Tuesday Thoughts

Ted and I have recently found a delicious Chinese restaurant in our neighboring town, Sichuan Fortune House (Link is to Yelp, they don’t have a website). It’s not really a place to go with Maya, because she is more a fan of sweet and sour chicken and pot stickers and steamed pork buns, and this place has really delicious dry cooked (spicy) green beans, a wonderful mushroom dish, yummy hot and sour soup, really nice cod, etc. All things that are delicious and not up her ally. I mean, they DO have sweet and sour pork (no chicken, but maybe they would make it for her?) and pot stickers, but by the time you order those things for her and the other things for us, that’s a ton of food and a lot of money. So, at least thus far, we go without her. Maybe she will come around, who knows. It’s not a new place, it’s been there for years. We saw a review of it on a local show once, ‘Check Please, Bay Area’, but only recently got around to giving it a try. Mainly because the review said their food is spicy, and on this particular day we were out and about without Maya, so spicy was a plus.

Right next to Sichuan Fortune House is a little strip mall, with a laundromat, some other store, and the wonderfully named Cigarettes! Outlet. Ted and I decided that, were one to work at Cigarettes! Outlet, one would be required to include that exclamation point in one’s voice when answering the phone. “Hello, thank you for calling CIGARETTES! Outlet, how may I help you?”

For some reason, I have a bug in my ear about making my own vanilla extract. I want to make it, and give it as gifts later. I was motivated by this post at Smitten Kitchen, and the fact that I am considering making Bloody Marys for Easter Brunch, which means I would buy vodka, which could then be used for the extract. I really like Bloody Marys, though generally I prefer them without any alcohol. So I’ll make a pitcher of virgin Marys, and have the vodka on the side.

We’ve had a wet March here, which is a blessing indeed. I believe we are now at about 60% of normal rainfall for the winter. There’s a big storm expected later today into tomorrow, which will certainly not fill in that last 40% (Can you imagine the mess if it did?), but it is a help. This will likely be the last big rain of the year. We generally get a few smaller systems through here in April and occasionally in May, but they don’t drop enough rain to do much more than clear the pollution out of the air. Then it dries up until at least October. It’s our Mediterranean climate, good for olives and avocados, not so good for a huge population of people and farming and lawns.

Maya went to Portland last weekend, so spend a little time with her Grammy (my step-mom, Julie), aunts and uncles, and cousins. My father was a grant writer, and did a lot of good work for nonprofits in Portland and the surrounding areas. One organization he worked with over the years was the Oregon Baroque Orchestra, and they told Julie that they would not exist anymore without the funding he got for them. I believe he was also on their board for awhile. So last weekend, they dedicated their performances to his memory. So Maya got to go up for that, which she really enjoyed and was a touching tribute. Julie also had tickets to see a live production of “The Sound of Music”, so she took Maya to that. Maya really enjoyed it, and while neither of us has ever seen the movie, she was surprised at how many of the songs she knew. Ted and I had a nice weekend while she was gone, including dinner at Sichuan Fortune House. We missed her though, and were glad when she came home. She may have missed us, but she REALLY missed Mulder. Here’s your bonus puppy pic.

I have to go to an all company thing in Las Vegas at the end of May. Blah. I say blah because I’m not really a fan of Vegas. Our corporate headquarters is there, though, so it makes sense to have all company things there. I don’t mind company things. One thing about working from home is that I don’t get to hang out with coworkers very often, so this will be a chance to do that, including Sue, who I worked with at my last job, and who I really like, but who I have never met in person. I think she lives in Ohio, or at least somewhere midwesty, and she started at this company a few months ago. I haven’t been to Vegas since ’89, and I know it has changed a lot since then. But still.

I got my hair done the other day. I love getting my hair done. One benefit to having a decent job now that pays more than I was making at the old place, is that I now go to a real salon, rather than a beauty school. The beauty school was pretty good for the first several years I went there, but in the last year or so, they went downhill. So I would have to leave with wet hair because they had run out of time, only colored, not cut. Then I would go in the next weekend for a cut, and then again the following week to get the cut fixed. Each of these things taking FAR longer than they would if you worked with someone experienced. I don’t blame the students, they are learning. I blame the management, because they used to give more supervision, and help the students along, so you got a better service. And they used to leave enough time, so you didn’t end up being told to leave with wet, uncut hair. So I am very glad to have found my new hairdresser, Ashley, and I love how she does the color and the cut. Yes, it’s about 3x as much. That’s the ugly truth of hair styling. Someone spends 2 1/2 to 3 hours with you, they deserve to be compensated for it.

So, that’s what’s going on around here. How about you? Anything new and exciting?