Friday, October 30, 2009
Having dinner at Mrs. K's Toll House (!)... old time Whaples family special occasion classic. Tomorrow certainly is a special occasion.
Posted at 8:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I think the last time I went to Mrs. K's (that I know about...) was 28 years ago. We have a family photo from when we went there to celebrate David's high school graduation. Education makes the man. I will have to ask the Gs tomorrow when else we went to Mrs. K's. It was a Very Big Deal place. I bet we went there when my dad got his PhD! I always thought it was really far away, but of course it's not.
Mrs. K's is nice! Relaxing. The decor looks like it inspired the M (antique corner cabinet with English tea cup collection, etc.). And it's nice and warm in here.
Grilled octopus - excellent! tender & lots of octy.
Great sweet bread (not sweetbreads), nice & soft and warm.
Medium rare duck - tender & moist!
Creme brulee - for competition!
Excellent brulee! (Dean fed all the brulee part to me.) Classic style, and with nice fluffy creme (but no conspicuous vanilla beans).
I'd come here even if it was in CT (seems like it should be in CT.... Rt. 44 says Dean). They even had three vegetarian (one was vegan) entrees.
On the ground in Maryland! Wow, it's crisp here today. (!) The fall color is pathetic compared to New England, though. :-) Very easy flight, nice and cloudy.
Posted at 4:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Posted at 9:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Okay, here's our Sky Trip Adventure flight plan! (Click for the full-sized, readable version.) We're leaving tomorrow afternoon.
First Flight Day (Friday): Hartford to Fort Meade, Maryland (aka Tipton!). We'll stay overnight for two nights in Greenbelt for a certain wedding we're going to attend on Halloween! :-)
Second Flight Day (Sunday): Maryland to Florence, South Carolina (fuel stop), then New Smyrna Beach, Florida (dinner/fuel), then Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Loooooong day. Overnight in Ft. Lauderdale, pick up emergency raft, then...
Third Flight Day (Monday): Fort Lauderdale to Stella Maris on Long Island, Bahamas.
We'll be staying in Stella Maris until Friday morning, when we do the whole thing in reverse, only the stops will be a little different because we're staying overnight at my parents' in North Carolina on the way back, instead of stopping in Maryland. We'll fly there via Savannah, Georgia (fuel stop only).
On the map, the letters along the flight path are various intersections we'll probably use (it depends where air traffic control tells us to go, but this is the likely path and it will be pretty close), and the ones with a K in front of them are the airports we plan to stop at (except for the Bahamas airport, which isn't in the US and begins with an M instead).
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Posted at 6:21:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Voicemail today: "Hi, this is the Southington Republican Town Committee calling asking you to come out and support all of our candidates on Election Day next Tuesday. Please remember that in a local election every vote counts, including yours...."
Not if I live in BERLIN, it doesn't!!! Too bad we're going to be out of town on Election Day. I want to go to Southington and try to vote and see what happens.
Oh, no! Poor MMK! :-(
Posted at 5:21:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 3:52:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
It's insanely nice out again. 60°, but sun. Calm. Leafy. The best thing about this fall has been no wind friend! There are leaves lying on the ground that fell there a week ago and haven't moved an inch.
There are about a million shades of orange, yellow, green, crimson and purple in our Kousa dogwood right now. I just spent about 5 minutes slowly walking around the whole thing admiring them all.
Posted at 2:50:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
72° in Greenbelt on Satuday?? If that stays accurate, wow!
Posted at 2:23:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Posted at 5:40:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Listening to "The Awesome 80s" on XM radio (via my computer) while picking out my trip outfits. (And wondering if June will play "Stray Cat Strut" at her reception!) I love having the new outfit chart I begged Dean to create in Excel! I think Future Self will v.v. appreciate being able to refer to it too.
Posted at 2:10:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Rain rain rain. A good day to be stuck inside packing.
I should take a picture of Smead's new leaves. I can't remember when he's looked so good. He grew six this summer (in two goes), and the second set came in so big! They're all nice and dark and glossy. I put him in the tea room after it got too cold for him to go outside, and he likes it in there. More sunlight.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Okay, I have to write this down for Future Self: tonight I made a bastardized version of my family's famous Macaroni and Cheese Deluxe recipe (link is to Susie's site, whence the recipe derives its fame). I sort of halved it (but it depended on the ingredient...) and I made a million substitutions for stuff I didn't have. It turned out really good and Dean loved it; he said he might even like it better than the normal recipe!
