Saturday, January 02, 2010
L: Do you think it's strong enough to be lit on fire?
Posted at 10:32:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
D: No. It has to be something like 161 proof.
L: A hundred sixty ONE proof?? (*cracking up and writing this down*)
D: Yeah, like 161 proof rum.
I figured out that it's a 40% solution. Because it's 2 oz. absinthe and 3 oz. cold water. Impressive math for me, eh? Maybe the sugar cube is ONE percent, but probably not.
I wore my new coral fossil/fish roe/eyeball surgery cuff bracelet (Christmas gift from January--will post photo) to Holmes. (Wore my crinoid bracelet last time. Christmas gift from June. Ditto.) Highly enjoyable, except my wonky left arm kept bugging me. I think it needs to be zapped with one of those Victorian taser things. Also, I want Holmes' black corduroy jacket. I didn't notice it the first time, but today I couldn't keep my eyes off it. Our theatre has Avatar "Not In 3D" (small red print). Hahah. Love LOVE living three minutes away from the movie theatre, though.
Posted at 9:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
We're going to see Holmes again!!! Er, again for me--time #1 for Dean. :)
Posted at 6:23:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 5:20:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Also, these are my new vertically-striped orange tights! Aren't they splendid? They were a Christmas gift from Dean's mom (I picked them out, natch), along with the matching super-soft skirt (which she picked out, but I tried on to confirm). They are both insanely comfortable. ♥
We just got back from breakfast/lunch/dinner at ION, and it was good! As usual, we walked down to the end of the hall to see if the snaily new business that's moving into ION Market's former location is there yet, and this time there was a sign! It says, "New England Emporium * Marketplace & Eatery * Coming Spring 2010." Eatery! Good word. (Emporium = also good!) (New England = excellent...)
Yum. I want to eat this. I wonder if it's as good as shad milt?
Posted at 3:29:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Also, I must note that absinthe and I are highly compatible.
Posted at 2:26:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Tomorrow (that means today) I must post a photo of my new jelly.
Posted at 1:49:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Friday, January 01, 2010
Posted at 11:59:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Okay, loyal readers! As is traditional for New Year's Day here at ALB, I hereby present this past year's official Christmas Card Competition results!
I am pretty sure that this is the first year that I've lost on the overall card count. I tried to look back through the archives, and I see one tie (2006), and two years that I only won by one card (2005 and 2004) but no out-and-out loses. I won by two cards in 2007 and by five cards last year!
I fully blame my loss this year on Karl. He e-mailed me about his card (said he was sending it later than usual because of a problem with the printing) but then forgot to actually send it! And I know he did send them to other people, because my parents had one. If not for this truly horrendous oversight, I could have tied--but no. For the first time ever, I am the LOSER.
After getting off to an early start, Dean was in the lead throughout the competition, and won fair and square. Our new daily race graphs certainly made that plain. He didn't even try to cheat with his two Newspaper Delivery Guy cards (only one counted). Dean's people were very consistent, as always. He got one more card than usual this year, for a total of 12 rather than 11. Also as usual, our one Joint person (Vic) is a big slacker and hasn't sent out his card yet. We usually receive it a day or two after New Year's, which is too late to count in the contest.
Of course, my painful loss wasn't all Karl's fault... as you can see by my horrendous slack rate, an appalling number of the people to whom I sent cards failed to send any back to me. (As you will recall, the Slack Rate is the count that charts cards received from the people I sent them out to.) Dean's people's slack percentage also grew from last year's impressive 17%, but mine leaped from 30% to 47%, for my highest Slack Rate ever. That means nearly half of my people are slacks! Just look at that graph! That is one bitter pie. I only received a card from one of my siblings (out of a possible three), one of my independent nieces/nephews (out of a possible three), and one of my aunts/uncles (out of a possible four). Pretty pathetic. I did get two cards from cousins, though, and I only sent out three!
