Not Their Time

This Friday, my brother took his wife and two sons to view fireworks. They went to a place where everyone parks their cars and watches fireworks from there. A space opened up that looked like it would have a better view, so my brother moved the car. Another car moved into their spot. Seconds later, a drunk driver careened over the hill and smashed into that car, sending it over a hill into a field, throwing the people within about and out of their car. The drunk driver and his passenger grabbed their cooler and ran into the woods.

My brother and a friend ran to the car to help. The passengers of the car included a baby, a two-year old who was sent to the hospital on a back board and other children.

It's shocking. I feel such relief that my family was not hurt, but also terrible that this other family was injured. My mom reported that she believes no one suffered permanent injury and she and my brother are using this to teach my young nephews about drunk driving.

A driving mantra that E has shared with me:

Clear and open roads, EVERYBODY SAFE, rock-star parking.

Mom says our family had an angel watching over them and I believe it. Every time something bad happens and we survive it, mom reminds us that we're here for a reason. Good reminder to live fully and love freely.

I ♥ Mud Rooms

And I'm not the only one - Posie likes them too. I also second her love of sleeping porches (or wrap arounds), pantries and butler's pantries. While house hunting, we came across a house with a butler's pantry and I almost choked at how happy it made me. I wanted it. I couldn't even go see the house because I knew I would be too disappointed to leave it. Posie has a point about great rooms - though great in many ways, they also lose the charm of dividing a house up into all those smaller useful spaces.

I'm a Fan

Whenever I would catch one of those programs on television where "Number One Fans" get to meet their idols, I would have this spasm of anxiety ripple through my body. I'm nobody's number one fan. Not only that, I'm only a half-assed number two million fan. I don't know people's names, I don't remember the artist of the latest tune I'm whistling and I couldn't tell you my favorite actor, actress, director, animator, painter, singer or general performance artist. I'm terrified of running into even moderately famous people (despite my odd habit of relating myself in degrees of separation to stars all the time - it's simply confirmation of six degrees). But I do now have a favorite lexicographer.

Strange word, strange experience. I think it's partly my own love of words that makes me fascinated by a person who does dictionaries for a living, but then you throw in her interesting hobbies and the healthy geographic distance between us (it could be a problem if she lived closer - ask me what happened when I bumped into Danny Glover at a juice bar - the memory of it still makes me shudder, thinking 'I'm getting too old for this...) and against all odds and my better judgement, I've become a Fan. It started with a quirky TED presentation that I found under the category FUNNIEST. While I was literally laughing out loud, I wondered at the audience's lack of laughter and admired her costume. Now I know that she likely made that dress herself!

So, how do I know that I'm a Fan and not just an interested party? I'm reading about sewing, nearly every day. I've been resistant to sewing for years. My mom tried to teach me and we wasted tons of cash on fabric and patterns - I would keep trying, but the pattern was out of style before I would even get the fabric cut. My home economics sewing project was a pair of jersey shorts made of two separate colors - one for each leg - and no pockets. Sure, I was done before everyone else, but the pattern was probably meant for a kindergartner! E bought me a sewing machine that I've now lugged through half a dozen moves without ever tuning up and now, based on reading this blog, I'm fantasizing about my office at the new house being 1/2 home office and 1/2 crafting space, so I can leave my sewing machine set up! Leave it set up? It's never been set up?!

I do enjoy the writing and the peek into another world, though. And I even know her name. :)

More Fro Yo

Tried Bleuet tonight after searching for the longest time to find it. My friend knew the name was blue spelled funny, then the guy at Active Cultures told me that it was pronounced "Blu-ette," but I still could find it online or through texting Google. After a movie in NW, A and I just kept searching until we finally found it because we knew we were so close.

Success. Sort of.

The fro-yo was okay. There were only three flavors: plain, cinnamon and mint-lime. We tried cinnamon and-mint lime and they were both good and interesting, but nothing that made me jump up and down wanting to get more. We ended up getting cinnamon and adding a hemp-ginger granola over top. I didn't know granola was so good and definitely will consider adding it to fro-yo in future for the crunchy balanced goodness, but that's about all I can say that is good.