Posted at 11:10:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
My mods were as follows:
* I used orecchiette pasta instead of elbow macaroni (about 1 cup uncooked).
* I used 0% Total Greek yogurt (aka grogurt) instead of sour cream (also about 1 cup, so this wasn't halved).
* Despite halving most items, I used 1 jumbo egg (the original calls for 1 large egg).
* I used Kerrygold Dubliner cheese (about one cup) and a few generous pinches of shaved Parmesan cheese (from Trader Joe's) thrown in for good measure.
* I didn't have any cottage cheese, so I used a thawed-out block of leftover tofu that I had stashed in the freezer... when you freeze tofu, then thaw it out (defrost mode in the microwave), it gets a totally different texture (kind of chewy); when I broke this up into tiny pieces with a pointy fork, it resembled cottage cheese, so I threw it in! I think it was a bit less than a cup... maybe 1/2 or 3/4.
* I put in about half of the 3/4 tsp salt (I'm no good at fractions, so what's that... 3/8 tsp?), and used sea salt, natch.
Other than all that, I followed the recipe as written. (I.e., the dash of pepper, sprinkle of paprika, and preparation method remained the same.) Oh and I used an appropriately smaller glass baking dish... the kind you'd do a loaf of banana bread in. I really had no idea if all those mods would be edible, but it was great! Sort of like a cross between baked macaroni & cheese and quiche. It made the perfect amount for two people (as a side dish), with no leftovers.
Posted at 8:47:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
About Sunday: We took off on runway 29! Weird & cool. Cinema City (a.k.a. "The Malkovich") at end. Chowder Pot beneath us. An escaped bunch of black and orange balloons floating by.
From up here, everything looks rusty now. Like that --->
So clear today. The distant mountains are sharp.
After lunch at Rick's near the Hudson river (haven't been to Rick's in ages!), Dean surprised me by flying over the Catskills. The Band country. I didn't know which one was Overlook Mountain (the mountain near Big Pink)... they didn't have labels.
But Ashokan Reservoir did, on Dean's GPS. It's big. Richard and Garth used to share a house that overlooked Ashokan Reservoir; maybe it's one of the houses buried in the mountainside of the photo to the left. Everything was so pretty, blue sky swept with clouds, mountains forested in orange, smooth deep blue expanses of reservoir. Such a perfect day for it.
On the way home, Dean swung by Lyman's just so I could take a picture of their Presidential Corn Maze for my "corn maze collection" (his words). The maze shows Washington and Obama and says, "Lyman Orchards since 1741." On the far right of the photo, you can see Lyman's "Apple Barrel" store. Even though I have been there many times (peaches!), I had no idea it was hexagonal! We also flew right by our place on the way back to Brainard, and I got a good photo of that, too. So much fun! Nice nice afternoon.
Note: wrote an entry yesterday about our flight, but I didn't finish it yet! (Needs photos!) Will post out of order, tomorrow.
Posted at 12:18:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Posted at 9:38:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Okay, so here it is: the AAG! (Anti-Autumn Gloom) Bag! Photos are from Saturday afternoon when it was raining out. :-) I used it for the first time today, and I really like it. It's roomier than the bags I use most of the time, but that will probably be good in the winter-time, because I'll have room for my gloves in there. As for now, there's space for my arm warmers if I take them off. It's approximately 9½" high (not including the strap) and 9" wide at the top, 7" wide at the bottom. No depth.
The bag is upcycled from two of the sweaters that I felted in January, but it's mostly the heathered orange one. The body of the bag is made out of the body of the sweater, with the bottom ribbing on top. In front, it's folded over and stitched down, and the back reaches over the top and forms the flap, which is attached with three snaps, super-special seaweed patterned pewter buttons sewn on top. They were a Christmas gift from January. Here's a closeup. When I was using the bag today, I found that I only need to open the middle snap to take out and put back in my wallet and keys, so I'm not having to constantly unsnap and resnap three buttons, which is good.
