Joys of Home Ownership!

One of our water tanks has been making freaky and loud noises for a month, so loud that they often wake us at night. We had a few companies come out and check it out and the consensus is that they are eight years old and need replacing! Personally I truly believe none of them know what the noises are and that's their answer when they're not sure what's wrong!  We have two 50-gallon tanks and it's an Appollo system which means hot water also is used (somehow, don't ask me how) to heat our home. Another worry is, for some crazy reason, the tanks are on the top floor of our three storey townhouse. Last year a neighbor's tank broke and water flooded down through his whole home, ruining floors, ceilings and everything in between!

We picked a company and they were here when I got home from bootcamp already! I made 'em wait while I took the quickest shower in the history of the world, as we will be without water most of the day! They are currently draining them. By the end of the day we will have new, shiny and non-noisy water tanks - yay! The only downside is that we have to fork over $4,600 for the peace of mind we crave! At least we can have eight to ten years of heat and hot water, worry free! I'm extremely grateful that we are good savers and that, as painful as it is to spend five grand, we have it and can get this issue addressed. And tonight, we will have a good night's sleep with no banging and pinging noises coming from the tank closet!

Ha Ha!!

A man goes into a bar with his dog. He goes up to the bar and asks for a drink.

The bartender says "You can't bring that dog in here!" The guy, without missing a beat, says "This is my seeing-eye dog."

"Oh man,” the bartender says, "I'm sorry, here, the first one's on me." The man takes his drink and goes to a table near the door.

Another guy walks into the bar with a Chihuahua. The first guys sees him, stops him and says "You can't bring that dog in here unless you tell him it's a seeing-eye dog."

The second man graciously thanks the first man and continues to the bar. He asks for a drink. The bartender says "Hey, you can't bring that dog in here!"

The second man replies "This is my seeing-eye dog." The bartender says, "No, I don't think so. They do not have Chihuahuas as seeing-eye dogs."

The man pauses for a half-second and replies "What??! They gave me a Chihuahua??!"

Words

People that know me well know that I love words or groups of words. I love prose. I love the spoken word. Monologues in movies, witty or inspirational dialogue, poems, essays. I have whole journals, begun thirty years ago, with passages and poems and quotes that caught my eye and I wanted to keep and read over and over again. I wish I were a better writer. I'm about to enroll in a screenplay class, mostly because of my love of the written and the spoken word and my passion about films.


Last night I wanted to find a certain passage in one of said journals but couldn't. I remember being crazily in love with this part of the script from the 1996 movie, The English Patient.  One of the characters (Katharine I think was her name) is dying in a cave and you hear her voice reading what she has written in the cave while waiting to be rescued. I have no idea why these words resonated with me but they did. I would read them aloud and loved them so much. Of course, I loved the film too.


Today I found the script online and rewrote the passage and figured I'd use it as part of my blog entry today!
Here it is:

We die, we die rich with lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have entered and swum up like rivers, fears we have hidden in like this wretched cave...I want all this marked on my body.

We are the real countries, not the boundaries drawn on maps with the names of

powerful men.
I know you will come and carry me out into the palace of winds, the rumors of water... That's all I've wanted - to walk in such a place with you, with friends, on an earth without maps.

GOOSEBUMPS!
I want to learn to write like that!

diary of a slacker?

I know, I know, I know. . . I am probably the least consistent blogger in the history of the world. Oh well, what can you do?  The days just go by. I have been writing, just not on here! Anyway the bootcamp girls and I decided to call ourselves 'Natural Born Slackers' and I'm thinking that that's apt for my blogging too!

Anyway, gotta run to work now, so I'm going to post a photo I shot yesterday of my beloved Nigel and call it a day:

color me crazy!

Charles & I want to have the bedroom painted. And the living room. On Saturday we spent a fun hour at Home Depot trying to pick out colors and came away with 8 or 10 sample pots for the bedroom & four for the living room. We had SO much fun! Your whole life it's 'bad behavior' to draw and paint on the walls, but once you've got your own place, anything goes!

