Weekend accomplishments: 50th birthday edition
Do people still do all that tacky "haha you're already half dead"-decorative themes for 50th birthdays, with the black balloons and whatnot? That was a trend in the 1980s and I remember it from all 4 of my parents' (bio- and step-) 50th birthdays. I remember thinking I'd want something a little more dignified. Mom gave me $75, which I put toward the orrery--which has shipped, but from China, so who knows when it will show up--purchase, and David made fried catfish and hushpuppies with tangy coleslaw for supper. We are violently opposed to sweet coleslaw or potato salad in this family! Put some mustard and vinegar and sour cream in it!! Oh, and I bought myself a tray of almond petit fours from the Rouse's bakery.
Saturday I made breakfast, showered, picked up Phil's Januvia from the pharmacy, and went to Lafayette to get a haircut. I was a little early and went to Lagniappe Records but didn't get anything; out of curiosity I asked about ordering a copy of Warriors because I thought it might be fun to have it on vinyl. But it's a double album with deluxe packaging and costs about $60, so I passed.
After my haircut I went to the Community Coffee coffeeshop for an iced mocha and a ham and cheese croissant, to CVS to get some of the supplements Phil takes for his eyes, then to the grocery store. After going home and getting the groceries put away it was late in the afternoon and I considered skipping the room de-cluttering for the week. But I'm almost done with everything that isn't the closet and decided to push through.
I took everything off the window sill, which is really deep and which I've always treated like another shelf. I dusted everything, threw some stuff away, and put everything else back in a more organized way. I cleaned out the nightstand drawers, throwing out a lot of junk and being able to put a lot of stuff that was under the nightstand actually in it. And I cleaned under the nightstand, which was mostly old correspondence that I decided to toss, and some books I added to the donate pile. Then I took everything off the nightstand surface, dusted, and put some stuff in drawers and reorganized the stuff that went back on.
While I was doing that I also washed/dried/folded 2 loads of towels, and a load of knits.
It was a tiny area to clean, just the nightstand, under the nightstand, and the window sill behind it, yet I still tossed 2 trash bags of stuff. The bedroom is really starting to look much nicer; sometimes since the election I'll be doing something mundane when suddenly it will strike me as absolutely ludicrous. Like who cares if there's mildew in the shower, we just elected an administration that is going to destroy this country and, by extension, make the world a significantly worse place. But unless I want to commit suicide I still have to buy groceries and go to work and pay my phone bill and scrub the toilets and cut the dog's toenails.
*sigh* I dunno, but having an organized personal space does make me feel better, emotionally, so I guess I'll keep at it.
After supper I finished the last couple episodes of Say Nothing, which I'm sure is going to wind up on a lot of critics' "best TV of 2024" lists. It was really good; Patrick Radden Keefe's book really made me understand how betrayed the IRA rank and file felt by the Good Friday Agreement. I mean they didn't get a single square inch of Northern Ireland back, it's all still Great Britain, and still the poorest part of it, with the most poverty and the least jobs and the worst infrastructure. What the fuck did they go on hunger strikes and to prison and through years of PTSD for? But then you have something like Derry Girls, which is about The Troubles as seen through teenagers and normal families who just wanted the fighting to end, and to them the GFA was a good thing. And neither side is wrong.
Sunday I made lemon-glazed doughnuts for breakfast, watched Dateline, changed the bed sheets, washed them and a load of clothes, made some hardboiled eggs for lunch, did dinner prep, drank wine and read. I've been re-reading some Raymond Chandler; I finished Farewell, My Lovely and decided to read Richard Powers' Playground next. It's like his book The Overstory, but about the ocean instead of trees.
I didn't have to bake anything because we ate less than half of the almond petit fours for my birthday, which worked because I decided to make stuffed mirlitons (chayote squash; "mirliton" is the francophone name for it) for supper and it takes hours. I've never made them before and it's a local dish I always wanted to try, and Rouse's had them on sale 8 for $1 last week so I figured it's the peak of the season. I knew they'd probably be the same price for a while, so I spent the intervening week looking for a recipe and finally decided I'd be safe using the Southern Living one, which has both shrimp and ham in it.
Raw mirlitons are rock hard and they have to be cut in half and roasted for an hour, then cooled for at least half that time so you can scoop out the seeds and most of the flesh. Then the filling has to be made, which involves sauteeing bell pepper, onion, and celery ("the trinity" of Cajun and Creole cooking), adding garlic and green onions and spices and the squash you scooped out and chopped up, then the shrimp and ham. You have to let that cool, then add eggs and bread crumbs, stuff the mirlitons, add a buttered bread crumb topping, and put back in the oven for about 40 minutes.
So it's a long process, but it goes in steps and I had time for a glass of wine and my book between them. And it's a pretty complete meal, the only thing I served with it was some garlic pull-apart bread from the bakery.
They were enormous, this is 4 squash cut in half and the pan they're in is the one we use for roasting turkeys (or did until we started frying them). We only ate half a squash each, so I hope they're good re-heated.
