Thursday, January 24, 2008
I think I'm having olfactory hallucinations. When I walked into my room, I immediately started querying What the Heck because my room smelled like some sort of sweet almond paste stuff, like marzipan. I have nothing in my room that smells like that, nor would I. a) I hate that smell, b) it's not a smell I am very familiar with/have smelled very often, but c) it's extremely distinctive and recognisable. I also can't figure out anything new that would have entered smelling marzipanny. (Box from Lens.com? No. Two magazines in the mail... sniffed them expectantly, but No, again.) Dean said he smelled nothing, but I don't trust his nose. Mine's much more sensitive.
Posted at 9:04:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Now, sitting at my computer, I'm randomly smelling a bleach kind of scent. Eek. What'll it be next?
I really like the look on the face of the Salty Licorice Fish.
Posted at 5:19:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I didn't post last night, but I might've. We flew to EEN for Indian, then didn't leave the hangar until after midnight. (Tower had gone home.) I was freezing, but Dean had assembled our new hangar chair during lunch, and it is truly the most comfortable chair EVER (no exaggeration, it's like it's ergonomically designed just for me) so I was very relaxed as I watched him put together the red storage cabinet while I huddled under my coat, the down Tango quilt, and Dean's coat, sitting two inches from the tiny ineffectual heater. Dean claimed not to be cold at all, but I had goose bumps. Anyway, the new stuff looks and is grand, and I discovered that Tower drives a beagle! (Or, at least, the controller who was on duty for that shift does... it's not like there's only one tower dude at Brainard who slaves away around the clock. But I love calling Tower Tower.) It's a white or cream-colored New Beetle, and I saw it parked at the base of the tower! Our hangar is in the section closest to the tower, which is super-cool because it's really fun looking up at the tower and imagining Tower up there, seeing Everything.
I can't wait for a daylight flight into Brainard, because it's really neat flying so close to Hartford, but we've only done it in the dark so far. It's exciting how the paths are different now that we're at a new airport; we fly over different things leaving and coming home, even when it's a trip to an old favorite spot. Last night we flew by the Buckland area of Manchester, and it was all lit up. There are a lot more lights, coming into Brainard.
It's weird ruddering Tango into a hangar instead of his tie-down spot, and weird not putting on his cover afterwards.
The way the hangar door opens is SO COOL! The entire front of the hangar is a gigantic door, with a little (normal-sized) door-handle door built into it, so you can use that if you want to go in without opening the whole thing. But if you want to get your plane out, it's like a super-gigantic garage door that folds in half horizontally, but it's surprisingly quiet. Our real garage door is much louder and more obnoxious sounding.
Oh, the other thing I had to record in ALB is that the Bradley ATC guy called Tango a Lance, multiple times!!! He kept referring to us as a Lance, even though Dean only ever identified as a Cherokee. A Lance is a type of Cherokee, but it's a high performance six-seater!! I guess he just assumed we were a Lance because our radar blip looked so [big and] speedy!!! HA. :-)
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Four e-mails sent to myself via my Palma, while at A Dong:
Posted at 4:38:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
1: Beef stomach, omasum, tendon, shin meat, belly, ox tail
2: Pork feet, blood, heart, large intestine, intestine, kidney, spleen, skin, stomach, liver, tongue, ear, leg bone
3: Chicken feet, gizzards, hearts, livers, duck wings, "chicken head on old"
4: Frozen pork blood, beef blood & beef bile
Pretty remarkable selection, huh? (I only wrote down the weird stuff; they also had more normal cuts of meat that just looked like a slab of raw muscle, rather than an actual identifiable body part.) The weirdest-looking was the "chicken head on old." I was reading the label upside down, and at first I thought it said, "chicken no head old," which sounded pretty reasonable. But then I noticed that they definitely had heads, with little closed eyes, beaks, and flesh-colored combs. (Couldn't keep my eyes off the combs.) All sealed in a styrofoam meat tray under plastic, just like a pile of hamburger or something, but it's an entire chicken. I don't know what the "old" part is all about. I guess it must be that they're old chickens, so they're sort of tough and are only good for soups, or something like that. I wonder why the combs aren't red??
