Yeah. I'm still off the devil weed.

A few observations.

• The Quit Plan people are a bunch of freakin' idiots. You're gonna love this one. I'm using their program to get help for quitting, right? I'm dependent upon them for my patches. So, I talk to them a couple of weeks ago to get my last shipment of patches. It's an eight week program, but they only send you the first five weeks worth---working under the assumption that most people start smoking again well before then and they don't want to waste postage/patches if they don't have to. They'd called me a few times during my first few weeks to see how I was doing, etc., but I'd missed their calls. So, when I finally got around to calling them, it was because they'd sent me a letter saying I needed to talk to them or they wouldn't send out the last batch of patches. I called, I chatted with this chick for a half hour, I told her I was fine with everything, that I haven't slipped because the patches had been so effective so send out the last batch, please. She agreed that they would and all was hunky dory.

  Problem is, I haven't received the patches and if they don't arrive before Monday, Kathy's going cold turkey. So, I called them today, wondering why I hadn't received the shipment of nicotine-y goodness. Turns out the chick I chatted with forgot to do one simple little thing. After this half-hour "we really want to help you quit!" phone call, she forgot to click on the "send patches" button on her screen. To my mind that's the equivalent of a doctor working at freakin' methadone clinic forgetting to give someone their methadone. Talk about being surrounded by the obvious, yet somehow managing to forget the goddamn basics.

  Pretty funny, eh? But wait, it gets better...

  During today's phone call, the person who answered the phone had a thick Spanish accent, which I suppose is multicuturally wonderful and all that, but for someone who has trouble with accents because her ears aren't top notch, and who consistently forgets how much she uses lip reading to make up for her shoddy ears, well, it's not all that great a situation over the phone, eh? Yet she just answers the phone; she's not a counselor, so I'm not going to get too worked up over it. She tries to transfer me over to one, but apparently none are available. Is it all right if she sends them an email telling them they need to call me? No, it's not all right, I say, put me on hold. She apparently has some trouble with this, but manages it after about four minutes of goofing around and pressing buttons. After a ten minute wait, I am transferred to a counselor who makes me give her all my information again because it didn't pop up on her screen. Then, when I inquired as to where my patches were, she told me the information above: that the chickie-babe I talked to before never hit the "send patches" button on her screen. She apologized, clicked the "send patches" button and after apologizing briefly, told me that she hoped they'd make it to me before I ran out on this coming Monday. But if they didn't, well, she hated to advocate this, but I wasn't supposed to smoke more than ten cigarettes per day. She was really adamant about this one. Absolutely no more than ten cigarettes because that was the equivalent of the patch I'm currently on.

  I had to laugh at that point, because I found that really funny. Because of the bureaucratic incompetence of a program designed to help people quit smoking, I'd be right back where I started---smoking.

  Furthermore, she informed me that if I'd managed to go cold turkey for three days, and then the patches arrived, well, I wasn't supposed to use the patches then, because all the nicotine would be out of my system and I'd make myself sick.

  For the love of God, etc. ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

  The only reason I contacted these people in the first place was to get free patches, because I knew I wasn't going to be able to quit by going cold turkey and I sure as hell wasn't going to pay for them, not when the taxpayer could fund my largesse. If I'd quit cold turkey, no one would be able to stand the bitchiness. I would have found myself on the street because the husband would have kicked my ass to the curb within twenty-four hours of quitting.

  But now it looks like, unless there's some miracle in the shipping world---it takes seven to ten days for the patches to arrive---I'll be doing precisely that.

  It'll be fun, no?

• I've been on the 21mg patch for twenty-eight days. I jumped down to the 14mg patch yesterday and I'm freakin' tired.

  Yesterday I spent the day with Christi and the kiddies, roaming around downtown, seeing what the skywalks are all about (kids love those things for whatever reason) and playing video games at this place (which was a lot of fun and earned me the eternal gratitude of my nephews and niece.), swimming in the pool at their hotel and, just in general, hanging out. I meandered my way home around four and I was freakin' exhausted when I actually got there. And I mean tired, like I'd been digging ditches for the entire day. Of course hanging out with kids is exhausting, particularly when you're not used to it, but this was above and beyond tired. It didn't occur to me until after dinner that it was probably the patch---and the lack of energy boosting nicotine---that was to blame.

