Weekend accomplishments: Welcome to hurricane season
Saturday I made breakfast, then went to CVS and the gas station. Then I went to Michael's, because I've been using my white paint pen a lot and those tend to run out kind of abruptly so I wanted a backup. Then I just decided to buy an entire 48-set of paint pens because they had one for about $20 and fuck it, that's a good deal. Then I went to Rouses.
The house was quiet when I got home because Mom and Phil went out to lunch with a friend who lives up in Alexandria. He's known Phil since he (Phil) was married to Jamie's mother, they were both doctors, and he actually moved to Louisiana a few years before the 'rents did. I don't remember why, he doesn't have family here (he's from India originally and never married so what family he still has is all back there). But anyway, he started working for the VA and he was the one that told Phil he should get in a last few years with them before he retired for good, and that's what he did. Anyway, every once in a while he will drive down and take them out to lunch.
I put away the groceries, took Penny for a walk, and had a few beers while I started the Netflix docuseries Dancing for the Devil. It's about this church/cult I had heard a little bit about, there are a lot of dancers in it and they make TikTok videos and stuff and give all the money to their pastor. I know absolutely nothing about the world of professional dancing, so even just getting a peek into that was interesting. Throw in a cult? Riveting.
David made chicken and mashed potatoes for supper, and afterwards as planned I had a couple of gummies and put on Velocipastor, which turned out to be as stupid and terrible and extremely low budget as I'd hoped, and was also only about 70 minutes. Where a lot of bad movies fail at being so-bad-it's-good is when they just drag on too long; like how Manos: The Hands of Fate isn't actually that funny when you sit down to watch it because like half the movie is the family driving on dirt roads or wandering around a dusty compound while light jazz noodles away in the background.
Okay but 2 things: Velocipastor is clearly meant to be a Catholic priest, not a pastor, and the dinosaur he turns into is clearly modeled on a T-Rex.
I guess they spent all their money on that very convincing dinosaur suit, because this is what we get for the inciting action of the film (Velocipastor's parents getting murdered in a car bomb):
"Look, just use your imagination, we blew the entire effects budget on the dino suit."
Also, not to nitpick, but the joke "Dinosaurs didn't exist, and if they did I didn't turn into one!" doesn't really work if he's Catholic. The Catholic Church has many faults, but they haven't been young earth creationists since like, the Enlightenment. The Pope believes in evolution. The writer of this awful movie should have tried harder!
Sunday I woke up around 3:30 in the morning to find the power had gone out. When I checked my phone I had a text from Entergy but it didn't have an estimated time of repair, which usually means it's going to be out for a while, so I turned on the generator. It was still out when I woke up and made breakfast (pancakes). Mom is always like "Your pancakes are so amazing!" when it's literally just Bisquick. Phil insisted on using this awful brand called "Krusteaz" when I was a kid, which I always thought was a terrible name for any food item, to which you only added water. Even with butter and syrup they were still dry and bland. Bisquick has eggs, oil, and milk to start, and I make the fancy version which also has sugar, vanilla extract, and baking powder so they're extra fluffy. Of course they're better than the pancakes you and Phil made.
Mid-morning I got a text from Entergy saying the estimated time of repair was 10:00 that night and I started praying the diesel would hold out. That seems like a long time! I wondered if it was just because it was Sunday, but then later on that day we found out there'd been some very bad storm damage nearby, and there were tornadoes in Delcambre and Jefferson Island. Delcambre is the next town down LA-14 from us, and Jefferson Island is just past that, so that's scary close.
Our wi-fi was also out, so I read for the rest of the morning, finishing Everything's Eventual and starting The Dark Forest (which luckily I'd already downloaded on my Kindle), the 2nd book in the Three Body Problem series. I had laundry to do, but the washer and dryer use a lot of power so I just did a small load of clothes (I was on my last clean bra). I had a clean pair of sheets ready to go, so at least I was able to change them.
I hadn't felt any particular inspiration for supper this week, so I fell back on a reliable recipe I use a lot, a ravioli dish from the first Real Simple cookbook. You boil them (I usually use mushroom ravioli) like you normally would, then drain them, put them in a casserole dish, pour over some heavy cream and pesto mixed together, throw a handful of shredded cheese--I had some Italian blend so I used that--on top, grate on some pepper, and bake for about 20 minutes. I had garlic bread and salad to go with it. Dessert was a buckeye pie: chocolate crust--I bought a ready-made one--peanut butter, whipped cream, cream cheese, and sugar for the filling; then a thin layer of chocolate ganache (just some semisweet chips nuked with a little heavy cream for 30 seconds) and some roasted peanuts sprinkled on top.
That didn't require a lot of prep, so besides making the 'rents lunch and running to Super One because I forgot to buy more cream at Rouses, I got a lot of reading done. At some point in the afternoon there was another text from Entergy saying their new estimated time of repair was... 5:00 pm Monday. What the fuck!! They should have to reimburse us for the diesel we use. Anyway, spoiler alert, I woke up shortly after midnight needing to pee, and when I checked my phone I'd gotten a text saying power had been restored about an hour earlier, so before going back to sleep I shut off the genny and put us back online. I noticed the wi-fi had also come back.
Sigh. Clearly this is not going to be a dry, uneventful summer like last year. Which, that was not natural, especially not the heat, so I'm not like, nostalgic for it or anything. Like it did feel kinda normal to me, because I'm from California, and as in most of the western states, rain is just not a thing in the summer. But it wasn't normal for here. Anyway, Mom and I have already had a whole text conversation this morning about replacing the diesel we used. I don't want us to be caught unaware this summer.
