Category: The Good Man

Returning to the old ways

Back in college, I took my studying rather seriously.

More seriously than my various roommates, my suitemates and pretty much everyone in the dorms where I lived.

I might have been a dork. Not sure….

Anyhow, when I was a kid, I had been lucky enough to have my own room, so I could study in there, door closed, and be most effective.

College was a whole crazy world of living with strangers. After lamenting my issues to my mom, she suggested I try the library on campus.

This sounded awful. I like being in my own space to study. To have my own comforts around.

But desperate for a solution, I packed up a backpack full of books and things, and walked over to the imposing building.

I was just a lowly freshman, and that library was intimidating!

But, as I looked around for a place that might work for good solid studying, I discovered this fabulous feature called a study carrel.

Oh yes.

I could sit in one of these bad boys with the high walls and block out the rest of the world. I could unload my backpack of all my things, set them around me, and create a personal space where I didn’t have to see or hear anyone.

In fact, over waaaay in the back, by the microfiche readers, where it was kind of dark, there was one lowly study carrel that was *mine*.

No one else liked it and hardly anyone came over that way. If they did, it was only briefly to read something on microfilm or microfiche, so it was blissfully quiet and I was mostly alone.

I got some really, really good studying done there. I spent HOURS in that carrel…while my friends, uh, had, you know…fun.

Good times, yes.

So, here it was, this past Saturday. The date was the 28th and I was still 5,000 words from the end of this year’s National Novel Writing Month challenge of 50,000 words.

The Good Man had to work on Saturday and so I was alone with my imposing battle.

I was really at a standstill on the writing. I hadn’t written a word in three days, and it looked like I was not going to make it to the finish line this year.

So, in a bid to change my scenery and thus get the ol’ Muse working again, I decided to go to the local library. The went to the one near where The Good Man works so we could meet later for a break.

In I go and I stalked around the place, looking for a good spot. It is a pretty ancient library, so not every table space has a power supply.

My antique Mac needs constant power feed.

So I trudged up to the third floor. I liked it because that floor was behind a closed door. That keeps it nice and quiet.

And lo and behold! They had study carrels. WITH POWER!

Ok! I’m in.

I even found one waaaaay toward the back, where no one else would go, plugged in my power supply, dipped my head behind the walls and got to work.

And who knew, all these many years later, the study carrel still works?

I banged out 4,000 words in about three hours, and would have finished to the end, but had to go meet the in-laws for dinner.

Later that night, after a margarita and some soothing Mexican food, I wrote the final 1,000 words and crossed the finish line of my fifth NaNoWriMo event.

I owe it all to that beautiful, wonderful, magical study carrel!

(terrible iPhone photo, but you can see how sunny and nice it is. I may go there again just because!)

It’s getting to be that time of year

This morning, I heard my talking combo smoke and carbon monoxide detector talking to me.

Which caused both me and the cat to jump a mile high.

And then I yelled at it, “WHAT DID YOU SAY!?!?”

The lady inside the detector was kind enough to repeat herself.

“Battery low!”

Ah, whew. Ok. Easily fixed.

But my talking smoke/carbon monoxide detector reminded me of a post from January of this year.

I believe it’s time for me to pull a rerun.

Here’s a link to the original post.

Here are the contents repeated in full. Thanks for (re)reading!

Near and Dear to my Heart

Sit back, I’m about to go on a bit of a rant, inspired by a story I read today in the SFGate.

About six or eight years ago, I was living in a small apartment in the South Bay, in a small eight unit building. The building dated back to at least the 1930’s, if not earlier, and featured this breathing dragon of a wall heater as its only source to take the chill of cold rainy evenings.

I had gone home to New Mexico for Christmas, and my mom, ever the practical one, had given me a carbon monoxide alarm as a gift.

Fine. Whatever. I took it back to California with me where it sat, unused, in the box for quite a while. A year or more, if truth be told.

One day, I was cleaning up the place when I found that thing and figured, “oh well”. I put in the batteries and hung it from my ceiling. Fine. Look at me. Miss Practical.

A couple months later, the damn thing started going off.

I was frustrated. Surely this was defective. Busted. Whatever.

I unscrewed it from the ceiling and moved it farther back.

And the damn thing kept going off.

Weird.

Fine. So after dealing with the piercing noise for, again, if I’m telling the truth here, several months, I finally called PG&E. I knew it would take them *forever* to fit me in, but whatever.