  Since we're babysitting tonight, I decided to stay home today and take a nice long nap to fortify myself for the evening.

• Eating hard candy to deal with the oral fixation will result in zits if you overdo it. Even if you're thirty-four-years-old and well past puberty, you will have a pizza face. Trust me on this one.
• I have yet to see any benefit from quitting. My lung function has not increased. I don't feel any healthier. I never had a smoker's cough to begin with, so accordingly I haven't lost one. I can't suddenly run a marathon. My sense of taste hasn't improved. Neither has my sense of smell. My palate was pretty darn good while I smoked and in some cases it's turning out that the smoking made things more flavorful.

  Honestly, all I have to recommend quitting is a bunch of zits. Whoop-de-freakin'-doo.

• I have to say, I miss smoke breaks. Just taking a step away from everyone and everything and going and communing with the nicotine was a beautiful thing. I'm going to miss that.

And that's all there is folks. And no, still no comments allowed on these posts.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1174 words, total size 7 kb.

If you've got miniblinds in your house and you have no idea how to get them clean here's a tip for you: take them down, remove the plastic stick thingy, dump them in the bathtub, fill bathtub halfway with hot water and add a dose of Tide laundry detergent. Let soak for ten minutes, rinse and dry with a towel.

You don't have to scrub your blinds this way! It's FREAKIN' AMAZING!

And lest you think I'm exaggerating, know that as a former smoker my blinds were supposed to be a light beige color but were, in actuality, a sort of brownish-yellow. If you're a non-smoker you should know that smoke sticks to stuff. It leaves a sticky, yellow-ish film on EVERYTHING. Glass, walls, clothes---you name it, if you smoke in your home, it's got this film on it. Including your blinds. But, thanks to this handy tip, my blinds are now completely clean and I did not have to scrub them.

WOO-FREAKIN'-HOO!

Posted by: Kathy at 03:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 181 words, total size 1 kb.

When Christi, et. al. were here at the end of July, they decided the kids would have a treat for dessert one night and that treat was root beer floats. So, along with about five hundred other things that Christi left in my fridge, there was also leftover vanilla ice cream and sugar free root beer (It was James'). They'd taken the good stuff with them. The husband, a true root beer snob conoisseur, stuck his nose up at the sugar free stuff---he prefers IBC---and, since he knows I don't particularly enjoy diet root beer, either, decided the only way I'd drink the stuff (because he sure as hell wasn't going to) was if he put it in float form. He knows I enjoy a root beer float every now and again when we go here. Which was convenient because there was leftover ice cream. And I enjoyed it...but there was still leftover vanilla ice cream when I was done with the sugar free root beer.

So, the husband bought me a liter of IBC root beer, because I'd enjoyed the float so much. Then I ran out of ice cream, but still had root beer left. The husband then bought more vanilla ice cream...and so on and so forth. Everytime we ran out of one, there was still something of the other left and that just demanded the other be purchased. You know, because it just works that way.

Work with me here, people.

It's a vicious cycle, let me tell you. Fortunately, I haven't gained any weight from this month-long root beer float binge, but I just ran out of both root beer and ice cream. The cycle is at an end. Or so one would think. I am free of both products. I have no need to purchase one because the presence of the other demands it. Yet...I am still not done with the floats.

They're just too damn good. So, I'll go to the store tomorrow and will buy root beer and ice cream. I will have another float for dessert tomorrow night, like I've done on a goodly number of nights this August. I can't imagine that these will taste good for much longer, because, you know, fall is just around the corner, but I'm going to enjoy them while the getting is good. The cycle may be vicious, but it sure is tasty, too.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:58 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 410 words, total size 2 kb.

So, it was a pretty uneventful weekend at the Cake Eater Pad. Does that mean I'm not going to get a long-ish post out of it? Nope. I can ramble away about ANYTHING! It's one of my "gifts." So away we go, kids.