After supper I felt pretty exhausted, so I decided to watch Twisters, which I knew was gonna be dumb and was. I didn't know who anyone in it was, except for Glen Powell, who I think was engineered in a lab somewhere specifically to appeal to a certain type of white woman, and Maura Tierney, who I guess is playing people's moms now. After that I basically fell asleep in front of Dune: Prophecy, which is mostly people reciting turgid dialogue at each other, with the occasional near-pornographic sex scene thrown in, because HBO gonna HBO. I'm not really feeling the show--10,000 years before the birth of Paul Atreides and the Reverend Mothers still have the same headdress--but it's only 6 episodes so I guess I'll stick it out and see if it gets better.
Saturday I made breakfast, showered, picked up Phil's Januvia from the pharmacy, and went to Lafayette to get a haircut. I was a little early and went to Lagniappe Records but didn't get anything; out of curiosity I asked about ordering a copy of Warriors because I thought it might be fun to have it on vinyl. But it's a double album with deluxe packaging and costs about $60, so I passed.
After my haircut I went to the Community Coffee coffeeshop for an iced mocha and a ham and cheese croissant, to CVS to get some of the supplements Phil takes for his eyes, then to the grocery store. After going home and getting the groceries put away it was late in the afternoon and I considered skipping the room de-cluttering for the week. But I'm almost done with everything that isn't the closet and decided to push through.
I took everything off the window sill, which is really deep and which I've always treated like another shelf. I dusted everything, threw some stuff away, and put everything else back in a more organized way. I cleaned out the nightstand drawers, throwing out a lot of junk and being able to put a lot of stuff that was under the nightstand actually in it. And I cleaned under the nightstand, which was mostly old correspondence that I decided to toss, and some books I added to the donate pile. Then I took everything off the nightstand surface, dusted, and put some stuff in drawers and reorganized the stuff that went back on.
While I was doing that I also washed/dried/folded 2 loads of towels, and a load of knits.
It was a tiny area to clean, just the nightstand, under the nightstand, and the window sill behind it, yet I still tossed 2 trash bags of stuff. The bedroom is really starting to look much nicer; sometimes since the election I'll be doing something mundane when suddenly it will strike me as absolutely ludicrous. Like who cares if there's mildew in the shower, we just elected an administration that is going to destroy this country and, by extension, make the world a significantly worse place. But unless I want to commit suicide I still have to buy groceries and go to work and pay my phone bill and scrub the toilets and cut the dog's toenails.
*sigh* I dunno, but having an organized personal space does make me feel better, emotionally, so I guess I'll keep at it.
After supper I finished the last couple episodes of Say Nothing, which I'm sure is going to wind up on a lot of critics' "best TV of 2024" lists. It was really good; Patrick Radden Keefe's book really made me understand how betrayed the IRA rank and file felt by the Good Friday Agreement. I mean they didn't get a single square inch of Northern Ireland back, it's all still Great Britain, and still the poorest part of it, with the most poverty and the least jobs and the worst infrastructure. What the fuck did they go on hunger strikes and to prison and through years of PTSD for? But then you have something like Derry Girls, which is about The Troubles as seen through teenagers and normal families who just wanted the fighting to end, and to them the GFA was a good thing. And neither side is wrong.
Sunday I made lemon-glazed doughnuts for breakfast, watched Dateline, changed the bed sheets, washed them and a load of clothes, made some hardboiled eggs for lunch, did dinner prep, drank wine and read. I've been re-reading some Raymond Chandler; I finished Farewell, My Lovely and decided to read Richard Powers' Playground next. It's like his book The Overstory, but about the ocean instead of trees.
I didn't have to bake anything because we ate less than half of the almond petit fours for my birthday, which worked because I decided to make stuffed mirlitons (chayote squash; "mirliton" is the francophone name for it) for supper and it takes hours. I've never made them before and it's a local dish I always wanted to try, and Rouse's had them on sale 8 for $1 last week so I figured it's the peak of the season. I knew they'd probably be the same price for a while, so I spent the intervening week looking for a recipe and finally decided I'd be safe using the Southern Living one, which has both shrimp and ham in it.
Raw mirlitons are rock hard and they have to be cut in half and roasted for an hour, then cooled for at least half that time so you can scoop out the seeds and most of the flesh. Then the filling has to be made, which involves sauteeing bell pepper, onion, and celery ("the trinity" of Cajun and Creole cooking), adding garlic and green onions and spices and the squash you scooped out and chopped up, then the shrimp and ham. You have to let that cool, then add eggs and bread crumbs, stuff the mirlitons, add a buttered bread crumb topping, and put back in the oven for about 40 minutes.
So it's a long process, but it goes in steps and I had time for a glass of wine and my book between them. And it's a pretty complete meal, the only thing I served with it was some garlic pull-apart bread from the bakery.
They were enormous, this is 4 squash cut in half and the pan they're in is the one we use for roasting turkeys (or did until we started frying them). We only ate half a squash each, so I hope they're good re-heated.
After supper I felt pretty exhausted, so I decided to watch Twisters, which I knew was gonna be dumb and was. I didn't know who anyone in it was, except for Glen Powell, who I think was engineered in a lab somewhere specifically to appeal to a certain type of white woman, and Maura Tierney, who I guess is playing people's moms now. After that I basically fell asleep in front of Dune: Prophecy, which is mostly people reciting turgid dialogue at each other, with the occasional near-pornographic sex scene thrown in, because HBO gonna HBO. I'm not really feeling the show--10,000 years before the birth of Paul Atreides and the Reverend Mothers still have the same headdress--but it's only 6 episodes so I guess I'll stick it out and see if it gets better.