stuff & things

Well kiddies, this has been quite the exciting week for mka. Following are the highlights. Enjoy!


Last Saturday evening I had some friends over for a birthday celebration. We enjoyed a nice salad and this beautiful pizza pie that I made, from scratch! (Thank you, bread machine!!! ) Isn't it lovely with it's whole wheat crust, yummy tomato sauce (I made that too), green peppers, calamatas, mozzarella and parmesan. I am so doing this vegetarian thing! (Notice that I said vegetarian and not vegan - there was tons of cheese and Ben and Jerry's for dessert - the birthday girl's request and you can't say no to the birthday girl, now can you?) After dessert the birthday girl introduced me to the brandy alexander. Quite a yummy drink, just one made me quite woozy. mka can not hold her liquor. I feel asleep during Memoirs of a Geisha. It's a good thing that I read the book years ago and sorta remembered the ending.

Several months ago one of the music students brought a dvd to me that he thought I'd like. I finally got around to watching it and he was right, I did really like it. Celtic Women features four female vocalists accompanied by an orchestra, including a harpist and one damn good fiddle player. The performance includes traditional Irish songs, show tunes, and some light classical stuff. What most impressed me was the purity of the soloists' voices. Check it out if this sounds appealing to you.

One day last week I was being a bit whiny about that fact that my town does not do curbside recycling and I'm pretty sure that folks aren't driving their recyclables to the county landfill. I commented that I don't want to think about what's in those garbage cans that are dumped into those really loud trucks every Monday morning. One of our student employees was in my office while I was whining and challenged me to do something about it and I'm gonna. My plan is to borrow the family farm truck and do a monthly pickup in my neighborhood. If you have any suggestions for me about how to get a small Southern town fired up about putting their recyclables out on the curb once a month please share them. Other than calling up the city office, distributing fliers, and writing a letter to the editor of the local newspaper I'm out of ideas at the moment. I'm in the initial planning stages so all advice is welcomed.

I discovered a new natural products store in Stokesdale, Sadie's. They make their own soaps, lotions, etc. I got some lavender water to spray on my sheets - yum, yum - and some natural upholstery cleaner that will assist me with removing the whippet butt smell from my couch and chair without causing my eyes to burn from nasty chemicals. If you decide to check out the store or buy from them online, make sure you read the labels because I did notice that some of their skin care products contain parabens. The folks with me were in a hurry so I didn't get to do much label reading. The next time I go I'll do more research and report back to you.

In addition to giving up meat I've also mostly given up coffee. I have turned the afternoon coffeehouse journey ritual into a green, occasionally peppermint, tea break instead. (You win, Christine!) I've probably had half a dozen coffees in January - 3 of them during the Monet adventure. If I'm leaving work heading out on my commute and I'm really tired I grab a cuppa joe, but I've definitely given up the afternoon java, I was hitting the after coffee crash at the wrong time of day and it was causing me to overly tired in the evenings.

Fairies visited my yard on Tuesday night! When I took Miss Annie out for her morning promenade on Wednesday I noticed a dollar bill in my back yard and next to it a silver money clip with a little clock in it. It was obvious from their condition and location that they had not been exposed to the elements for all that long. I thought - this looks like it belongs to my dad, maybe he and Annie had a clandestine visit last night. (My dad and Annie absolutely adore each other and I wouldn't put it past my dad to sneak over and say hello to his granddog and not tell anyone.) So I called Dad and asked if he'd stopped by on Tuesday and he said that he hadn't been to my house since Saturday. Then I asked him if he was missing his money clip with a dollar in it and he said yes that he'd lost it on Tuesday. When I told him that I'd found it in my yard a few minutes earlier he was a bit freaked out. Pretty twilight zoney, huh? (I put that in for you, Barb!)

I have a mini me! Two of the music students sent me this the other day. Isn't she cute? There's a website where you can go and make your own. It's fun, give it a try if you're so inclined.

This is my favorite event of the week. Here's the story. I commute with a lot of paraphernalia. I carry my briefcasey kind of bag (aka my bag of tricks), at least one extra layer of clothing (it's sometimes much colder at 10 pm than it is at 1 pm), and enough food to get me through an 11-hour day. On Tuesday (the day before the night time fairy visit) I arrived at work and went around to the passenger side of the car to gather my belongings and head across the street to the library. Once I got myself situated I realized that I had put the car keys in my bag of tricks without locking the car. I said out loud to myself "I need to lock the car." Guess what? As soon as the words were out of my mouth the car doors locked and the horn beeped. At first I thought - oh my god I have super powers - and then I realized that the key ring with the door lock clicker on it was in my bag right against my butt and that I had moved in some way that locked the car. How cool is that - I have a magic ass!

So how was your week?

pizza photo credit to SLS