. They won't fix her hip until they get her heart fixed. Tomorrow the doctors are going to make a decision about what to recommend, and then it'll be up to her to make the final decision about what to do. One of the heart doctors told her today that he's worked on 70 year olds who are in worse shape than she is, so I guess that's something. Mother says she's in a great deal of pain and, probably as a consequence, is frequently confused. It doesn't help that in the last month, she's been in three different hospitals and a nursing home.
I have got to get the scroll done enough to take it to Kentucky to draw/paint. I really think I'd have an awful time trying to do calligraphy there, since I get too distracted if there's any talking going on, and since there's a TV playing loudly most all the time at my parents' house. Sigh.
Night, all.
First I got a commission for a peerage scroll, specifically to be trompe l'oeil. Cool! I haven't done one of those in a while, and that sounds like fun. So I started practicing my callig and fiddled around with the wording of the scroll to make the important parts fit. Lots more practice to do.
Today I invited harleenquinzell and zihuatanejo over for dinner. I fixed Lemon-Roasted Chicken (yum!) and a recipe from my new cookbook- Confetti Kale, which was.... interesting. Gorgeous, but interesting. It had a red pepper and some white corn cooked with the kale. Now if the kale weren't so bitter it would have been very good. Oh, well, it sure was pretty! Along with that I was going to serve pasta with an alfredo sauce. I had bought some sauce and thought, hey, why not just heat it in the jar? Well, now I know why NOT to heat it in the jar, and I think I can even guess the physics behind what happened. See, there was this big POP! sound, and then there was pasta sauce allllll over the inside of the microwave. Heh. Dripping off the top, running down the sides... I fear that there may even be sauce inside the vents, which will smell just lovely in a few days. Ewwww. Anyway, I'm guessing that an air bubble formed about halfway down the jar, and had no way to escape. The jar just directed the bubble the only way it could go-- straight up. Whee. At least there was enough left in the jar to coat the pasta, so all was well. Messy, but well. Since that was my fisrt explosion ever in a microwave, I don't feel too bad about it. Oh, yeah-- and for dessert I made one of my mother's apple pies. Yummmm, indeed! I really don't generally care for apple pie, but her recipe is worth making. It was a suitably tasty meal and I'm still stuffed.
Minutes after everyone left, I got a call from Mother. I mentioned the other day that my aunt fell and broke her hip, and I've been waiting for Mother to call and tell me how the surgery went. As it turns out, they haven't been able to do the surgery. When they were examining my aunt, they found out that she has three blockages and needs heart surgery. They won't fix her hip until they get her heart fixed. Tomorrow the doctors are going to make a decision about what to recommend, and then it'll be up to her to make the final decision about what to do. One of the heart doctors told her today that he's worked on 70 year olds who are in worse shape than she is, so I guess that's something. Mother says she's in a great deal of pain and, probably as a consequence, is frequently confused. It doesn't help that in the last month, she's been in three different hospitals and a nursing home.
I have got to get the scroll done enough to take it to Kentucky to draw/paint. I really think I'd have an awful time trying to do calligraphy there, since I get too distracted if there's any talking going on, and since there's a TV playing loudly most all the time at my parents' house. Sigh.
Night, all.