I told them that my carbon monoxide alarm kept going off and could I get an appointment for someone to come out check.

Anticipating at least 30 days before I got an appointment, I was surprised when, instead, the call dispatcher said, “someone will be there immediately” and further, “open all the doors and windows until someone arrives.”

Uh. Ok. Much ado about nothing, right? But at least I’d get quick attention.

Good for their word, a guy showed up within about ten minutes.

He took a reading in the center of the room and said, “I’m going to cap off your gas, you have fatal levels of carbon monoxide in here.”

Well blow me over.

Turns out there was a center tube of metal inside the heater that had slid down when the house settled or from age, and it left a crack about an inch wide that was venting the heater right into my apartment.

The next day, I absentmindedly told this story to a friend at work, and she started crying. One of her dearest friends had died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Her life could have been saved with the simple installation of a carbon monoxide alarm, but it was, instead, lost.

When The Good Man moved into our place, I told him this story and said I will never live in a place that does not have a working carbon monoxide alarm.

I refuse.

I was reminded about all of this today when I saw the headline in the local paper say:

Two Bay Area families survive carbon monoxide poisoning

“The mother said the family started feeling sick around midnight…When their symptoms failed to improve in the morning, they headed for the emergency room.”

That woman’s good thinking saved her family, her kids, her own life.

It scares the crap out of me. Apartments are required to have a smoke alarm, but not a carbon monoxide alarm. They even make dual alarms these days, both fire and carbon monoxide. Easy peasy!

So please, anyone who is reading this, don’t hesitate, don’t call it “some remote possibility”. Don’t put it off.

Get thee to a Wal-Mart or a Target or a Home Depot and BUY a carbon monoxide alarm and install it where you will spend most of your time.

Buy two, one for the living room and one for your bedroom. Just do it, okay?

Thanks. Your life matters to me.

Karen go *bonk*

I have this nasty little problem.

I fall down.

I’m a faller.

‘Tis true. I don’t know why this is, I just seem to have a propensity for one moment standing, next moment I’m a tornado of arms and legs and I’m startled to be laying on the ground.

I’ve had times in my life when it was really, really bad. Especially right after I’d first moved to California.

I am a sensitive kid, and I do tend to get a little sensory overloaded. Moving to California all by my little lonesome could quite handily be filed under “a skosh overwhelming”.

In the first six months I lived here, almost daily I either locked my keys in the car or fell down, or both.

It usually happens when I’m a little too much up in my head, not feeling grounded, not paying attention.

The last big fall I took was last December. So see, I’m doing pretty good! I mean, I hardly ever fall down anymore.

I had a really smokin’ No Fall streak going…until Saturday.

There I was at the day field trip for my photography class. I was feeling *so* great because I was getting some amazing shots, feeling all artistic, and yes, I’ll say it, a little smug and self-satisfied with myself.

And so as I was leaving the Rodin Sculpture garden to scale the concrete steps leading into the Cantor Arts Center, I was smiling to myself, feeling happy, folding up my tripod, bopping along and then, as fate will do, I missed the top step, bobbled, and fell.

My tripod went clattering. My knee hit first, then my elbow, then my chin (oooh, took it on the chin!).

Then, somehow, gravity took over from its old friend momentum, and my legs were then flung askew and above me.

As The Good Man says, “When you can see the sky between your shoes, it’s not going to be a good day.”

I had the definite sensation that I was going to go clank-clanking down all the stairs. And I knew that would be a bad thing.

So I’m not sure what I did, but I was able to clench, or grab or lean or something, but I stopped my downward thunking progression.

*sigh*

I got myself upright again, and sat on that step, midway down the approximately fifteen-stair set of steps, and just…stopped.

I gazed out on the Rodin Sculpture Garden and shook my head.

And sighed.

My tripod was several feet away, my backpack was laying in the opposite direction, and the camera around my neck was still there, but the telephoto part of my very nice lens was stuck at an odd angle.

If I were skiing, they refer to that as a “yard sale.”

Thankfully, only my pride was seriously hurt.

Sorry for the angle up the ol’ double cannons there. At least I don’t have crazy nose hair!

Biscuit Monster

So, now that we’ve gone and cancelled our cable, we live at the whims of what’s available on the public airwaves.

This means that I’ve been watching a lot more PBS lately. There’s some really fascinating stuff on there!

So I watched, with moist salivary glands, a show called “Everyday Baking.”

