Author: trinalin

En Enero Hace Frio?

There’s a rumor going around that it’s January, but I’m not believing it. The other day, I walked home in the rain. Yesterday, it was almost 60°F and my lawn boy got a lot of work done on the shrubs in my yard. This morning? Thunderstorms.

This is Ohio, not Florida!

The rest of the month is currently forecast for temperatures in the 40s during the day. Good grief! Where’s my cold weather? Where’s my snow? What does this foretell for February? Will we have to have snow in April to make up for the loss of snow in January? I guess time will tell!

(The title of this post, btw, is from a poem we had to memorize in Spanish when I was in school. I only remember the first stanza. “En Enero, hace frio/En Febrero, tambien.” This means, in January it’s cold, in February, likewise. Must be some new definition of cold. 🙂

Homecoming

Is “Homecoming” just a USA thing? Or do other countries do something like it? Homecoming is an event – sports related – given by a high school whereby alumni are encouraged to return to root for their alma mater & later go to a nice dance. Some towns go all out, having parades and such things. At Newton, we have a King and Queen elected by the student body out of the senior class, and there’s a band half-time show. But no parades or anything extravagant. The dance after the game is formal, so many young people will be all decked out in their nicest clothes yet. (Well, until Prom, that is.)

Those of you who know about Homecoming are most likely wondering why I’m talking about it in January. After all, it’s the big Football Season event. And Football Season for high school sports, is over. Well, when you go to a non-football school, you must plan Homecoming for some other sporting event. In our school, we do it during basketball season. And tonight is our Homecoming game & dance. I, of course, am home. Not big on crowds or basketball and especially not big on dances, Homecoming’s never been a big part of my life. But the students at school have been excited about all week. (Well, the 3 days I had ’em this week, at least.)

I do have a question for those of you who know about Homecoming – do universities do this too? In a typical maneuver, I graduated from a football-free high school and attended a football-free university (Wright State University). So no Homecoming there, should there be such a thing for universities.

Now, after I graduated uni, I ended up teaching in two football high schools. And even went to Homecoming at my first teaching position. It was so weird having Homecoming in October instead of December or January. And Eaton did have a parade and all that jazz. I was mostly there to see the band half-time show. And I really remember very little about it. I had my folks & sister come along, just for grins. Amy probably remembers more about it than I do. I think we lost, but I don’t even remember that.

You might be wondering how we do a band half-time show during a basketball game. It takes place between the Junior Varsity and Varsity games. And it’s usually pretty good. They fill up the gym pretty well. The theme this year is Grease (the musical). I’m sure it was a good show – it usually is. We might not have the winningest sports teams around (though some are pretty decent) but we do have the Best Band in the Land. Heh.

I was inspired to write this post (and it was much better written in my head) while returning from the gas station tonight. Business there was down a bit because of Homecoming. So I got to thinking about our own take on it and wondering about how “universal” such a thing it is. And wrote up an LJ post on the short walk home. Of course, it’s a couple hours later and I don’t remember most of my “In My Head” post. I’m pretty sure it was better organized that this one. Heh – ah well.

Looking Forward: Goals for 2006

I have begun 2006 with an emphasis on setting (and hopefully) meeting some goals. I’m not great at resolutions and when gregmce puts up his Uberlist, I always just read in amazement. But I think this year, I’ll see if I can do some successful goal-setting. The biggest has begun – yesterday I bought an exercise bike.

I love riding my bike, but in the winter, it just collects dust. And when I do ride, I don’t ride enough for my legs and butt to be comfortable. So I figured an exercise bike might get me up to speed (heh). And best of all, I can meet another goal and watch DVDs while I ride. Tonight, for example, I finished “Stay Tuned” (a Tara King episode of The Avengers) while I rode for 30 minutes. Let’s see if my exercise bike fares better than my treadmill. The treadmill lived the typical life of a piece of exercise equipment: 3 months of use, 3 years in the way, 3 years in the basement out of the way, sold to continue the cycle.