Here's the rundown:
1. Hard to find online (local froyo searches did not return this place)
2. Good location, but empty when all the other dessert shops on that street were jumping and it was 100 degrees
3. Terrible service - the girl behind the counter got us samples, but didn't seem excited about her job. Granted, she doesn't have to jump up and down, but I would have appreciated some suggestions.
4. Fro yo that really tastes like fro yo - it's more like my homemade than the stuff from Active Cultures - a little icy, less creamy and more tangy, which I usually like, but somehow didn't here.
5. If I believe the guy at Active Cultures, which I do, because he was well informed, animated and very helpful (even if he was wrong), Bleuet may have misinformation on their wall about the benefits of yogurt crossing over to fro-yo since probiotics may actually die during freezing.
6. Expensive! We got a kids size which is plenty (2 oz) for 1.50$, but the small (too big!) is usually around 3$ and it's 1$ for each topping. On the kids size, that's a lot less topping than on a bigger size!

In the end, I probably won't be going back. Mio and Alotto are right down the street and I like my own fro-yo better (although I will be buying some granola!).

Peach Frozen Yogurt

It rocked.

Peaches: 6-7 peaches with bad spots cut off and pits removed (FREE)
1 c. Plain Fat Free Yogurt (FREE)
2 Tbsp brown sugar
Blend in blender. Freeze in ice cream maker.

Delicious, pretty much free ingredients (and you know how I love that!) and A says it was the best I've made so far.

I loved it, but I still am dreaming about Active Cultures which is so delicious I might faint. The fellow who helped us (one of the co-owners) was telling us about how their yogurt cultures are heated slightly to form spores so that the probiotics don't just bust open and die during freezing, so that you are actually getting the benefit of eating yogurt, even if it's frozen. That combined with the amazing texture and flavor means I'll probably be back - OFTEN!

He also helped me figure out the other fro-yo place Ree had mentioned and we saw another one on the way home, so I'll be tasting at those too. Fro-yo seems to be enjoying a come back and I'm glad to be a part of it. I just wish I knew how to keep my cultures live in freezing so that my home made fro-yo would also be live.

Speaking of frozen treats, I tried a couple more Haagen Daaz Reserve flavors - the salted caramel and the honey. They are both delicious and definitely interesting, but pomegranate chip is still the favorite. And I'm thrilled to know that this flavor is also available in a non-dairy version. Okay, it's too early in the morning to eat ice cream, so I better eat some brekki and get to work.

In the midnight hour, I cried...

MORE, MORE, MORE!

There's always more to do. I got up 2 hours early and still didn't finish the list of things I had running in my head. I can only write a couple lines here, because I should already be in the car and I'm not even dressed for work, let alone fed or caffeinated.

At any rate, I did:

• take out the trash - all the trash!
• take out the recycling
• get the dishes switched out (ran it yesterday full and am running it now, again full!)
• get a load of laundry washed (had hoped it would finish so I could hang the stuff to dry, but it does not appear that 1 hour is enough for the wash cycle - wtf?!)
• fed the dog
• made the bed (A rubbing off on me about this made bed thing, though I did untuck the sheets)
• made my lunch
• picked up my apartment.

Okay, that's pretty good for an early morning. Now it's off to work, so I can look forward to coming home to clean apartment and homemade peach frozen yogurt. Mmmm...

Feeling Accomplished...and Patient

Vacation in the Midwest recovery complete. Clothes are in the wash, house cleaned up to pre-vacation standards, new food experiments completed and in progress, desk down to active projects, checkbook balanced. Oh yes, I feel very accomplished.

And I also feel proud of my patience and helpfulness this week. It's a strange thing that I've noticed several times today that I feel bad, as if one would think I'm conceited, when I say good or nice things about myself. That's crap - does the media instill this thinking in me? Where ever it comes from, I don't like it and I jettison it. Or I put it in a bubble and blow it away. Whatever.

In any case, I have been patient and helpful to my partner this week and it feels good. He's asked for my help a few times and I've helped. And realized that when I ask for his help and then promptly reject it, it doesn't help me, him or our relationship. We've also spent some time socializing with friends and when I was ready to leave and he wasn't, I just waited it out doing the social butterfly thing since I couldn't sit still a moment longer and it worked out great - even superficial connections with people are like are to be cherished sometimes. And, against my initial instincts, when he's arrived at my house hungry asking for something to eat, I haven't yelled at him (more than the first time), but have instead told him what I have that could be easily and quickly prepared. I feel like all this is a very good sign of the health of our partnership.

And he's helped me right back. And not judged me for the times I did yell (screech). And he drank the chalky smoothie I made us tonight. Without complaint. This could be the start of a beautiful relationship.