whee

today was our first day of winter ocean -- gray and choppy and building up towards anger. even in the storms we've had so far this year, it wasn't so dark and forbidding.

i've rather missed it.

in other news, the fromager d'affinois is delicious -- so soft at room temperature it's nearly liquid, creamy and somewhat like brie only a bit more pungent. i also baked up a couple of the small blue potatoes i bought at the farmer's market. they turn out to be good for baking, with a texture much like a russet and perhaps a little more flavor.

not sure what to cook tonight yet. i've got all the makings for a truly kickass chili, but right now i'm craving indian or ethiopian food. we shall see...

whew

the first session with the new therapist went pretty well. i liked her ok, although i didn't get too good a sense of her personality because we had all the usual paperwork to go through, and i did a lot of talking to give her a general idea where i'm at just now. she's one of the office's interns, and that did show, but she's got all her degrees and stuff and she seemed pretty smart. we'll see how it goes. it's always a little uncomfortable with a new therapist.

on the way home i stopped off at several groceries -- the Pacific Super for cheap meat and produce, Safeway for big tubs of coleslaw and bags of buns, and Food Town for the best and cheapest beer selection in town. i love Pacific Super and wasn't able to resist the bags of ginger and shallots at 79 cents/lb.; i never use up that much ginger before it starts to spoil, but it still comes out cheaper than buying it anyplace else. they also had the thinnest asparagus i've ever seen for 99 cents/lb., and i had to get some of that and see what it's about -- the stalks are thinner than a string bean! i think it'll look very elegant on a plate.

tomorrow is BBQ for the gamers, and this time i made sure i'd have more than enough of everything, since the last two times i ran out of buns. tonight i'm going to try the vegetable korma recipe kindly transcribed by eejitalmuppet.

i'm feeling a bit better moodwise after the most recent medication increase, which is good. and it must be showing, because a couple of guys chatted me up in the grocery, one about the color of my car and one about beer selections. admittedly, i am having a spectacularly good skin and hair day, and am dressed slightly more respectably than usual.

when i got home, i was struggling to get all the groceries out of my trunk when shirley appeared like an angel and helped me carry them all up. i showed her the lovely wool jacket i bought the other day with naomi_traveller (from the $29 rack because it had a tiny hole in the sleeve, but, as shirley put it, "it looks very expensive!"), and she promptly volunteered to fix the hole. it took her a whopping five minutes and it looks perfect. from the outside no one would ever know it had been mended.

what did i do to deserve such amazing neighbors?

more thoughts on the therapy session, but will save them for a later, more private entry. now must find places to put away astounding volume of food.

i'll never catch up

i went over to return some dishes of shirley's and offer her my ficus, which is dying under my laissez-faire care. i thought for once i was going to get away clean, but no... she and warren insisted on giving me a pair of beautiful oriental rugs they were planning to get rid of because they have much nicer ones now -- the ones they gave me aren't wool or anything, but they're very pretty and go with the rugs i already have. and they are exactly the sizes i'd been wishing for, one runner for my front hall and one 4'x6' one for my desk area.

i ask again: what did i do to deserve such wonderful neighbors?