Fortunately, my statistics have held strong in my favorite category, the Message Measurement. An overwhelming 91% of my people wrote a message (something beyond just "Love, Blah and Blah") on my card! In fact, I would have been able to brag of a 100% Message Rate, but my Gingers didn't write anything on their card! I guess in their eagerness to help me in the contest they failed to include a message, not realizing that counted for something, too. Since I actually see them for Christmas, and my mom writes me e-mails all the time, the lack of message wasn't a big deal except in the context of the contest. Anyway, a 91% Message Rate is nothing to sneeze at, and I am quite pleased to have not only held onto this category but also blown Dean out of the water. Not that I'm competitive about it or anything, of course. But clearly the message is the most important part, so we obviously have a situation of Quality over Quantity. I will admit, Dean's people sent some pretty nice messages this year, too. But not as nice as mine, naturally.
That's the full report for our 2009 Christmas Card Competition. I hope to do better in 2010, but we shall see. Happy New Year, everyone!
Game! Game! Game! Apples to Apples was so FUN!!!! None of us had ever played it before (I bought it after the Robert family told me how great it is) and we all loved it! Dean won the first round, and then Dean's mom won two rounds! I massively wanted to keep playing, but we had to stop to open presents. I used "The IRS" as a "dangerous" item when Dean was judge, and easily took that round. :-) The only bad thing is, you need at least four players, so now I have no one to play with! :-(
Posted at 7:11:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Also, I got a crazy purple jellyfish from Dean's mom!! (Sneeeeeakily purchased at Anthropologie when I wasn't looking.) He's going to be pals with my deranged octopus.
Highly successful, and definitely the funnest ever, Fake Christmas Eve with Dean's parents. My homemade bread and cheese fondue was ultra-delicious, too. Fondue + Apples to Apples + Jellyfish = THUMBS UP!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
All right, I officially concede.
Posted at 4:59:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
It smells really good outside, exactly like striped squills!
Posted at 1:59:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Oh no, it's New Year's Eve and Dean's Gs are coming for fake Christmas Eve tomorrow. That means I have to make the bread tonight! Maybe I'll start early, since it takes ten thousand hours (lots and lots of risings). Don't want to be too distracted by bread during our wild party.
Posted at 1:18:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Stamps of 2010! Highlights: Lunar New Year with narcissus flowers, Abstract Expressionists, Hawaiian Rain Forest, and Holiday Evergreens. But kind of a boring year for stamps. Aunt Myrna will like the new Love stamp, Pansies in a Basket!
Posted at 11:54:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Snow day! It's beautiful...
Posted at 11:47:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Oh, and I finished my Fancy Fish Chocolates. The last one turned out to be salmon roe flavored!
Posted at 6:04:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I continued the attempts to perfect my poached egg skills this
Posted at 5:56:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
morning afternoon! It was very very nice, and I turned the heat down slightly, so the inside was a little more runny. Lovely. I need to figure out how to get the egg on the plate without also transferring water, though, because a soggy English muffin isn't a good thing. My mom has a super-special fish tool with a Bakelite handle that she uses, but we can't all be so lucky. She got it for free when, as young girl, she toured the factory that made it, but it looks brand-new because she never had any clue what to do with it until recently.
The moon is quite beautiful tonight. Also, I am having a lot of trouble giving up listening to Christmas music in the car. Actually I'm not even trying.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Fancy Fish Chocolate of the day = smoked trout! Well, not really, but I can pretend. For the past two days I've practiced making a poached egg for breakfast. My mom showed me how on Sunday. They were both tasty, but today's was much better shaped. (The hard part is getting the whites to stay concentrated.) I'm putting Penzey's Smoked Spanish Paprika on top (from the Penzey's Spice store in West Hartford--I gave it to myself in my Christmas stocking) and it's really really good, almost like a smoked fish!
Posted at 1:22:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
"Wind Advisory in effect until 7 PM EST this evening..." Aaah! It's so LOUD! Endless wuthering and creaking! Can I take it for that long?? "Blustery and much colder with highs in the lower 20s. Temperature falling to around 11 this afternoon. Northwest winds 15 to 25 mph with gusts up to 50 mph." I think Dean had the right idea when he suggested I hide out today, only the sound of the wind is going to drive me crazy if I try.
