The weekend
Sep. 6th, 2004 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsSo, for labor day, the decision was to labor. It started Friday with Omaha's fabulous dinner, pot roasted beef and sun-dried tomatoes. The beef was perfectly soft and the tomatoes gave a rich, soft, salt flavor that brought out the real animal quality to the beef.
Saturday, we cleaned up the front yard and prepared for fall. It was a bit of work, needless to say, as we weeded and scratched and cleaned. Breakfast was great-- Omaha had some pear butter and a recipe for pear butter pancakes, which came out unrepentantly heavy and wonderful and sweet and the girls made it all go away. We spent part of the day running about, going to the hardware store and getting the stuff we needed to finish up the back yard. We found the replacement for the back yard spigot, so we have a hose again. Huzzah. We went to the local fish place for dinner when Yamaarashi-chan said she wanted shrimp for dinner, but when we got there she and Kouryou-chan both opted for the burgers. The girls got into two episodes of Uninhabited Planet and I watched another episode of Marimite. It was a Rashoman episode-- the Valentines episode told from another point of view. I'm a totally Marimite addict at this point.
Sunday, we did our Costco run and then came back for egg salad sandwiches for the girls, bacon lettuce and tomatoes for the adults, and more yardwork. This time the broom I bought from Home Depot came into massive use as I brushed out the driveway and the porch and cleaned up all of the stuff that had collected there over the past three months. The girls were put to work cleaning up all of the stuffed animals and tea sets that were left lying about the back yard. FallenPegasus called and said he wanted fish for dinner, and we still had some of his in our fridge, so he came over and we made chowder and put them into small but well-trimmed hard rolls. Another magnificent meal, halibut and potato chowder. Desert was ice cream and (for me) a tiny snifter of port. Magnifico! And then we played some brutal rounds of Uno! after Omaha put the girls to bed.
And Monday-- more yardwork! Omaha made this slow-cooked scrambled eggs, which made them very fluffy, but the girls went for leftover pancakes and such. I had found earlier this week a coffee grinder for four bucks at a Goodwill, so I had fresh-ground this morning and it was amazing. Even Torrefozione ground a week late is still stale.
Today, we handled the composting bins and mowed the back yard. Moving the composting around was such a backbreaker; we have over a ton of the stuff.
But for lunch we went to Gasworks park, which was a gas production facility during WWII. It's a big green park with huge rusting hulking cooling and refraction towers surrounded by barbed wire on one side-- it's very cyberpunk, but in a good way. We had generic loose-meat sandwiches; I indulged mine with ham, tomatoes, sliced mozarella, and lots and lots of basil. The girls ate and then ran around, tumbled down hills and flew their snake-shaped kite.
Then it was time to go home for more housework. The neighborhood kids were about so the girls went and played with them in the treehouse while Omaha thatched more moss out of our lawns and I finished the compost bins.
About this time, a fellow showed up who'd offered to take our ancient but functional refrigerator off our hands for fifty bucks. Fair enough. Turned out he'd trashed the one he had in his apartment and needed to replace it to get back his deposit. He'd turned it into something called "a keggerator." Not sure what that is, but I'm sure it involves beer. Craigslist comes through again.
Dinner was pizza, made in the oven. This time I got the crust exactly right by cooking it for one minute less, but pre-heating the oven for half an hour to make sure the baking stone was completely ready.
I managed to get Return To Castle Wolfenstein running under Linux. Yay! Another reason not to boot into GameOs. I figured out why my Wacom pad wasn't working, but the driver hasn't stabilized yet.
Saturday, we cleaned up the front yard and prepared for fall. It was a bit of work, needless to say, as we weeded and scratched and cleaned. Breakfast was great-- Omaha had some pear butter and a recipe for pear butter pancakes, which came out unrepentantly heavy and wonderful and sweet and the girls made it all go away. We spent part of the day running about, going to the hardware store and getting the stuff we needed to finish up the back yard. We found the replacement for the back yard spigot, so we have a hose again. Huzzah. We went to the local fish place for dinner when Yamaarashi-chan said she wanted shrimp for dinner, but when we got there she and Kouryou-chan both opted for the burgers. The girls got into two episodes of Uninhabited Planet and I watched another episode of Marimite. It was a Rashoman episode-- the Valentines episode told from another point of view. I'm a totally Marimite addict at this point.
Sunday, we did our Costco run and then came back for egg salad sandwiches for the girls, bacon lettuce and tomatoes for the adults, and more yardwork. This time the broom I bought from Home Depot came into massive use as I brushed out the driveway and the porch and cleaned up all of the stuff that had collected there over the past three months. The girls were put to work cleaning up all of the stuffed animals and tea sets that were left lying about the back yard. FallenPegasus called and said he wanted fish for dinner, and we still had some of his in our fridge, so he came over and we made chowder and put them into small but well-trimmed hard rolls. Another magnificent meal, halibut and potato chowder. Desert was ice cream and (for me) a tiny snifter of port. Magnifico! And then we played some brutal rounds of Uno! after Omaha put the girls to bed.
And Monday-- more yardwork! Omaha made this slow-cooked scrambled eggs, which made them very fluffy, but the girls went for leftover pancakes and such. I had found earlier this week a coffee grinder for four bucks at a Goodwill, so I had fresh-ground this morning and it was amazing. Even Torrefozione ground a week late is still stale.
Today, we handled the composting bins and mowed the back yard. Moving the composting around was such a backbreaker; we have over a ton of the stuff.
But for lunch we went to Gasworks park, which was a gas production facility during WWII. It's a big green park with huge rusting hulking cooling and refraction towers surrounded by barbed wire on one side-- it's very cyberpunk, but in a good way. We had generic loose-meat sandwiches; I indulged mine with ham, tomatoes, sliced mozarella, and lots and lots of basil. The girls ate and then ran around, tumbled down hills and flew their snake-shaped kite.
Then it was time to go home for more housework. The neighborhood kids were about so the girls went and played with them in the treehouse while Omaha thatched more moss out of our lawns and I finished the compost bins.
About this time, a fellow showed up who'd offered to take our ancient but functional refrigerator off our hands for fifty bucks. Fair enough. Turned out he'd trashed the one he had in his apartment and needed to replace it to get back his deposit. He'd turned it into something called "a keggerator." Not sure what that is, but I'm sure it involves beer. Craigslist comes through again.
Dinner was pizza, made in the oven. This time I got the crust exactly right by cooking it for one minute less, but pre-heating the oven for half an hour to make sure the baking stone was completely ready.
I managed to get Return To Castle Wolfenstein running under Linux. Yay! Another reason not to boot into GameOs. I figured out why my Wacom pad wasn't working, but the driver hasn't stabilized yet.
