Thursday, 11 October, 2012 Thursday Quick Takes

Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Quick Takes: Sick Pity Party Edition

1. “Acute viral bronchitis.” This is why there has been no blogging over here in forever.

2. “Which has lasted longer than normal,” quoth the doc last Friday, regarding the then two weeks of sick. Apparently, I could have ten more days to go before I feel better.

3. I guess codeine is the drug of the moment. I have a scrip for cough syrup with codeine. When I had the emergency root canal situation this summer, I was given Tylenol with codeine and I discovered that codeine produces a very altered mental state in me.  Not planning on filling the cough syrup prescription; I have a hard time seeing being high as an appealing alternative to being sick.

4. Self-pity on display (written Tues. while home sick):  Being sick when you are single/on your own sucks.  It is also the one situation where sharing a house is not a positive. One cannot monopolize the couch and bathroom with abandon in a shared house; and, sick or not, one cannot let the dishes pile up. I have been confined to my increasingly putrid room for the last 14 days. And I pity my poor housemates (although they are uninfected thus far.)

5. Canned soup gets gross after week two. Even excellent instant miso gets old. Homemade chicken soup is much better and rutabagas make a nice substitute for rice or noodles. (When I get better, I really must remember to make/freeze another large batch against illness or to give to sick friends.)

6. The weather has more or less turned in DC, and I need to do all my cold-weather arranging (inside & out), but am still too sick to tackle much of it.

Besides geographic beauty, I miss the simplicity of California dressing.  This is the time of year where I resent strongly the need to switch out my whole wardrobe and do not look forward to having to stifle myself in multiple layers of cloth every day. Sure, it’s fun to go read all the fashion sites and get “ideas” for the change of seasons, but even after four years, the amount of clothing needed for the East Coast still feels  excessive and fussy and unfrugal and unnecessary to me.

The only cold weather chore I’ve gotten to (out of sheer necessity) is to put my duvet back on my bed. For a long time I was in complete agreement with Seraphic on the subject of beds/bed linen – especially duvet versus sheets*.  But I ended up buying a duvet some years back (the last time I had nasty bronchitis, actually) and I really like it.  I just (unrepentantly) use sheets with the duvet.  In the very hot months, I just take the duvet out of its cover and use the cover as a light blanket. When the weather turns, I stick the duvet back in its cover, and if it gets very cold, add blankets. Works quite nicely, I think.

7.  This site is about my speed right now. Bad for my cough, though.

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*(Top sheets provide a necessary barrier between you & the covers. Thus, if you are sick or not especially clean or whatever, the covers remain uncontaminated and no need to wash all your bedding frequently, just wash the sheets. Substituting a duvet cover is not the same somehow.)

Friday, 2 December, 2011 Scattered Quick Takes

Scattered Quick Takes Friday

1. I had kind of hoped to do a follow-up post on the New Roman Missal, but I still haven’t experienced the full translation.  This week has been just a little crazy.

2. This is all the follow-up I’ve got: In this area, there’s a tradition at the Latin Novus Ordo to (inexplicably, IMO) say the little dialogue before the Gospel reading in English (although we literally say every other response, even the minor ones, in Latin.) So, on Sunday, we got to that point in the Mass and the priest said, “the Lord be with you” and every single one of us, without missing a beat said…. “and also with you.” D’oh. As that is literally the only dialogue we say in English, we blew our only chance. Me included. I think we’re going to need some persistent reminders, but I would lobby that we just say that dialogue in Latin too. That’s what we did in California.

3. I had a good Thanksgiving and hope you all did too. Running the 5k the morning of was actually one of my favorite parts of the day – I struggled, but still managed to whittle a few seconds off my previous 5k time. However:

4. My sister, the fourth of my six siblings, arrived at the race late. She got to the start line after the gun went off, and started the race at least 5 minutes behind everybody. She beat every single member of my family running the race, including all those that started before her. That would be 4 siblings and 2 significant others, guys and girls. She should run more races. But I think I hate her. (She told me, “I made sure you didn’t see me when I passed you.”)