So, here we go, an incomplete list of goals for 2006. (I figure I’ll have more goals as the year progresses.)

  • Exercise on my exercise bike (or actual bike) daily for at least 20 minutes.

  • Catch up on watching my DVD collection (see the first point).

  • Read 30 minutes a day (not including rereads).

  • Get Jack Dodger (my CoV main) up to level 40 before Issue 7 comes out.

  • Make nice dinners for myself more frequently than before. (Let’s try for once a month.)

  • Return to my Portion Control regime (it really was good for me).

  • Lose 10 pounds and keep it off.

  • Get floor to ceiling bookshelves in my reading room.

There are other things I might add to this later, like “Get started on my Masters degree.” However, I’m not ready to commit to them yet. 🙂

Taking it Easy

I decided to return home last night rather than stay over another night with elsaf and judiang. I missed my kitty, wanted to see Granny, and had papers to grade. I’m glad I did this (though I do miss the girls, terribly) because I had a nice relaxing day today. And I got to see Leo and Granny and best of all, got the papers graded. Yay! The folks took me out to lunch, too. To Arang, the local Japanese restaurant. I had shrimp teriyaki & California rolls. Very yummy! They gave me $50, which I think I might use to buy The Flash, the Complete Series on DVD. (Yay! It comes out Jan 10!) I also opened Amy & Rachel’s gift – they gave me a log cabin toy set (like Lincoln Logs, only squarer). Fun to play with.

I had a lovely holiday this year. For my birthday, Elsa got me some Fox River Socks! (I’m wearing a pair right now. I love new socks, especially Fox Sox.) Judi got me Dangermouse seasons 1-4 – yay! We headed off to Tom & Ardath’s to meet up with them and Elsa’s parents. Lunch was dim sum at a restaurant near there. Very tasty food and very fresh. Elsa’s father even bought us lunch – yay! (I love parents who buy their daughter’s meals. Witness my parental units above.) After lunch, it was back to Tom’s for a short concert of Tom on recorder and Elsa’s mom on piano. Very nicely done.

We headed off to see Memoirs of a Geisha at a theater near Elsa’s place. The movie was very good. My neck was wet when it finished, cuz I’d been crying and the tears ran down my neck. I haven’t read the book, but Judi has and she said it was a pretty faithful rendition. She really liked the book.

Once we returned to the car, my ankle started vibrating. I had my purse between my feet & someone had called me on my cell phone. It was Amy! She & Rachel sang “Happy Birthday” to me. 🙂 We chatted for a little bit as Elsa drove us home. And once we were home, we had ice cream & geeked on our computers. During the geeking, my cell rang again, and this time it was mom & dad singing me “Happy Birthday.” Heh – I love my family.

As it neared suppertime (and, alas, time for Trina to leave the girls), we decided to go out one last time for dinner. Most places were closed for New Years, but we found the Shore Inn open. I had a fish sammich and fries, which was yummy & filling. Elsa paid the bill – yay Elsa! I love friends who buy their friend’s dinner. 🙂

We returned to Elsa’s for my last bit of packing up the car & hugs. Then I headed on home. The drive was fine & I got in around 11:30pm. Leo was happy to see me (and had eaten all his food already). We stayed up for an hour or so, then headed off to bed.

This morning was my parade. I hate when they air it on the second – it’s for my birthday, you know! Alas, there was much rain, but the floats were still beautiful to see. I graded catapult reports while watching. And Leo decided he wanted to sit on the board I was grading on. No surprise. But it was as I had hoped – good kitty time and good grading time. I headed next door after the parade for lunch with the parentals.

When we visited Granny at her new room in a nearby nursing home, she complained that people weren’t visiting. Well, dad’s been going every day – and yesterday she was so sound asleep he couldn’t wake her. But today, she didn’t have to worry about lack of visitors. While we were there, Aunt Becky & Deanna arrived with a couple of Xmas presents & a new wheelchair. Then Mick (Becky’s oldest son), his fiancée, and two daughters (9 and 6) arrived. We couldn’t all squeeze into the room, so we sat in the lobby (looking at the live birds they have there) chatting. Granny was lucid the entire time and was looking better than she had when I saw her last. She’s still weak, but here’s hoping they can strengthen her up at the home. She’s eating (not a lot, but at least some!) and will be going to physical therapy. So I have high hopes for her.

