I knew this day would come

As you know, Eddie is a large cat and has struggled for a long time to stay on my lap when he wants lap time. He'd tried Kent's lap but Kent generally changes into slick athletic pants and a sweatshirt when he gets home from work. Eddie slides right off those pants and after trying a couple of times last year, he gave up on Kent.

It's chilly enough in this apartment that Kent has gone into what he calls his granny look: he drapes a small blanket over his legs for warmth. In addition to keeping Kent warmer, it also provides a nice soft spot for Eddie where he can stay put. I'm kind of sad because in addition to being warm, Eddie is very soothing to have on your lap.

I sent off my graduate school application today but had a little scare first. I tend to procrastinate on deadlines and while I wasn't quite at the last second, I was close: the application is due on Sunday, February 1.

My plan this morning was to work out, review my letter of intent a final time and then get cleaned up and head out to send the packet overnight to UMass Boston. I had no sooner put the work out DVD in the player than the power went out. I'd already put my documents on a flash drive so I knew I could go someplace else to print them, but I was still frazzled. Fortunately the power was off for only about 20 minutes, just long enough for the apartment to get pretty chilly. As I headed out to mail my application just now, I learned from a neighbor that the electric company had told her we would be without power for two to four hours. I'm really glad I didn't know that at the time!

I miss our 75 gallon hot water heater

Yes you read that correctly. In Kansas City we had an old 75 gallon hot water heater. That thing was ancient, the installation date was sometime in 1978, and we figured when it went out we would get a smaller one, although not as small as the one we have here in Boston.

Actually I don't know what the size is of this one. All I do know is that it runs out of hot water by the end of one shower. Yes, one shower. With the cold weather we've had, those showers end up being shorter because the hot water goes away even faster. I'm sure it's not as costly to keep the water hot but right about now I don't care. I want a hot shower that doesn't get tepid right as I'm ready to shave my legs. Brrr.

Saturday night

Saturday night Kent and I had dinner with another couple. We’d originally planned to go to Toro, which is in the South End. We’ve heard good things about this restaurant and wanted to check it out. We’d also heard that they fill up fast and don’t take reservations so we figured if we got there at 6, we would be OK. We were wrong—even at 6 PM the restaurant was packed and we faced a 90 minute wait for a table. So we switched to Plan B and tried Persephone (warning, their web site uses music), which is close to where Kent works. I must say the food was amazing, and I even found a really cute wool hat. I’m still looking forward to trying Toro but we’ll go there on a week night when (hopefully) they aren’t so crowded.

When was this taken?

Hoping my mother knows and if not her, perhaps Uncle Doug? This is my G'Pa and if I had to guess I would say he's in his late 40s, early 50s? That would date this picture in the late 1950s or early 1960s if so.

Got my scanner hooked up

So I scanned a lot of pictures in. Take a look at the slide show to the left. The top one has pictures of my grandmother, my mother and some of my family. You can click through to see bigger versions of them. The second slide show is from when I was small--I was used in some billboard/print ad campaigns and these pictures are from one of those sessions.

I almost forgot to include this picture. Wasn't Kent just the cutest baby? He's about 8 weeks old in this picture. If you look carefully, you can see that his hair was red even then!

Digging out the car

We'd planned to drive to the store on Monday but as you can see from the picture taken today, the car was well and truly buried. To complicate the situation, we have to park next to a fence, and our neighbor's car is super close to us by necessity. It's tight enough quarters that all of the cars in our little row fold in their mirrors or risk losing them.

Today I need to take dinner to the family I mentioned in yesterday's post so I either drive or take a cab (they are not close to a T stop alas). Kent headed out this morning to start the car and also dig it out from under the snow. He got it dug out but we have two tires that are really low, probably from the cold weather. Or at least we hope that's the cause. Later this morning I think he's planning on trying to drive it the three blocks to the nearest gas station where we hope they have air for tires.

Cooking for a crowd

It’s been years since I’ve regularly cooked for more than two people—Ben graduated from high school and moved out almost eight years ago. However the small group I go to on Wednesday evenings also eats dinner together before we start the Bible study portion of our evening. Food can get complicated because we never know for sure how many will show up; we’ve had as few as seven or as many as 12. At least two don’t eat meat, but will eat cheese, eggs and milk.

Last week I brought a double batch of corn muffins to go with the chili someone else brought. I made one batch with cheese and one batch with diced adobo peppers and both kinds tasted really good. I also brought an apple crisp which was really yummy. Well how can you go wrong when you have good apples and butter in something?

Someone else was scheduled to bring dinner this week but she is unexpectedly on call this week so she had to bail. I offered to bring dinner instead. On top of that, one of the small group leaders just had her baby yesterday and I’d offered to bring her family dinner tomorrow night. So I just now got through making four batches of steamed rice to make four batches of my mother’s chicken and rice dish. I just left chicken out of one of them for those who don’t eat meat. The house is well hydrated now and also smells pretty good.

PS I saved two servings for Kent because this is one of his favorite dishes.

PPS Do you like this template better? It’s not the same one I had up for the poll.