While the weekend was calm, I shouldn't really say it was "uneventful" because there was an "event" this weekend: the husband and I celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary on Friday. But we didn't do it up in great style---we had some steaks, pasta and salad for supper on Friday and we ate them by the light of candles. And that's it. No presents, no big, fancy meals out. Nothing like that. I'm sure you're wondering why we didn't do more, but really, we're cool with it. I think once you get past the first ten years, it's not really a big deal any more. Sure it's a big deal in the sense that you've managed to stay married for one more year and you should celebrate that. Yet, in contrast to The Doctor and ML who just celebrated their second anniversary and who did it up right with all sorts of presents and everything, we didn't do any of that. We didn't feel the need. The husband bought me flowers and they were lovely, but you just don't feel the need to get all, I don't know, excited about it. It's a special occasion, sure, and the meaning of the occasion doesn't lessen the longer you're married, but blowing the roof off the joint every year to celebrate doesn't make as much sense now as it did when we were younger. Perhaps we've gotten over the "Hallmarkization" of anniversaries. Who knows? Anyway, we had a very nice evening.

To jump ahead to one of the other exciting bits of news, the Friday before last, the husband and I were headed out to supper with Mr. H. and as we were leaving we saw a rather large note from the landlord taped to the front door, informing us that he was going to start doing a little DIY on the front steps and could we please use the back entrance? We nodded, turned around, went back up the steps into the apartment, walked through the apartment, exited the back door, went down the back steps and left the house through the garage. (The house is set up kind of goofy, if you hadn't already figured that out.) When we got around to the front, one of the large stones that partially makes up the front steps had been removed, leaving a large gap and showing a lot of sand and other rubble. The front steps of the Cake Eater Pad have long been a source of discontent for us. They're made out of stone and we assume they're original to the house, which was built in the late 1920's. Of course, they're a crumbling mess. Certain stones have been split entirely because of our unique environmental conditions (hot and cold extremes aren't so good for anything made of rock or concrete). The mortar was crumbling, and the steps were uneven, bumpy, and completely disintegrating in a few places---which is not so good when the steps get icy because you can't remove the ice to save your life. The steps were a big concern for us. As we, the tenants of the Cake Eater Pad, were listed in the lease as being responsible for snow removal, we were constantly living in fear that the Great White Hunter landlord would pass off any lawsuits filed by disgruntled, broken-back-owning mailmen or UPS drivers onto us. We kept those stairs as clean as we could for years on end, while constantly bitching at Tweedledumb to do something about it. But, being true to fucking form, Tweedledumb was deaf as a post when it came to listening to complaints and never did anything about the steps. So, last Friday, we're pretty excited that something was finally being done and we went on our merry way for the evening. On Saturday morning, however, we came out and the landlord was whacking away at the pile of the steps and admitted sheepishly that he may have bitten off more than he could chew.

And was he ever right. I believe he was thinking he could just relay the stones so that they weren't quite as dangerous as before, but unfortunately the job got bigger than he had bargained for. The entire base is rotted out and must be replaced.

So, the Cake Eater Pad currently has no front steps. Over the course of the week the landlord has managed to pull out a lot of the stone (it's actually quite pretty and I'm glad he wants to reuse it). He was prying the stones apart with a shovel for the first few days, but on Wednesday he finally caved and bought a sledgehammer. He claimed the demolition was quite cathartic and I believe him. He said he was actually having fun with it. But I think the fun went by the wayside on Saturday, when the entire block turned out to say "hi" and see what was going on. The poor guy couldn't get much work done because he was too busy talking to everyone. Fortunately, everyone seemed to have better things to do on Sunday, when he was out there chiseling mortar off the stones that were to be reused. He's also hired the neighborhood contractor to do the rest of the work on the steps, so things should move quickly from here on in. Currently, there's a big mound of rubble leading up to the door and the...crikeys, I don't know what you'd call them, but things that look like arms where you'd put pots of flowers are entirely gone, but there are wood frames just waiting to be filled with concrete in their place. We'll just have to see what happens.