I have tomorrow off as well, so I’ll have some relaxation times tomorrow as well. I hope to visit Granny again, as well as exchange some slacks I got at Xmas for a longer style. And who knows what else I’ll do. (Hopefully read some of the cool books I got this holiday!)

Merry New Year! Beef Jerky Time!

Happy New Year to all of you playing at home! Can’t believe it’s 2006 already. Can’t believe I’m 35 already! Sheesh, I’m old enough to be president now! (elsaf assures me that I’m too honest for the role, thankfully. Just as well – I certainly wouldn’t vote for me!)

I’ve been thinking about doing a post looking back at 2005 and perhaps I’ll do it later in the day. And I might even try a looking forward post as well. I’m not a resolution kind of person, but a few goals wouldn’t hurt. (I don’t do resolutions mostly because I hate breaking promises – even if they’re to myself. But a goal isn’t a promise, it’s just something you hope to accomplish.)

Our method of ringing in the new year was heading off to Elsa’s parents, watching movies, and eating foodstuffs. It was a lot of fun and there were plenty of snacks. Elsa made seasame balls, pork pearl balls, and sticky rice in lotus leaves. (She enlisted me to help but I was having an off night and did more to hinder her than help. Whoops! She should have gotten judiang to help instead. Thankfully, I only permanently ruined one dish (and that wasn’t my fault! The bowl just broke on me!)

The movies that we watched were Quigley, March of the Penguins, and The Polar Express. Quigley was a silly little movie about a mean SOB who dies & is sent back to Earth as a pomeranian. We had a ball MST3King it and watching the cute pom. Judi will probably be adding it to her collection. (Everyone should have a Three Kinds of Heat in their video collection, I feel.) I’d seen Penguins on Christmas day with the family and enjoyed it then and tonight as well. (I was more awake on tonight’s showing.) Polar was interesting, but I don’t think it’ll join my collection of Holiday Must Sees.

We toasted the new year with champagne and fizzy cider (I went with the apples rather than the grapes), then packed up (dogs & all) and returned to Elsa’s. And here we all sit, writing and reading our journals. Yup, even in 2006 we’re still geeks.

So, once again, Happy New Year to you all! And Happy Birthday to those of you who, like me, are New Years Babies! 🙂

Ya, in Bavaria, where the trees are made of wood!

Yesterday was Frankenmuth Day. elsaf drove judiang and me to Frankenmuth, MI. It was the first time there for all of us. Frankenmuth (the “u” is long in the name) is a town that considers itself Bavaria in Michigan. And it was a cute little town (well, little as in a hell of a lot bigger than my little town, but smaller than Judi & Elsa’s towns).

We started at Bronner’s, the world’s largest Christmas store. Indeed, it was. There were some neat things there – including some cool (expensive) nutcrackers that almost made me go back to my old Collecting Nutcrackers habit. I picked up a few things for my Christmas tree and some incense candles for my smoking men dolls.

After Bronner’s, we drove over to the River Place. This was a series of shops, many of which were cute & somewhat unique. I managed to get through without buying anything – yay! And then we found a parking place in the downtown area, so we could walk to the shops there.

We started at the Cheese Haus. I almost bought mom & dad some Cheap White Wine and Cheap Red Wine. These had generic labeling & were really cute. But they weren’t actually cheap, so I didn’t get any. 🙂 I did finally buy something at a Scottish fudge shop. (Buying fudge in a Scottish shop in a Bavarian town in Michigan – go figure!) I got some peanut butter fudge & some German chocolate fudge. The lady working there let me taste vanilla fudge, but I didn’t care much for it. (Not vanilla-y enough.)

