Mmmm, cheese.

1. Just returned from a house warming which my dad and I attended. They had some good grub laid out. Am full as of now.:)

2. Have to take the car in to get checked out tomorrow--it is making a hell of a racket.

3. Will be talking to nicky later tonight--yayyyyy!

congrats on the website!

*joins chorus of chesse praise*

1) I had delicious pumpkin soup at an entirely-candle-lit, medieval-themed restaurant underground in Riga's old town. It was not only reasonably priced, but was accompanied by the most delicious beer ever, the cryptically-named "Latvian Red". And it came with these rolls that must have shared 95% of their DNA with American-style biscuits, which are totally in the upper echelons of the royal family of the kingdom of bread. And most shockingly of all: NO POTATOES AT ALL ON THE MENU! (This is like going to a diner in the United States and being told that they don't serve burgers: it's pretty much unimaginable.) They said it was because potatoes came from the Americas, which totally makes sense, but I love that the absence of potato products is remarkable enough for me to notice it. And they had live medieval-style music! Oh, many of the menu items were accompanied by these little stories, too - I'll have to go back and transcibe some of them for your enjoyment. (Can you tell I liked it?)

2) I spent much of the weekend playing with my Polish phrasebook and trying to distill some of the basic grammar from the pretty-good-for-total-beginners descriptions at the beginning. To help me decide what to work on, I had the idea on Thursday to copy the tables of contents of some of the elementary-level English textbooks we use at school, so I now sort of know the alphabet, the names of lots of people and things in the classroom (and at school/work in general), the present (nominative) of be and have, and some things about places and nationalities. Nouns in Polish seem to change based on whether they're the object or subject of the sentence, but there aren't any (as far as I've seen so far, which is not that far) insanely irregular changes, so I think if I just speak slowly and get the intonation/pronunciation right, people will be excited that I'm trying even if I'm wrong.

3) I'm coming home to California on April 1 for 10 days to attend my friend's wedding in Yosemite and I'm really excited! Eeeeeeee!

Never Mind, i have just been told to work, by a casual person who thought id be delighted to do so, boss person. am being poisoned to death by fake smiles.

seriously, i am ok and happy and then someone disrespects me like this and i just wish i could die again.

now trying to get thunderbird to work with my smtp settings

1: It's cold out there - snooooooooow!
2: I'm hungry, lunch in a minute, but I don't know what to eat tonight
3: I seem to be spending an increasingly large amount of money on food. Part of that is the economy, the rest is me finding new things to try. I need to go back to more boring food, I think. *sigh*

1. Tommorrow I take delivery on my new monster PC. 4GB RAM! 22 flatscreen with built-in webcam! 500GB HD! (I have to back up my porn)
2. Today I shall do laundry and hang out with the drunks at the bar.
3. I think I'll go make coffee.

1. I've been happy with my photos from my trip to N.C., but my brother called this one too "edgy". Not sure what that means, but I just meant it as amusing/fun.
≡ Click to see image ≡

2. Supposed to be sunny and warm today, so I think I'll get some work done out in the garden.

3. I got some Illy espresso beans, so I think I'll fire up the Silvia for the first time in a month. Never made espresso out of Illy coffee before.

1. I have a friend coming for lunch. We're having to start kebabs of prawns and squid marinaded in provençale herbs, followed by roast lamb which I've rubbed with a herb mix which my lunch guest brought back with her from Greece last year. I've ground up the herbs in a mill, rubbed olive oil over the lamb and then the herbs over that. I'm not sure what the mix is, but it's very aromatic and smells gorgeous. I've char-grilled some courgettes and peppers to go with it, and we're also having purple broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. To end the meal, I'm making roast plums with a brown sugar and cinnamon crust, which will be served with thick Greek yoghurt.

2. Tomorrow I have to unpack the crates at work that I packed last Thursday, at my new desk. It's not as good as the desk I had before, but it's the best one in the team, given the new location.

3. I've had a good Easter weekend, a combination of time to myself (which I like) and time spent with people.

1. It's my spring break. Yaaay! I will go outside to do yard stuff as soon as the temp gets to 40. It's now 21.

2. Still lamenting the pond failure. Waiting for new liner and underlay so I can rebuild it.

3. Still sore from tearing out old pond lining.

1. I am more tired after the weekend.

2. I got $150 worth of tickets on my car this weekend.

3. I'm sick of politics.

update update:

1) I finally got t-bird and smtp to play nice
2) then i sent my html email
3) t-bird very tolerant of block cutpastes from ms excel email list!
3.5) have just time machined

1. Things could be better.
2. They could also be worse.
3. As in so many things, only time will tell.

1. Was supposed to work today, but it turned out that the hardware store/lumberyard was closed, so we couldn't get supplies, and the garage was closed, so we couldn't get gas to go to the jobsite anyway.

2. Guess today is house & garden & garbage burning day. Now I smell of diesel. Bleah.

3. Happy at the thought of having a clean house to come home to all week, though the hours (and therefore the income) would've been nice.

2b. But I rented the first two discs of Deadwood Season 3! Take that, ya hoopleheads.

Update on the update:

1. Garden work done: got last hay bale for experimental root crop gardening; built frame for top of hay bales (but need to make it smaller so it sits on TOP), put together vine ladders for cukes and beans and small squashes, pumped out mudhole that used to be pond, tried to dismantle compost bin to move to a sunnier place but it's full of frozen dirt (from sod I threw in there that had TOO MUCH dirt on the roots)

2. House repairs done: Fixed tracks on two kitchen drawers, fixed railing on front porch.

3. This is supposed to be my break -- am I supposed to relax?

3a. But I'm ADHD, so this is the closest I get to relaxing.

Update on 2: Or I could just wash all the dishes, make curry, and catch up on all the Coronation Street episodes I missed while I was away. The curry's pretty skookum, though. And I made lots, so there'll be plenty for tomorrow when I *will* be working. Guess the garden will wait.

I have learned a new word today. Thanks, elizard.

It's a great word, isn't it? Spread it around, bmarkey! Spread the skookum lurve!

1. I put oil in the car.
2. Long weekend = holiday, right. Don't bug me for a number 2.
3. Seriously... did you not see point 1? Oil, in the car. It's running better now. Three points, you say? What am I, bloody superman?