The landlord's been a busy beaver in the past couple of weeks. I think he's trying to keep himself occupied since his roommate died and that's not an entirely bad thing, on the whole. At least he's got a big project to occupy himself. The poor guy was was pretty ripped up over Eric's death. I also think his girlfriend is either moving in, or is lobbying to move in, now that he's got the space. She's a sweetheart and the husband and I like her a great deal, but she's been a busy beaver over the past week as well and it's making us wonder if she's actually keeping house or is just playing house. I was just down in the laundry room and she's cut up a carpet remnant and has placed that in front of the washer and dryer (which is awesome because it means I no longer have to wear shoes down into the basement! WooT!). She's also been painting and cleaning in the landlord's apartment and it's looking a bit too homey, if you take my meaning, for a bachelor's apartment. So, she's either just helping him out (because pretty much every last stick of furniture in the place disappeared when Eric's girlfriend came over last weekend. The landlord didn't have so much as a chair in the living room when she was done.) to make the place more homey for him, hoping he'll see what a great homemaker she is or she's just biding her time at her old place and is making the place habitable for the both of them. Again, we shall have to see.

Finally, as far as the "brothers who could qualify as being silly" in the title is concerned, well, my brother, Steve, it seems, about gave the Cake Eater Mother a heart attack. Steve is Montana's answer to Donald Trump when it comes to car dealerships. The dude and his partner own the largest chain of dealerships in Montana and in the past year they've expanded their business to New Orleans. Steve worked for a dealership in New Orleans years ago---like when I was in high school---and because of this connection he and his partner were offered a stake in a Chrysler dealership down there last year. The dealership is located on Canal Street.

And the doof was in New Orleans last week---and didn't leave until Saturday afternoon.

You have to understand that Steve, God love him, is the King of Procrastination. He leaves everything until the last minute and then finds himself in the position of moving heaven and earth to get things done the way he wants them done, whereas if he'd just left himself a little bit of time...he would have been fine. But Steve is a stress puppy. He loves stress. He loves that go-go-go lifestyle. He's always flying here or there or anywhere to do this deal, or get that done, or meet with these people. And he's good at it. Exceedingly good. This is how he runs his business. Once you get used to it, it's no big deal. However, the only problem is that not everyone else understands how he can work and live this way. Our mother would be chief amongst these people. She's worried he'll keel over from a heartattack before he hits fifty. I don't think so, because he's in great shape, but moms will worry and if there's nothing to worry about, well, they'll find things to worry about. At least our mom will, and Steve apparently gave her plenty of reason to worry this weekend. According to our sister Christi, who I just talked to on the phone, Mom was worried he was going to miss his flight out of New Orleans on Saturday because he'd leave it to the last minute and would miss his flight. The fact that Mom's a hurricane junkie and a Weather Channel devotee did nothing to ameliorate the situation. But, like I said, this is nothing new when it comes to Stephen. He's always cutting it too close for comfort. But this is a situation where cutting it too close might mean putting yourself in a life-threatening situation and that was enough to freak Mom out. Fortunately he did get out of town. He got to the airport and caught his plane and all is well for the time being. But...

...say a Hail Mary that his dealership doesn't completely get trounced from the storm. Fortunately, it's an in-city dealership, so they don't have an acreage just chock-a-block full of brand spankin' new cars. Hence they managed to get all of the new cars up onto the second level of the dealership, where they have a large showroom, and where they should be protected by the rising water. So, that part is good. Unfortunately, however, they couldn't do anything about the used cars that are on the lot. So, they're just sitting out there, being flooded and pelted with debris. If nothing else happens to the actual structure, they'll be ok: they can handle the loss of a few used cars. But if the structure floods excessively, well... I think you can use your imaginations to good effect on this scenario. Keep your fingers crossed, kids, eh?

And therein ends the tales of the weekend and of silly brothers who shouldn't be scaring their mothers to death.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1914 words, total size 11 kb.

Because I keep swinging my head around, like I'm a Breck Girl.

The reason for said swinging is because I had somewhere around eight inches of hair whacked off yesterday. Which I believe means, due to the fact I have seriously thick hair, my head weighs about five pounds less than it did yesterday.

It feels sooooooo good. I just can't help myself with the whole swinging thing.

The other thing that I believe is contributing to my dizziness is the fact I had highlights put in yesterday. And...well, how do I explain this? I suppose I must just come out with it. Okedokey---here goes: I'm a blonde.