Our final stop in Frankenmuth was the Bavarian Inn. There was a considerable wait for the seats, but the food was worth the wait. We’d ordered appetizers, but it turns out we didn’t actually need to. They had pickled beets, cranberry relish, chicken pasta salad, cole slaw, and noodle soup as starters as part of our meal. Then our ordered appetizers arrived – potato & cheese dumplings and ham & cabbage dumplings. We’d all ordered the Bavarian Combo, which had smoked pork chops, saur bratten, and wiener schnitzel. “Potatoes & kraut” were also provided and we then discovered the potatoes were the same potato dumplings we’d ordered as appetizers. Heh. (They were awfully good, so I didn’t complain.) The meal also came with noodles & corn – but we didn’t know this, so we all ordered spatzel (German pasta). So we had a LOT of food on our table. And we ate quite a bit.

Before supper, however, we made a pact to save room for dessert. So for the second night in a row, we had leftovers. And then we ordered dessert. I wanted to have the Holiday Peppermint Roll. Chocolate peppermint cake wrapped around peppermint ice cream and topped with handwhipped cream and crushed peppermint. Yummy! And all that peppermint probably helped with my digestion. Heh.

Today is Shopping Day (somebody forgot to get me a birthday present… I won’t name any names, but I’ll point at Judi) followed by an evening of fun at Elsa’s folks’ place. I hope that you all have a Happy New Year! (Some of you are already into 2006 – hope it’s going well for you!)

Road Tripping

My nearly 12-year-old car has been doing a great job. It got me to Detroit, got elsaf and I to Chicago, and yesterday, got Elsa, judiang and I back to Detroit. Elsa & I split the driving – I do the boring long stretches (hey, I’m a rural girl, I’m used to long, boring drives) and Elsa did the city driving in Chicago & Detroit. Works for me! 🙂

Yesterday, we had the last of the cheesecake for breakfast (that’s a wonderful breakfast, BTW) and then successfully packed up the car. We got on the road at exactly noon EST. Elsa successfully got us through the backed up city traffic and I took over when we got to Michigan. Lunch was at Culvers (Elsa & Judi’s first time there). Their pork tenderloin sammich is pretty good. And I love their vanilla ice cream.

We arrived at Elsa’s place not long after 6pm. We unloaded the car, then got into Elsa’s car for the drive to her brother’s house. Tom and his g/f Ardath were dog-sitting for Elsa. Judi and I got a real surprise when we got there. Ardi had given us some really cool Christmas presents! Yay! Neat holiday decorations and (for me) a cat cartoon day calendar.

Since we hadn’t had supper yet, we girls (Ardi joined us) went to La Shish for kabobs et al. They had bread & a garlic dip that was wonderful. I ordered garlic & almond rice with lamb. Very tasty, but I had filled up on bread, so I had a lot of leftovers. Yay, lunch today! And once again, Ardi gave us a surprise gift – she bought our supper! (I’m becoming quite the freeloader – the only meal I’ve bought on this trip was the lunch at Culvers!)

After lunch today, the goal is to head off to Frankemuth, MI. We’re going to shop in the German village (and Christmas store) and have a nice German meal. To make up for my freeloading, I’ve promised to buy supper. Mmmmm, saurkraut!

PS – new icon! ‘Tis one of my poems.

Operatic Meal

elsaf, judiang and I are stuffed to the gills tonight thanks to Opera, a very upscale (read expensive) Chinese restaurant just a few blocks down the road from Judi’s apartment. Elsa had a $50 off coupon, which is telling in itself. But we made good use of that coupon, I’ll tell you!

We started with drinks. Elsa, as our Designated Walker, stuck with diet Coke. But Judi and I got our usuals: Amaretto Sour. The sour was perfect. Which means that Judi had to dilute hers a bit. Heh. We got two appetizers: pork & ginger dumplings and beef & asparagus crepes. (I misheard the waiter and was trying to figure out how in the hell they stuffed all that stuff into grapes.) The appetizers were excellent – even the garnish was good.