Posted at 11:55:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Posted at 11:59:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Best words of the moment:
lucid
bolt
gelatinous
chlorophyll
louche
outré :)
Ideas for my 9 fish chocolate flavs:
lovely lampreynarwhal (not a fish)
monkfish liver
mola mola
lump
sardine
anchovy
pickerel
eel
shad!
I finally had to BITE the bullet and order my 2010 calendar. I'm getting a Rothko calendar, inspired by playing Masterpiece on Christmas Eve (vs. Diane, Robert, and all Robert's girls!) and Christmas Day (vs. David, Hunter, and Dean!), since the Rothko was one of my favorites. (The calendar doesn't have any pieces as good as the one in Masterpiece, though!). I had a really awesome art collection on Christmas Day (all modern!), and I won! I had both the $1,000,000 painting and a forgery, but I sold my forgery to the bank for $350,000. It was both Dean's and Hunter's first time playing Masterpiece. Dean was the banker, natch.
Posted at 7:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I lost on Xmas Eve (Uncle John was a forgery!), but I won at Candyland! :-) Robert's family gave me Candyland as a Christmas present, because both Robert and David named it as their favorite game when we did the Qs at Dad's birthday party a few years ago. (I named Masterpiece as mine, I'm pretty sure.) They used to play it with me at the cottage. The new version has far inferior graphics, unfortunately. It was still excellent, though.
I wish I could play games more often!!
I love you, Handy Dandy!!!
Posted at 5:53:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Wow, I really like my new Sir Jellyfish shirt (an Xmas gift from June!). It makes me feel simultaneously ritzy and gelatinous.
They have Voss at Shaws! But only still, not sparkling. :-( I got a package anyway, to use with my new absinthe.
I ate three Tropical Collection chocolates today. (An Xmas gift from Jan.) They are v.v. cool looking and also tasty. I'm eating them even though they are too cool looking to eat, since they're fancy chocolates and therefore might have an expiration date. Also, you know what happens to fish if you leave it sitting around too long. Not good. Okay, okay, fine, they're not actually fish flavored. But I'm pretending they are.
Posted at 5:14:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Christmas card from June postmarked 22 Dec! Thumbs up!! Thank you, Juniper! And thanks for your card yesterday, Wendy. :-)
[Edit: Here's the big version!]
Oh yes, and here's the Race Graph from yesterday.
Posted at 10:53:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Finally got a pretty good sleep!
Posted at 10:48:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Hahaha, Dean thought Sherlock Holmes (Granada TV series) was a huge Raffles ripoff! I had to keep telling him it's actually vice versa. :) We just watched the first ep on Netflix Instant.
Posted at 12:47:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I went to the movie on Saturday with Diane, June, and Sam and I massively want to see it again! Yeah I read every original story back in the day but I barely remember them since I have a brain like sieve rather than a trap. Actually, I did not read one. The Valley of Fear, I think.
I ate one glass of my new absinthe tonight! So Edgar.
I haven't slept properly in days. Days. I think I forgot how.
Masterpiece is definitely the best board game ever. It needs more sets of paintings, though. That would be very cool.
I got the best Christmas gifts this year. Really.
My bed is right over there. I wonder what it's for? Hmm.
Wait! Maybe it'll be soft. Did you know, beds actually can be?? I'm pretty sure it's true.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Mm. "Silent Night" = ♥.
Posted at 8:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Aaaagh, what the heck--I only got ONE Christmas card while we were away! It's possible that a few more cards will roll in in the next couple days (they need to be postmarked by Dec. 25th) but I've pretty much given up hope. What a pathetic year for cards! And YOU, yes, you, Mr. K.D., have left me high and dry. You sent everyone else a card but forgot mine. If I lose by one card I'm blaming you.
Posted at 6:11:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
P.S. I hope no one takes this card race stuff very seriously, because I don't.
P.P.S. I'm going to send everyone who slacked out on me rattlesnake eggs next year instead of a card, though.
I have completely lost the ability to fall asleep.
Posted at 1:29:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
