Just an update

Archer Farms Salt & Pepper potato chips are good, even though they leave your mouth with that pepper-y feeling. Maybe they should be called Pepper & Salt chips. Try adding Canfield's Seltzer Water for extra mouth zing!

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I love my blue basketweave sweater from Eddie Bauer, and I would link to it or show you a picture, except that it appears to be gone from both the main website and the outlet website. Last week, they were down to only having them in cream size medium, which is not my size, otherwise I would have bought a second one. There is just one problem, it seems to shed and pill an awful lot. I hope that I am imagining it, but it seems that the underarms may even be developing holes at the seam, from fiber loss. I wore it over a white shirt today and discovered that I can't take it off because I am now wearing a white and blue fuzz shirt. I think that when it dies, I might have to use this sweater as a template for knitting myself a new, sturdier one. This sweater is 60% cotton, 20% wool, 10% nylon and 10% angora rabbit, so that is a majority of the component fibers as short-stapled, prone to pill and shed, fibers. I don't think its a very wise decision. But I bet that if I put my mind and needles to it, I can make an even better sweater (this one is just the right fit and proportion for my slouchy preferences) with something in a sturdy wool. I'm not certain that I have the patience to knit an entire sweater in what appears to be 14 sts/inch basketweave, but I will probably be able to figure something out. First, of course, I should finish some other projects. Like my fun fur hats and mom's hat and my fair isle sampler sweater.

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I am 11 pages from the end of Jeanette Winterson's Lighthousekeeping and I'm considering not finishing. I have no idea what the point of the book is, who the narrator is (or maybe there is more than one?) or why I should care. I mean, I think that the main narrator and voice of the story is the orphan girl Silver, but I'm not sure. Also, the pages are not laid out like regular pages. There is a lot of white space for a novel. This book might be over my head.

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Sarah Louise sent me a book of Psalms on Friday and it showed up today! How's that for speedy postal service. We must have a site visit going on at the 60640 post office or something. Its a fairly modern translation and I look forward to giving it a try. Also, a book of the Bible in book format is much less daunting than the freaking gigantic things I checked out of the library.

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Continental fixed my flights for the birthday trip to Denmark. So we won't be flying from Chicago to Newark, NJ by heading southwest, or Newark to Copenhagen via Antarctica and Finland. It was very prompt of them and even Lacey looked into it for me, as it was clearly a ridiculous (and possibly funny) database error.

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I had to wait at the Field Museum today in the main hall while my boss and other assorted co-workers had a meeting in the depths of the offices. (they left for the meeting while I was still measuring a room... leaving a note that they would be back to get me... and there is no way to find where they were without a guide.) While I waited, I had a lovely conversation with an old lady who worked as a guide-type person for the Sue dinosaur. We talked about interesting things on the internet, and I told her that digital cameras were really easy, even though they were much less so five years ago, so she should make the switch. We also talked about how Frango mints have changed and expanded their range in recent years. Of course, she also told me all about Sue, and explained the weird sticking out bone underneath the tail.

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Speaking of work, there is a creature living in the ceiling and maybe the wall of my office in the blockhouse. We have rats, and two cats that are living in the building, both species of which are feral and decidedly un-pet-like. Over the weekend, one type of animal or the other fell through the acoustical tile (it shifted, the animal fell) in the women's bathroom in the blockhouse. I am terrified that the creature (which will probably turn out to be an angry 15# rat) is going to fall through the ceiling in the middle of the day, when I am sitting right there, probably on the phone, and it will be followed by an army of creepy crawlies.

Ick.

I hope that Scot figures out how to get it out tomorrow. The main trouble is that above the acoustical tile, the floor of the second level (storage) is 1/4" plate steel. So whatever is in there is pretty much stuck at this point, and we can't get to it. Ewwww.

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We are finally having seasonable weather here. I should learn not to leave fizzy, canned beverages in my car trunk, in Chicago, during seasonable January weather. At least the ice doesn't get everything wet.

The Bears helmets for the Art Institute lions look really great in the shop. I hope that they look even better on the lion-backers.

Thanks for reading down this far. Sorry that there are no links or pictures, but I'm just not up for it today.

just so you know...

Two things:
1. I originally posted this in my other blog, and totally didn't notice. That should tell you something about the second point.

2. If you are hungry in the late evening, and have the munchies, the following is a silly snack to choose:

• 1 Blue Moon Beer (12 oz) poured into a glass, with a slice of orange
• The rest of the orange

There really should be something that is less than 50% water in the snack.






So I added 3 Simple Shortbread cookies.

Long live mid-20s nutrition.

Trade-offs

Today, lunch is from Wendy's at Division and Ashland. The fries and chicken nuggets are subpar, and quite unpleasant. But then, the sweet, thick goodness of the Frosty makes me forget all that.

They are evil. It is the Frosty that keeps me coming back and buying the icky stuff.

"Its like I'm eating warm, stale popcorn" -my roommate, this evening

For Christmas, I received a stovetop popcorn maker from Baxter and Magic (the dog and cat), which came with cute popcorn boxes and packets of "movie theater" popcorn to make, with the oil and kernels separated. And its gross. I have made a fair bit of very very good stovetop popcorn in the last few years, which I think is way better than movie theater popcorn that you get these days, since all that stuff is pre-popped and artificially flavored (not that i don't eat it, but I'm just saying... mine is better).

As I was dumping the divided pouch into the hand-crank popcorn popper, I thought to myself, "why is that oil so yellow?". Then, I noticed that there was a yellow powder that had been in with the kernels that all sort of clumped in the pan. So, apparently, it came with its own movie theater popcorn artificial flavoring. And it tastes like movie theater popcorn. The real stuff. In all of its staleness and fakeness.

I will report back when I try the popper with regular oil and popcorn kernels. If anyone actually likes this stuff (it is compelling to eat about 2 cups of it, then you think about it and wonder why you did), I will be happy to pay the shipping to send it out to you. Just drop a line and it'll be on its way.