Of the pork organs, the spleens were surprisingly large. Much bigger than hearts and kidneys. I wonder what spleens taste like?
The chicken feet were packaged together in a huge pile of lots and lots of feet, the same as the gizzards and other stuff. Chicken feet (and chickens in general) are kind of scary because they're so pasty-looking.
Beef bile doesn't sound very appetizing.
I LOVE my new grocery bag. I used it at Whole Foods today. The shoulder straps make it leagues easier to carry than normal plastic or paper bags, and it holds tons more too, so, at a store like Whole, everything fits in one bag. Totally great, because I hate making multiple trips to carry in my groceries, so I always camel up and carry a million bags at once, even if I practically break my arm off doing it.
They also had veal kidney at Whole!! Veal and lamb kidneys are supposed to be the best (most tender and delicate flavored) ones. If I were to eat a homemade kidney, that's what I'd want. I was really proud of Whole for having kidneys. They were super-cheap compared to the other meats, too, and much much cheaper than the veal liver. I wonder why. (Because no one wants them??)
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Chloroform smells like ether. But I don't know what ether smells like either. Only that they're both strong, sweet, and unpleasant.
Posted at 11:33:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Wouldn't it be cool if chloroform smelled like colorforms? (I'm sure it doesn't.)
I was somewhat impressed at Stupid. They have beef tripe, pork feet (!) and calves' livers. The butcher dude saw me taking a picture of the trotters with my Palma and joked, "Did they smile?" so I queried him about kidneys. No dice. Not that I would cook my own kidneys, anyway. (And I'm almost positive they sell them at A Dong, if I were a meat-cooker.) But it's interesting.
Posted at 11:21:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I got one of those market totes that you can use instead of plastic grocery bags, at Target, and used it immediately. It's bright red with a tree on it. I LOVE it! I don't know why I've never tried one before. I bought FIFTEEN bottles of orange-orange Vitamin Water and they all fit in the bag, plus it was tons easier to carry because of the shoulder straps. It's very strong and well-constucted; the straps go all the way down. Must get some in Hawaii!! I know they have cool ones at Longs, KTA and/or Waikoloa Village Market (can't rememeber which one(s)).
While I was putting away the groceries, I started listening to the librivox recording of "The Return Match" and it was so fantastic!! I was totally squirming with pleasure. I didn't remember it at all. They massively should have made an episode out of that story for the Raffles TV show! Three great things about this story (among too many to name): 1) The line, "You're one after my own kidney" (!!), 2) Raffles says, "How the deuce did you get in?" (I cracked up), 3) Raffles gets hit on the head with a fireplace poker and chloryformed! (Then we find out he did it to himself!!) Okay, the first two are completely silly great things, but there were a million real ones.
Re: the bumblebee wine, my discovery about the honey is extra-sensory genius. I just caught the hint of honey about the wine itself--only that one time, heightened somehow. But it's such a marvellous pairing. It has to be honey with the taste of wax to it. That's the kind I like. Then you smear it on the edge like li hing mui salt.
On the soap front, apparently the sandpaper soap isn't out of print after all, because I saw a large stack of it today. Perhaps it was just a temporary shortage. As for the In the Pink bar: it isn't bad, but the scent lasts for about two seconds (on my skin, that is... the entire room smells nice and grapefruity for ages) and it doesn't have any exciting textural properties (feeling like sandpaper, for example, or being magic like vaniglia). I also think the alpha hydroxy acids are a little harsh if you use it a lot. So I do like it but it doesn't get to join the pantheon of crown-of-thorns worthy soaps. (Which reminds me, I have to finish my Hawaii blog entries. The next one is about my mission to award a crown-of-thorns to the best-of-the-best Kona coffees.) If I can find the Rough Seas flav I bet I'll like it better.
I really really want to know what chloroform smells like.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Posted at 11:29:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Okay, a lot of things. In no particular order.