We've narrowed it down to 2 colors for the bedroom and have picked the living room color. Here's a few shots of our endeavors in the bedroom:

Encounter of the day . . . .

So, the ankle is still not 'right' & I'm not doing bootcamp, just to be safe.  I did however walk Nigel around Steeplechase to get moving a little. On our way back to the car I stopped on the 'bleachers' and decided to do some ab exercises. There was, as far as I could tell, no-one around so down I went, did a few sit-ups, followed by ab-bicycles. My heart really wasn't in it though . . .I'm not good at working out by myself. Just a natural born slacker I guess!  One minute into my ab-bicycles a woman, a dog and a little girl (about 5 or 6 years old I guess) rounded the corner and almost fell over me! Taking the excuse to stop working so hard I sat up and began petting their dog. The following conversation occured:

Little girl:  "What are you doing?"

Me: "Exercising . . "

Little girl:  "WHY?"

Me:  Furrowed brow. Silence. . . .

      "You know, I really don't know why!  I think I should just go home now & have hot chocolate.    Don't you think that's a better idea?"

Little girl:  "Uh-huh."

Way to go me for taking the opportunity to teach a child that exercise can be fun and a good thing! Oh well, whaddya gonna do. My heart wasn't in it . . .I was just being authentic! Ha Ha!

Say 'cheeez'!!

In December Charles & I attended a whole day of cheesemaking classes on a goat farm north-east of Nashville. It was informative (and tasty) and we came away with a recipe booklet and all the enzymes and rennet needed to make different chevres and fetas and mozzerella.  The feta and chevres need RAW goats milk, something that is impossible to buy and illegal for farmers to sell to you. The only way around this is to buy a 'share' of a goat herd and then you get milk every week from the farmer.  I don't really have a need for three gallons of raw goats milk each week, so that's not a very practical solution.
The mozzerella, however, is made with regular whole cow's milk. Today, we have rain. Lots of it. Beginning at 7am and going through to evening and I wasn't sure what to do with my wonderful day of homey freedom. Then it hit me! Make cheese!  I ran out and bought a gallon of whole milk, pulled the enzymes from the freezer, sterilized pots and utensils and THREE mason jars for the finished product, and got to work. There's really very little to it. You stir some citric acid and lipase into the milk, warm it to 88 degrees, then add something else (the name of which eludes me at this moment) and also stir in rennet, and continue warming to 105 degrees, pull it off the heat, cover and 'set' for twenty minutes. The whole thing seperates into curds and whey (I seem to remember a nursery rhyme about curds and whey . . .what was that?)
You strain off the whey and nuke the curds in the microwave (this is contemporary cheesemaking after all - not sure what they did for this part in the pre-microwave days) for a minute, drain off more whey and 'paddle' the curds with the back of a spoon. Repeat. Eventually it is supposed to come together into a smooth and shiny mass of mozzerella.  Mine wasn't quite like that.  It was more seperated, more granular, less smooth.  But I persevered. I continued nuking it, paddling it, nuking it some more, paddling it some more.  It started to come together but took a whole lot longer than I remember my teachers taking! And it never did become smooth and shiny.  Oh well, it held together and allowed me to pinch off small pieces which I formed into balls, dropped into cool water, drained, put in a mason jar and covered with olive oil. Mission accomplished!

After all that, a gallon of milk made very little cheese! I think it had something to do with my curds being granular (maybe I stirred too vigorously?). When I strained it, a lot of curds fell through the strainer and into my sink. Next time I'll fight my innate nature and stir gently and maybe the curds will be larger and more solid and I'll end up with more cheese. As is it, those three sterilized mason jars? Two are back in the cupboard, unused, and the one remaining is half full with cheese!   I'll try again, maybe next weekend. My plan is to perfect it and, this summer, when tomatoes and basil are at their prime, have some friends over for Salad Caprese with a little focaccia and a crisp, chilled white wine for lunch. . . . mmm . . . .the thought of that on a gray, rainy day like today makes me smile!