[For some reason, I can't get the pink to reproduce correctly in photos... the orange looks accurate, but the bright pink is a warmer color than it appears here. Weird.]
There is also a zippered pocket in front for my Treo, which is made from the turtleneck of the sweater, cut at the seam to open it flat. I made it so there's about 5/8" between the zipper and the edge of the pocket front, so the zipper is recessed and kind of hidden behind the loose material. You can see the zipper peeking out in this view, taken at a downangle. It's bright green, which makes me smile: a hidden surprise of contrast, autumnal as late summer's shiny green leaves still persist alongside the ones that have begun to turn.
The strap is made from one of the sleeves, checkered with a sleeve from the bright pink sweater. There are twelve segments, sewn together into a skinny tube and then inside-outed, so they have really pleasant rounded feel. Where they are connected to the body of the bag is protected and hidden by part of the folded-in edges of the stitched down ribbing.
The thick felted wool has a bit of give to it; it's not stretchy the way a sweater is, but it's not like a woven fabric either. I couldn't get a lining to agree with it, so there isn't one. The edges of the felted wool don't unravel, so I just cut them neat and close and they don't do any harm inside the bag. Only the bottom and side seams are exposed in there; everything else is stitched down, mostly by hand, and the material sort of merges with itself. None of the stitches show. I did most of the stitching by hand, except the long seams on the bottom, edges, and strap.
I like how it retains its sweatery identity, with the bottom ribbing and turtleneck ribbing still intact. It's very cozy to hold. And it feels very very autumnal. (It reminds me of a pumpkin.) I think it will serve its Anti-Autumn Gloom purpose well, and it's especially great to have finally found a worthy use for my very special buttons. They totally make the bag.
Posted at 6:39:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Oh wow, I just bought some new tights at TJ Maxx (approx. half price) and they are the snuggliest tights ever!! They're Hue brand "cable sweater tights" in camel. I got them so I'd have a pair of tights that I could wear with my toast suede shoes, and they match perfectly. For some reason, they're insanely tall, so there's extra length in the legs. They're a little baggy around the ankles, which sounds bad, but actually it's not really noticeable and looks kind of cozy. They're much less tight than normal tights are, and are super-comfortable. Maybe it's because they're S/M combo sized instead of just S. They even have built-in feet (with a heel, I mean) and the feet are nice and big so my toes aren't squashed. Nice. Future self: if you see more of these, get them!! Now I'm all set for my Northern Travel Outfit™.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
I finished the AAG! bag, late o'clock last night (Friday night, that is). Took some photos today, in the rain. Will post ASAP, but I need to write accompanying description. Nice nice nice rain, all drippy-drop sounding, and we sat outside on the deck with the awning pulled down, reading Dean's Pink Paper. It was warm--in the upper 60s! And I drank an Aeropressed Kona Mountain coffee while we outdoorsed, natch. So Keauhou-ish.
Posted at 1:44:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Planned a bunch of stuff for our Sky Trip (charts, what to pack, luggage) and packed the scuba gear. I like doing the highlighter-ing on the charts, on my floor, at Dean's instruction. Three of them, this time. The two possible routes from Hartford to Tipton on the first one look like an orange-and-pink constellation.
Went to Dara's. Nice nice Saturday afternoon. I noticed the other day that we have been going to Dara's for over a year (since last September). We are still addicted and go almost every weekend! We usually read the Pink Paper, or magazines. Dara has all our selections memorized and calls us "guys." :-) We share a mango sticky rice for dessert, and I always pick out two butterscotch hard candies from the candy dish on the way out.
I am not that easily bugged, but you know what drives me to distraction? Documentary type shows that repeat the same information over and over again. Each time they come back after a commercial break, they summarize the same stuff they already told us. It's maddening! The whole show could be about half as long if they didn't do this. Aaaagh. Why do so many shows do that??? Do they think we can't remember information from two minutes ago? Cosmos never does this.
Posted at 12:31:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Yeah, I just watched Discovering Ardi. I also loved how they failed to mention that we have no idea if Ardipithecus ramidus is actually one of our ancestors, or a totally unrelated early hominid.
It would have been a lot better as a New Yorker article.