1) Salty licorice fish. I read about this salty licorice thing online (can't remember where) and was intrigued, so when I saw it at Ikea for about $2. of course I had to try it. The thing is, I kind of hate licorice (black jelly beans = repulsive; chewy black real Finnish licorice pieces = scary but sort of enjoyable in a slightly masochistic way), but I love salt. So, salty licorice? The salty thing is not a lie!
2) Yeah, we went to Ikea! We haven't been to Ikea in untold years. Since before they even built the Connecticut Ikea. It was so great, too! Not crowded at all (??), super-easy and efficient, super-fun, and super-tasty. Dean made me get Swedish meatballs (I would never get that unless he made me do it, and because it is an Ikea thing; so, for those reasons only) and they were insanely GOOD! What the heck. The entire meal was delicious and cost TEN DOLLARS for TWO PEOPLE!! What the heck. I also loved Ikea's coffee. And I got a big jar of lumpfish caviar for next to free, at the salty licorice market. And their cinnamon buns are GOOD!!! Yikes. Oh yeah, and we got a few cool furniturey things for Tango's hangar. [Edit: Almost forgot! Photo from yesterday of Tango in his new hangar.]
3) They are building a Whole Foods in Glastonbury! (!!) I saw it on the way back from the VW dealership this afternoon. It's in Fox Run Mall, where Shaw's used to be. It looks almost done, too!
4) Yesterday on the way back from the hanger Dean offered to stop at three different Starbucks to get me a coffee, and I turned them all down with apathy-bordering-on-loathement.
5) The Hebron Avenue SBUX has a really great slounging chair, and the barista gave me my drink free for some reason. (I think it was because he was too lazy to ring it up.) That's a pretty nice store, but I don't approve of drive-through Starbucks at all. But I guess I was feeling less loathementy toward Starbucks today, since I actually stopped there.
6) I sent Dean the above photo from my Palma and then I bought it, and I am moanfully in love.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
!!! Tango is officially in his new hangar now, at Brainard! Dean was able to snag a hangar for rent there, so no more tie-down at MMK. I will miss MMK (sniff!), and miss the ritual of putting on Tango's cover, but HFD seems really cool so far. It's actually closer to our house, and when we flew Tango there yesterday (we left him there overnight, but not in the hangar because it wasn't ready yet), THREE different random pilots complimented his paint job (one called it "sharp"). AND, the controller is Tango's old friend! When we got back from Nancy's, the tower recognised his tail number and welcomed him home (over the radio). He said the last plane he flew was Tango (!?) and that he couldn't wait to see him in the daylight. Tango used to live at Brainard back before we bought him, so I guess he has lots of friends there, even though it's new to us. The controller at Brainard seems very casual and super-nice (even beyond being Tango's pal). I think it's going to be neat moving to a towered airport.
Posted at 1:02:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Nancy's was great. We hadn't been there in ages (September?), and I've been totally craving a Nancy's visit. As usual, Don kept coming over to our table to talk to us (he tried to apologise, but we both said, "No, we like it!!"), and when I complimented their new coffee he even took me into the kitchen to show off their new grinder and fancy espresso machine. The new coffee is really complex (I tried the regular and decaf so far, and next time I'll try the espresso) and they had these giant wine-ish writeups describing them. Don seemed really excited by my interest, and told me all about the company they are from. He also told us about his new life goals (flying at least once a week, and taking Nancy on an overnight trip once a month), so I told him about my goal to eat kidneys and suggested that Nancy should come up with a lamb's kidney special to further my goal. So, he sent her over to talk to me, but she shuddered and admitted that she's not a "nose to tail chef" (her words!), or eater, for that matter. Later Don brought over their newsletter for us to read, and there was a sidebar about what Nancy's reading: The Man Who Ate Everything, by Jeffrey Steingarten!!! What the heck! So of course as we were leaving I had to scold her for being such a wimp and not getting inspired. :-) I am shocked, because Nancy is a very adventurous and creative chef otherwise. (There was even a "South American Tour" menu of specials last night.)
I tried a new wine of the Chicken brand (from Stew's) last night: Bumblebeee. It's incredibly good with honey! I just made it up, but it really is. I think Primaterra should add a sparkling wine to their lineup and have it be Squid.
