Good morning...or something.

Starting off your morning with two hours of driving through Seattle traffic is not fun. Namely, taking an hour through Seattle morning commute traffic to drop the Schmoobles off at the airport for the first Drum Corps Nerd Camp of the season and then another hour through more Seattle morning commute traffic to get to work -- all before the freaking sun even comes up. And we all know that Ys does NOT function well before sun up. Hell, I don't function well by mid-day either, but whatever. What should help, though, is this beautiful hot steaming Triple Grande Soy Caramel Macchiato from Star*ucks.

Okay, you three shots of espresso: do your work!


***UPDATE***

Or not. ZZZzzzzzzzz. * head falls on desk *

Brilliant idea that Ys should but most likely will never follow up on #1

You know what I would love? A grand monster website that has program notes for every single possible piece of music out there. I told Scott this and he said that nobody would bother because there are already books out there. But you know what? Sometimes I don't want to read a whole book. I want 1 - 3 concise paragraphs containing good introductory information that will help me become slightly more knowledgable regarding a piece of music. And then, you know, it can have a list of sources after the program notes for those who want to do further research. Anyway, I think a website like that would be brilliant. Because I've been Googling a certain woodwind quintet and I can't find a damn piece of information about it except for the fact that the Bergen Quintet has recorded it. And that CD probably has some notes in its liner about the piece. But I can't read it because I downloaded the music off of iTunes. Blargh.

In other news, I think I'm getting some kind of bunion in my right foot. Ew. Wait, I don't think bunion is right. There's no gross lump of hardened skin or anything. It's just always sore on that bone underneath my big toe. I'm pretty sure it's because of this pair of brown boots that I bought not too long ago which, while really cute and exactly matching one of my brown purses, seems to be a size or so too big for my tender feetsies. Oh well.

In other other news, I'm planning on taking an unheard-of ten days off from work over Christmas. Huzzah! Huzzah!! Huzzaaaah!!! I cannot wait. Seriously. Can. Not.

Happy Birthday to mein Vater!!

Yes, you must all celebrate the birth of the great man whose seed (ew) spawned the beautimous, most glorious creature of all time!!!

In celebration, my sister had the brilliant idea of giving my dad this for his birthday gift:


The one in the bottom left corner is obviously my personal favorite. Sirloin steaks, pork chops, grilled chicken breasts (boobies!), and gourmet franks (weiners!)...the vegetarian's nightmare. Or, as it is so appropriately named: The Perfect Gift. As I called my dad this evening to wish him a happy birthday, he remarked that, while he loved the gift, he did not really know what to do with all the food. And in true Ys fashion, I remarked, "Don't worry, if you save most of it in the next month, I can take care of it over Christmas." *sigh* I'm such a giver.

Question.

What's the point of going to the bulk foods section of the grocery store and making an ultra-healthy trail mix of fruits and nuts (haha...nuts), when all you're going to do is pick out and eat only the toffee peanuts anyway?

Note to self: Just buy a giant bag of toffee peanuts.

*****

UPDATE: I'm sitting here on the couch watching yesterday's "Heroes" on TiVo whilst laptopping and I keep smelling raw onions or really vile B.O. It's driving me craaazy. I've confirmed that it's not coming from my armpit area, nor elsewhere on my body. It's not coming from Bela who is sitting next to me. And Scott's way on the other end of the other couch, so it's not him. Plus, he only smells when he is emitting his (ahem) natural gaseous emissions -- and those always smell like putrid eggs. Where can it be coming from??? Agh.

AAAaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!

I need to take this moment to tell you that Scott and I are watching the Season 3 finale of "Lost" online and Charlie is f*ing captured in The Looking Glass and Jin just f*ing missed his dynamite target and I am peeing in my f*ing pants.

*deep breath*

Okay, back to the show...

ps. Oh yeah, hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

pps. Do I really have to go back to work tomorrow morning?!

ppps. Damnit, Jin! Why did you have to miss your target??!! Gaaaaah!!!!

Gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble...

Okay, it is now 2:30 in the morning and the majority of the delicious-making has been done. Only a few mishaps during the process:

1. I could only find one kind of Asian egg roll wrapper in the "Ethnic Foods" aisle at the grocery, and it's not the traditional type of lumpia wrapper that I am used to from when I was growing up. I had to get the Vietnamese rice paper thing. It should work okay. I test-fried one lumpia tonight and I don't think the heat was high enough, nor did I let it fry long enough since the outer wrapper was this weird hybrid of crispy/chewy/greasy. Errors duly noted. Will do much better when we head over to our friends' house and I cook them there. Regardless, the lumpia filling that I made turned out PERFECT. Also, my mummy's recipe made a ridiculous amount of food. Woo hoo! Pre-emptive leftovers!

2. I could not find cornstarch in the grocery store. At all. We went through the entire store twice, and I paced up and down the damn baking foods aisle at least ten times. No dice. I finally gave up and decided to try again tomorrow morning, when my brain isn't dead from spending an eternity in the produce section trying to figure out what the hell a parsnip was and where I could find 3 cups worth of them. Anyway, we were standing in line at the checkout counter and Scott heroically offered to make a mad dash and try to find the cornstarch. As I started putting our groceries on the conveyer belt, he came running triumphantly to our line and, since he could not get to me easily through the people in line behind me, he victoriously raised above his head so I could see a gigantic jug of ... corn syrup. Ah well. All I could do was look up and slowly shake my head from side to side with a frowny face. It's the thought that counts, right?

3. By my third hour of improvised chopping, grating, grinding, etc. since we own neither a blender nor a food processor, I made the (definitely) wise decision to pull the Cream of Parsnip Soup with Potato Crisps and Bacon from my roster. The recipe, according to Mistah Emeril, calls for an hour and a half of prep time, and another hour of cooking time. Zoinks! Hells no. But, seeing as how I devoted a rather large portion of my life hunting down those damned parsnips earlier this evening -- which may or may not have involved me sidling up to one unsuspecting fellow shopper and asking if she knew what a parsnip looked like and then remarking, "Where the hell's the produce guy when you need him, right?" -- I will attempt to make this soup at some point this weekend. I'm sure it will be delicious even though I have no idea what parsnips taste like ... but it involves fried thinly sliced potates and crispy bacon, so it will be glorious.

Anyhoo, in the all too likely event that I will be entirely too stuffed and bloated later today to roll myself over to a computer, I will say this now: Happy Turkey Day everbody!!

One day 'til the gorging.

It's nearly 8pm and I have yet to go to the grocery store to even buy the ingredients with which I must make variety of delicious Turkey Day delicacies by the early afternoon tomorrow. Is that bad? Now that we have finished the second season of "Lost" and the third season DVDs aren't out until the middle of next week (DAMNIT!!!), at least I won't have that distraction tonight. Not that those episodes aren't available online or anything...

Anyway, right now my recipe list for tomorrow is lumpia, cream of parsnip soup with potato crisps and bacon, green bean casserole and peanut butter banana cream pie. Clearly, I spent too much time at work today searching the Intarwebs for some yummy recipes. Hey, at least I aim high. If our kitchen is not a giant ball of fire by noon tomorrow, I will have considered this a success!

In any case, hurray for the 4-day weekend!! Even though I'm going to have to go in for a short bit on Friday to take care of one specific book order for one very specific high-maintenance customer. Yurgh. Oh well. Ok, off to have some pre-Turkey Day dinner (sushi...mmm!) and then onwards to the grocery store to load up on some lumpia ingredients. Huzzah!