For the main course, we tried Tiger prawn noodles with a curry sauce, scallops, and pineapple chicken & cashews. All three were excellent – they even served up the scallops in 3 separate dishes to make splitting the dishes easier. (We love to share – get to try more things that way.)

Despite being full, we ended up all ordering dessert. The waiter plonked down the dessert menus – we had no defense! Elsa got a Trio of Brulees. Since I’m VERY trad regarding creme brulee, I couldn’t order that dish. Judi got a Trio of Sorbets that the Iron Chefs would be proud of. (One was red wine & red pepper!) I stuck with the Trio of Chocolate items. Good lord! I now know what free-basing chocolate must be like! They had a flourless chocolate cake that was HEAVENLY. They also had a chocolate mousse cake that was decadent (but no match on the flourless cake). And an ice cream with chocolate somethings in it that was really just there so you didn’t OD on the chocolate. *sigh* I shall be remembering Opera with much fondness for years to come, I believe.

Now we’re back at Judi’s for our last night before returning to Detroit. We’ve been working on Judi’s new PC all day – and it’s been a real lesson in computer work. Elsa noticed a nice correlation between our computer building and another old tradition. You can read about that here. Perhaps I’ll go into more computer detail later. But for now, I must go blow up Judi’s old HD to reinstall Winders XP. Wish me luck! 🙂

White Christmas

We actually did have a White Christmas this year. But not quite what they had in mind with the famous Christmas tune. Our White Christmas was caused by a snow-thawing fog that lasted until after 1pm. It was quite impressive. And rather calming.

This year’s Christmas was a bit unusual, not least because we opened presents on Christmas Eve. Granny in the hospital also added to the oddness. Thanks, btw, to all of you Granny well-wishers.

It was looking pretty bad for her. She wasn’t eating, and her hospital psychosis was rather pronounced. She remembered us granddaughters when we visited her on the 23rd, but she was confused as to where she was & wanted to go home with us. (No surprise there – I wouldn’t want to be in the hospital either!) On the 24th, dad, Amy & I visted and she was even loopier. She hadn’t been eating (with her intestinal complaint, there really wasn’t any place for food to go!) and was confused as to who we were. Christmas morning, she was just awfully sleepy. But later on Christmas, they finally had success with the intestinal complaint. And when dad & I visited yesterday, she knew who I was and had eaten some breakfast. And later, talked with Aunt Becky on the phone and was feisty. That’s a good sign. Granny’s naturally feisty. 🙂

So, perhaps Granny will finally get back to normal. There will probably be some transition before she can go back to Becky’s house. But here’s hoping she’ll be home as soon as possible.

I’m currently at elsaf‘s place and the two of us will soon be driving to judiang‘s house. I hope to update more about my vacation thus far when I get there. Here’s hoping the drive is smooth & detour-free!

Merry Christmas!

Yay! It’s Christmas today! And in our recent tradition of having nontraditional Christmases, we actually opened all of our presents last night. It was fun opening presents in the evening. For one thing, there was wine instead of coffee. Heh. It took over 2 hours to get everything opened (with occasional breaks for food & stuff). Mom was originally thinking she might have gotten more presents for Amy than anyone (an Amy Christmas), but it turns out it was a Dad Christmas after all. Yay dad! (One of the presents he got, however, was the replacement order of jumping beans from Oriental Trading. Mom said she’d had 2 boxes sent to my place with dad’s presents. And I got 2 boxes one day. And didn’t examine the labels all THAT well – and neither did mom. She wrapped the boxes without opening, and voila! Dad opens a box to find my jumping beans. We all laughed.)

Now, there were rumors that Santa was still going to come around last night, so we did put out our stockings. He even left 2 stockings here for the parental units. Amy will be arriving shortly to help me carry the stockings over (*wink wink*) but also to open Leo’s presents for him. His lack of opposable thumbs does make it hard to open presents.

I’ll probably report in more detail about the day in another post. I just wanted to get my “Merry Christmas” out before the day was over. Hope everyone reading is having a nice End to December, regardless of which holidays, if any, that you celebrate.