Weekly Wanderings {week 4}

The last week’s been a crazier than usual one, the kind where you’re insanely busy but don’t get a single thing crossed off your to-do list. Blogging fell by the wayside, but in its place came lobsters! Random screaming animals! Tasty cheese! So, you know, I’m not complaining.

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For the longest time, Son was NOT a cheese person. He didn’t like it, he didn’t really understand why people loved it so much. So for the past ten years, we haven’t really been a cheese-eating household, and I had to go elsewhere to get my occasional cheese fix.

But recently, seemingly out of nowhere, he suddenly LOVES cheese. He likes to eat the Laughing Cow wedges with bananas (apparently this was a thing he did as a kid), and then I bought a creamy swiss from Good Eggs and he adored that (on slices of French bread) as well.

Then, last week, we were at Whole Foods and he was drawn to the cheese section. He kept going back to the triple-creme bries, because he loved how soft they were. So we got one (and I’m still trying to get over my shock of Son voluntarily buying fancy cheese!)

Oh my goodness, it’s so good. Like butter! We’ve been eating it on these raisin pecan crackers, and we’ve had to severely limit ourselves lest we overdo it because it is so darn delicious.

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As self-employed software engineers, Son and I have a pretty stereotypical programmer schedule. On a normal night, we’re up coding until 3 or 4 in the morning, and then wake up around 11am or noon (unless we have an earlier client meeting).

So it was particularly unpleasant getting woken up at 6am mid-week, by the most horrible, creepy, inhuman screaming right outside our bedroom window.

After quickly determining it was definitely not the sound of one of our neighbors being tortured or the baby next door screeching her head off (which does, of course, happen on a regular basis, as babies tend to do), we got up and peeked outside in the dark to try to figure out what the heck was going on.

Only to find one of our neighbors outside in his pajamas with a flashlight, with a wide-eyed, freaked out look on his face, tiptoeing around trying to figure out what the hell had woken us all up.

Possum in heat? Raccoon torturing a small animal? We may never know… but luckily for the entire neighborhood Mr. Flashlight scared it into silence and it hasn’t been back since.

In comparison, getting woken up by loud gardeners or crying babies is music to my ears!

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I know you’re all going to hate me now, but this whole Southern California not having a winter thing is getting just plain ridiculous. It’s the middle of February, and I’m wearing shorts.

Yes, yes, I know I sound like a spoiled California brat. (Who am I kidding, I totally am – I’d never survive a snowy winter!) But seriously, we’re in such a bad drought in California, and we need rain so badly!

How about this – you send cold rainy wishes my way, and I’ll send warm sunny thoughts toward all of you in colder climates. Deal?

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As my mom and her siblings are cleaning out my late grandmother’s house, they’re finding all sorts of treasures, some of which I’ve inherited. (I am now the proud owner of a grand thimble collection!) My grandmother was an avid knitter and crocheter, so she left a ton of yarn, and quite a few partially- or mostly-finished projects.

So I’ve decided to take up crocheting and knitting. Eventually. Because I definitely need more to do in my life.

But a very (very!) easy first project was to finish off the potholders my grandmother had made. There were about ten that were almost completely finished, just needed to be sewn up the middle to complete them. My mom gave me the task of finishing them (which turned out to be an excellent, mindless thing to do during meetings that didn’t require a ton of my participation), with the agreement that I was allowed to keep whichever ones I wanted. Best deal ever!

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All my life, I’ve been an on-again off-again insomniac, so I’m always looking for ways to get to sleep easier. I recently read about the 4-7-8 breathing technique, where you breathe in for four counts, hold your breath for seven counts, and breathe out for eight counts. It’s supposed to be a good way to calm your mind and help you fall asleep quickly.

Friday morning I was going to have to get up quite a bit earlier than I normally do, so Thursday night I decided to try the technique. It seemed to be working well, and I was dropping off to sleep…

… and then, while holding my breath for seven counts, I accidentally let out a little squeak.

I peaked open one eye, to see if Son, who was still up watching TV, had heard, and found him looking down at me with a confused expression.

I totally lost it.

I spent the next ten minutes in tears because I was laughing so hard, which was made even worse by his first comment: “Did you fart?”

Suffice to say, the 4-7-8 breathing technique backfired dramatically.

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I spent several days last week at my dad’s house, staying with him while my sister was out of town. We expected her home early Friday evening – just in time to coincide with a fresh seafood delivery that one of my aunts had sent us.

However, early Friday afternoon, we discovered that she had left something behind, and had to go back for another night. So she wouldn’t be getting home Friday night.

… which meant that all of a sudden, I had to figure out how to cook the four live lobsters and five pounds of mussels that had arrived earlier that day.

Have I mentioned that I had never cooked, much less touched, live lobster before? (In fact, the only other time I’ve ever cooked any sort of recently-alive seafood resulted in a rather hilariously terrifying experience.)

I swear the lobsters were mad-dogging me the whole time.

I did it!

Mind you, I had to put on the dishwashing gloves before I could even get up the courage to touch one, and was trembling like crazy after I got it in the pot of boiling water, but I did it! And by the fourth one, I was barely even shaking anymore!

I also made moules frites (mussels and french fries)… with Five Guys french fries. Cooking four live lobsters and a pot full of mussels for the first time was enough for one day. I have my limits. 😉

The highlight of the day was when I went to serve my dad the lobster, he took one sniff of the melted butter and asked, “uh… which butter did you use?”

I looked back in the fridge, to find that the butter had an expiration date of May 8th, 2005 – one week before Son and I started dating. Hah! Needless to say, we got rid of that butter and melted some much fresher butter, for a very delicious lobster dinner. 😀

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I’m currently reading pretty much everything Brandon Sanderson has ever written. I had been introduced to his writing when he finished off the Wheel of Time series after Robert Jordan passed, but had never pursued his other stories. However The Way of Kings was free on Amazon for a while, so it was an obvious foot in the door. Although it started off slow, I ended up devouring The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance… only to discover that they were the only two published books in a much longer epic fantasy series that wasn’t finished yet. -_-

I moved on to the Mistborn Trilogy, and absolutely loved it. Now I’m reading Firefight, the second book in the Reckoners series. This series of his is less epic fantasy and more superhero, which is fun in its own way.

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Links I’ve loved lately:

I wish I were the kind of cool cat who could pull off having tea parties, just for a good excuse to make these pretty elderflower and goldenberry friands. Yes, I just said cool cat. Which is a good hint as to why I’m not one.

I love the idea of living in a neighborhood where all the neighbors are friendly and invite each other over for dinner. Like this.

This photo styling! So good. Also, I totally want that cake.

The sucky part about being a female in a male dominated industry. I feel lucky that I’ve always been able to work with men who aren’t assholes, and have been supportive of us female programmers.

I’ve decided my life goal is to learn to knit, so I can KNIT SWEATERS FOR PENGUINS! I’ve found my calling.

This is the best article to read on Valentine’s Day. Got love in your life?

I’ve fallen in love with this travel blog. Every article makes me want to pack up and take a trip somewhere interesting.

I wish we could actually have a winter in LA (see: 80°F+ temperatures, above), just so I could have a good reason to make this hot chocolate. Hot chocolate just doesn’t feel right when it’s hot enough to wear shorts and a tank top…

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