Host John Barricelli makes some naughty baked things on that show, and the recipes seem pretty easy.

I told The Good Man that I’d watched the show and was going to try my hand at making homemade biscuits.

That grown man, in a full Cookie Monster voice, said “biscuits?”

This morning, I printed out the recipe and placed it on the counter. I will make them later today to be ready for weekend breakfasts.

Every time The Good Man walked by the counter while getting ready for work and spotted the recipe, I heard “biscuits?!?”

He opened the fridge, “hon, why is there a bunch of cut up butter in here?”

“That’s for the biscuits, they said the butter needs to be cold and in small chunks.”

“Biscuits!?!?”

As he kissed me goodbye for the day, he bounced on the balls of his feet and uttered one last, “biscuits!?!?”

Oh man, with such Cookie Monster passion about these biscuits, now I’m sort of scared. What if they turn out like flour-y hockey pucks?

GAH THE PRESSURE!

Then again, I bought sausage to make sausage gravy. Just about anything tastes ok covered in sausage gravy.

My (new) People!

My personal genetic heritage is what The Good Man calls “your typical Heinz 57 pan-European”.

I’m German-Irish-Scottish-French.

And raised in New Mexico, so I have Hispanic roots, too.

The Good Man is Italian-English-Turkish-Lebanese.

Also a Heinz 57, but much different from my own. These are not all cultures I have a lot of background with, so I’m having a ball learning about my new family heritage.

My rock star Mom-in-Law (the Turkish/Lebanese side) has taught me much about delicious Mediterranean food. (I thought I’d had falafel before. I had not. I’d had a poor imitation. There is a HUGE difference).

Man, I can’t believe how long I’ve been missing out on the good stuff!

And of course, I’ve always loved Italian food, but oh I had lots to learn.

Like coffee. Now, I like coffee. Ok, I love coffee. It doesn’t always love me back (acidy!). I try to cut back, but can’t. And it’s not even the caffeine that’s a problem! I drink decaf!

I was holding strong, but then my Mom-in-Law gave us a peculiar little device called a Moka Pot. Ok, she gave it to us a while ago, but I’ve suddenly grown an unnatural attachment to it.

It looks like this.

Big deal, right? Just another way to make coffee?

No.

Oh no, no, no.

It’s just another way to make THE MOST DELICIOUS COFFEE EVER!

It’s way easy to use. Kind of fun, actually, and makes coffee super fast and delicious!

You don’t need some fancy high dollar espresso machine! You need this little pot and a burner. And some coffee to go in there.

Details on how to use it from my Mom-in-Law’s blog, Musing By Moonlight (used with permission).

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What is more delightful than an espresso (that’s eSpresso, not eXpresso) to help move through the day or a caffè correto to end a good dinner and aid digestion? This is an easy-to-learn process using a Bialleti Moka Express, an aluminum stove-top espresso maker. It’s well worth the negligible effort. I prefer the moka pot to a machine because I feel more connected to the process and the product, it takes up less real estate in the kitchen, and it’s budget wise.

Always, we start with the freshest ingredients: water – clear, cold, and filtered – and freshly ground dark-roasted coffee. My coffee of choice is Peet’s Espresso Forte® . Have it ground on #3. Buy it when you know you will use it right away, even if you purchase beans and grind them at home.

The Bialetti Moke Express comes in three parts: the reservoir for water, a coffee filter with funnel for the grounds, and a top piece to capture the espresso as it bubbles up from the bottom. This coffee pot comes in various sizes to make coffee for just two or for up to twelve.

(This is Karen, here’s a photo:

)

Directions:

Fill the reservoir with water to just below the steam valve. Put the coffee filter in place and fill it with grounds, tamping them lightly with the back of the spoon. Screw the top piece in place.

Put the Moka Express on the highest heat. Watch it because it is quickly done. The espresso will gather in the top chamber. Serve immediately. Sweeten if you like. If you care to, you might add either a lemon peel or, for a caffè correto(corrected), a little grappa.

Caffè latte: One shot fresh, hot espresso for each six ounces of steamed dairy, nut, soy or hemp milk, your choice.
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Oh coffee heaven! I like mine with half and half and brown sugar.

I’m starting to like my new genetic heritage! A lot.

(By the by, while I prefer to use Peet’s coffee too, since I’ve been cutting back on expenditures, I’m trying a decaf Italian (water processed) I found at Trader Joe’s. Delicious!)