Ouch!

Yesterday morning was a wonderful bootcamp. It was tough and challenging and I sweat buckets and left there feeling strong and ready for anything! Then I got home and promptly fell off the stairs, and injured myself pretty badly! Let me explain. We have a half set of stairs that go up from our living room to our dining 'area'. To make the condo seem more open and modern two years ago, after our elderly dog had died, we took the railings down these stairs out. It looks fabulous. It has not been a problem. Not once. I know there's no railing there.  I have developed the habit of stepping on or off the stairs on my way up and down on about the 2nd stair from the bottom. Yesterday I thought I was doing just that but when I stepped, there was no floor where I thought it would be and I collapsed into a crumpled heap on the floor next to the staircase! I think I was probably on step 3 or 4 from the bottom. 
I cried out and then sat there for 30 seconds, praying, out loud "Dear God, PLEASE don't let anything be broken. Please!"  Charles is out of state til Thursday this week and for a few seconds I was a little apprehensive about how I was going to get myself to the hospital, walk all my clients (dogs) and manoevre around our 3 story townhouse on crutches in a cast. Eventually I got up the courage to try and stand and put weight on my foot. It hurt but not that 'broken bone hurt' and I knew I was alright.  (I've only ever broken one thing, my lefthand pinky, and I knew it immediately. I threw up and could see the broken bit of bone trying to push throught the skin. Urgh, makes me feel sick to remember that feeling!)

I hobbled to the fridge and got a ziploc bag of ice to ice it. I emailed a wonderful fellow bootcampee, a doc, because I have 800mg Ibuprofen but couldn't remember if that is an anti-inflammatory. (She said it is and to take one) I sat with ice on my foot, missing my husband and my mum.  (I've discovered that no matter how old I get, when I'm hurt or sick I want my mum - isn't that an amazing phenomenon? That needing of the person who nurtured you first never goes away. . .)
To cut two long days short, my ankle swelled to the size of a clementine and was still like that today so I drove over to my doctors to get an x-ray.  She said it is a pretty severe sprain but in a couple of days I should be fine . . . but NO BOOTCAMP! Just more ice, wrap and elevation.

So I'm glad yesterdays bootcamp was a tough one because it's gotta see me through til Monday!

A good time was had by all!

Colin Firth.
I have a super dooper crush on him. Have had for some time and lately, with the release of The King's Speech and his nomination for an Oscar, he seems to be everywhere. Which is fine by me.  He's intelligent, articulate, boyishly handsome and loaded with sex appeal! Because (a) it'll never happen and (b) it'll never happen, I can say this: IF Colin Firth were suddenly in my life and was, by some miracle of miracles, interested in me, I can't promise that I would do the right thing!  I think he's THAT gorgeous.

Anyway on Oscar night, as previously mentioned, Karen and I went to an event at The Belcourt. It was wonderful. We got all dolled up, sparkling jewels, little black dresses, glittery facial stuff and hit the red carpet. We had wine, chatted to some nice folks Karen knew, watched awards being bestowed, had more wine and generally had fun. By close to 10pm though we were BOTH dragging, trying to yawn in secret and ready to find an available taxi to ferry us both home. We managed to procure said cab quickly, dropped Karen at her place and then headed west on I-40 into the wilds of western Davidson County. The driver, a very nice man from Somalia seemed to be in NO hurry and we drove at a somewhat leisurely pace the whole way. As we were pulling up the street to my neighborhood Karen called on my cell to tell me that my dream guy had just won Best Actor and she was watching him speak at that moment!   I felt certain I'd have made it home in time and could hardly believe I'd missed the moment. MY Colin. I was gutted. I threw too much money at the cabbie and sprinted for the front door but to no avail - he'd gone.

The good news is that, thanks to the wonders of modern technology I found the speech last night on youtube, watch it 17 times, my heart all a flutter and posted it on my facebook page, so there it'll be for all eternity. Oh, and he was on Oprah yesterday and I DIDN'T miss that!  Swoon . . . .