5. I really have to do one more plug for Pray More Novenas.  I’m repeating myself, but novenas have never been a particular devotion of mine. However, the email reminders make praying them so easy, that I am praying my third novena since October and I’m finding that novenas are what I need at this point in time. The Immaculate Conception novena is in full swing right now: do join it, if you feel moved to do so.

6. Picture of the week:

Light frost this morning

It’s getting colder here.

7. Which means I really need to finish my fall garden to do list before the ground starts freezing. Gardening creates a strange a mind-set. I was raking up leaves for leaf collection weekend, and caught myself thinking, “why am I letting the city take all these good useful leaves?!” (That item “clear off the back porch” on my list has gotten a bit more necessary because of that mind set, since it has become the temporary home for my useful biological matter pile. I think I am in danger of straining my housemates’ tolerance.)

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Wednesday, 23 November, 2011 Beer Can Turkey

Unsightly,

A picture from last year's feast

but delicious. If you want to try it: instructions here.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all of yours!

Friday, 11 November, 2011 Quick Takes

So, I guess I’m really going to be all legitimate with this blog, and try to attract, *gulp, actual readers. I set myself  the goal for this week of participating in the famous Conversion Diary Quick Takes, so here I go.  I’m kind of freaking out.

Self-Conscious Bloggy Quick Takes

1. I can’t believe I’m doing this; inviting people to this blog, and even leaving up my terrible, wordy post on posting! Not all the layout of this blog is the way I want it, and I’m not totally happy with the garden page yet, either. (Can’t figure out spacing with text and photos.)

2. But: Welcome, Readers!!! 🙂

3. I’m happy I have enough posts to fill more than one screen, but sad my only Slings & Arrows reference has fallen off the front page, so I give you:

4. Photo of the week:

Sidewalk arch

N.B. It is difficult to pick/put up a photo of the week if you only take 4 photos during the whole week.  This was surreptitiously snapped during my commute this morning.

5. Interesting fact & iffy idea: First the fact: I have had a blog since before the word “blog” was popularly used. Way back in the hintertimes (ok, 11 *gasp, heartattack, years ago) I had a diary on a now defunct Live Journal-type site called “Open Diary.” Back then, I had readers (no really!)

Now the idea: the blogging bug must be really infectious, because I doubt I would have even countenanced this thought pre-blog, but I was thinking of doing a series of clothes posts. Not that I’m a girly-girl or have great fashion sense, because I don’t.

But coming from California, I find it difficult to dress appropriately for the seasons in DC. (Don’t let anyone tell you that the mid-Atlantic has the traditional four seasons. No, the seasons here are: sauna, first winter, second winter, a brief period of unsettled weather (sometimes called “spring”) and then it’s back to sauna again.)

Plus, both DC and my particular job require a level of formality in dress that is unusual for Californian me.  Also, I’d like to throw some common sense (I flatter myself) pebbles into the constant low-level kurfuffle burbling along in the female portion of Catholic blogdom over modesty in dress. I think the whole skirts v. pants* thing is silly. And I don’t think there’s anything morally superior (or even extra-feminine) about adhering to a Colleen Hammond* type standards of dress.

But, I dunno, maybe it’s a really lame idea.

6.  Happy Veterans’ Day to all the vets (esp. my brother) and all those in the military!

7. I cannot close this list without also wishing you all a very superlative Nigel Tufnel day.

“These go up to…”

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*Well, I put Colleen Hammond in my post. And pants. Let the increased traffic flame wars begin!

Wednesday, 9 November, 2011 Fall Color

Fall Color in Brookland

Finally, this morning, I remembered to stick my camera in my purse. The leaf change in DC this year seems unusually (at least compared to last year?) pretty and vibrant.  Here are a couple of contrasting maples on my block.