The house was quiet when I got home because Mom and Phil went out to lunch with a friend who lives up in Alexandria. He's known Phil since he (Phil) was married to Jamie's mother, they were both doctors, and he actually moved to Louisiana a few years before the 'rents did. I don't remember why, he doesn't have family here (he's from India originally and never married so what family he still has is all back there). But anyway, he started working for the VA and he was the one that told Phil he should get in a last few years with them before he retired for good, and that's what he did. Anyway, every once in a while he will drive down and take them out to lunch.
I put away the groceries, took Penny for a walk, and had a few beers while I started the Netflix docuseries Dancing for the Devil. It's about this church/cult I had heard a little bit about, there are a lot of dancers in it and they make TikTok videos and stuff and give all the money to their pastor. I know absolutely nothing about the world of professional dancing, so even just getting a peek into that was interesting. Throw in a cult? Riveting.
David made chicken and mashed potatoes for supper, and afterwards as planned I had a couple of gummies and put on Velocipastor, which turned out to be as stupid and terrible and extremely low budget as I'd hoped, and was also only about 70 minutes. Where a lot of bad movies fail at being so-bad-it's-good is when they just drag on too long; like how Manos: The Hands of Fate isn't actually that funny when you sit down to watch it because like half the movie is the family driving on dirt roads or wandering around a dusty compound while light jazz noodles away in the background.
Okay but 2 things: Velocipastor is clearly meant to be a Catholic priest, not a pastor, and the dinosaur he turns into is clearly modeled on a T-Rex.
I guess they spent all their money on that very convincing dinosaur suit, because this is what we get for the inciting action of the film (Velocipastor's parents getting murdered in a car bomb):
"Look, just use your imagination, we blew the entire effects budget on the dino suit."
Also, not to nitpick, but the joke "Dinosaurs didn't exist, and if they did I didn't turn into one!" doesn't really work if he's Catholic. The Catholic Church has many faults, but they haven't been young earth creationists since like, the Enlightenment. The Pope believes in evolution. The writer of this awful movie should have tried harder!
Sunday I woke up around 3:30 in the morning to find the power had gone out. When I checked my phone I had a text from Entergy but it didn't have an estimated time of repair, which usually means it's going to be out for a while, so I turned on the generator. It was still out when I woke up and made breakfast (pancakes). Mom is always like "Your pancakes are so amazing!" when it's literally just Bisquick. Phil insisted on using this awful brand called "Krusteaz" when I was a kid, which I always thought was a terrible name for any food item, to which you only added water. Even with butter and syrup they were still dry and bland. Bisquick has eggs, oil, and milk to start, and I make the fancy version which also has sugar, vanilla extract, and baking powder so they're extra fluffy. Of course they're better than the pancakes you and Phil made.
Mid-morning I got a text from Entergy saying the estimated time of repair was 10:00 that night and I started praying the diesel would hold out. That seems like a long time! I wondered if it was just because it was Sunday, but then later on that day we found out there'd been some very bad storm damage nearby, and there were tornadoes in Delcambre and Jefferson Island. Delcambre is the next town down LA-14 from us, and Jefferson Island is just past that, so that's scary close.
Our wi-fi was also out, so I read for the rest of the morning, finishing Everything's Eventual and starting The Dark Forest (which luckily I'd already downloaded on my Kindle), the 2nd book in the Three Body Problem series. I had laundry to do, but the washer and dryer use a lot of power so I just did a small load of clothes (I was on my last clean bra). I had a clean pair of sheets ready to go, so at least I was able to change them.
I hadn't felt any particular inspiration for supper this week, so I fell back on a reliable recipe I use a lot, a ravioli dish from the first Real Simple cookbook. You boil them (I usually use mushroom ravioli) like you normally would, then drain them, put them in a casserole dish, pour over some heavy cream and pesto mixed together, throw a handful of shredded cheese--I had some Italian blend so I used that--on top, grate on some pepper, and bake for about 20 minutes. I had garlic bread and salad to go with it. Dessert was a buckeye pie: chocolate crust--I bought a ready-made one--peanut butter, whipped cream, cream cheese, and sugar for the filling; then a thin layer of chocolate ganache (just some semisweet chips nuked with a little heavy cream for 30 seconds) and some roasted peanuts sprinkled on top.
That didn't require a lot of prep, so besides making the 'rents lunch and running to Super One because I forgot to buy more cream at Rouses, I got a lot of reading done. At some point in the afternoon there was another text from Entergy saying their new estimated time of repair was... 5:00 pm Monday. What the fuck!! They should have to reimburse us for the diesel we use. Anyway, spoiler alert, I woke up shortly after midnight needing to pee, and when I checked my phone I'd gotten a text saying power had been restored about an hour earlier, so before going back to sleep I shut off the genny and put us back online. I noticed the wi-fi had also come back.
Sigh. Clearly this is not going to be a dry, uneventful summer like last year. Which, that was not natural, especially not the heat, so I'm not like, nostalgic for it or anything. Like it did feel kinda normal to me, because I'm from California, and as in most of the western states, rain is just not a thing in the summer. But it wasn't normal for here. Anyway, Mom and I have already had a whole text conversation this morning about replacing the diesel we used. I don't want us to be caught unaware this summer.