Well, not really, but since I'm still somewhat new to the world of hair coloring, I didn't think my dark brown hair could go all the way up the scale to whitish blonde. I figured it would stop somewhere around "Light Bozo Orange" from whence the colorist could throw toner in it and it would still come out lighter than it was before. But Don, my hair guru, yesterday declared that he was going for the "sunkissed" look with me, and hence I now have blonde streaks framing my face. The foils just stayed on a wee bit longer than normal and no toner was used.

Surprisingly, it looks fab. I must say I'm quite pleased with the whole thing. I sort of have an early Jackie Kennedy bob going on, only it's a bit shorter and blonder. What's even better about the whole 'do' is that it looks good curly and straight, which is a rare thing.

Now, if I can just stop flipping my head around, I'll be in good shape.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:06 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 289 words, total size 2 kb.

{This post will stay at the top of the page all week long. Yep. I'm pulling a guilt trip on you. And it won't be over with until next Monday.}

James, despite the red hair and all that it implies in regards to temper, is a normal six-year-old, and some of my readers who were around last summer might remember him. He lives down in Omaha with his mom(my sister), his dad and his two siblings, Colin and Maggie. As he has mastered the joy and wonder that is kindergarten, he will be starting first grade in the fall. James is a wonderful kid. He has a vibrant imagination, a memorable personality, and is a great kid, he still, however, gets into trouble like any other six-year-old. The red hair does play a part in this, I'm sure. He likes toys; running around the neighborhood and wreaking havoc with his friends; he has a particular fasciantion with construction equipment when they pass an earth mover or a crane when they're in the car; and he's got plenty of opinions about the way the world works and just what his place is in all the hubbub. He might smack his little sister when she gets in his way (never fear: Maggie will strike back if the situation calls for it) but he's also very protective of her as well. His older brother might drive him insane at times, producing some very windy, very adult-like sighs of discontent out of James, but he loves him, too. To us, his family, he's a very normal kid. All except for one thing that makes him not quite so normal.

James is a Type I Diabetic. And has been since a week past his third birthday.

I know everyone hears a lot on the news about "diabetics" and how this disease is rapidly becoming a health crisis for this nation. Well, that's somewhat accurate, but they're talking about Type II diabetics, not Type I, or what is more commonly known as juvenile diabetes. The destination is the same---the shutting down of the pancreas, which produces insulin---but the path for Type I diabetics is different than that of Type II sufferers. If you need a refresher biology lesson, you need insulin to break down the food you eat into energy. When your pancreas shuts down and doesn't produce insulin any longer, you can eat and eat and eat, but still not have the energy you need to live. Type I diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system attacks the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. While the causes of this process are not yet entirely understood, scientists believe that both genetic factors and environmental triggers are involved. Type I diabetes strikes its victims---who can be either children, or adults up to the age of forty---suddenly, making them dependent upon injected or pumped insulin for life. While it's great that insulin is available, and that with proper care Type I diabetics can live long, productive lives, injecting insulin to pick up where your pancreas left off isn't necessarily a great thing, either. There is the constant threat of devastating complications such as kidney failure, blindness, amputations and nerve damage.

This is what James has to deal with for the rest of his life. Since he's very young, I don't think he remembers a time when he didn't have to have his finger pricked to check his blood sugar, or recieve a shot of insulin before he eats. My sister does the math every year: as of this year he's had at least 4000 shots and over 7056 finger pricks. (Think about that the next time you go to the doctor's office and whine about how much those finger pricks sting.) I'm not sure he remembers the time when he could eat anything he wanted, whenever he wanted. His life, while normal in so many ways, is not normal when it comes to this disease. Meals are on a schedule and it's one they must be strict about. Not only must he eat his meals at a certain time, he must also eat snacks on a regular routine as well. This, of course, says nothing of the constant management required of my sister and brother-in-law to make sure James' blood sugar remains constant. They're the ones who must prick his finger several times a day. Based on the information they receive from these finger pricks, they must plan meals and snacks based on what he needs in terms of carb intake to keep said blood sugar at the proscribed levels. This means ignoring the ice cream man when he rings his bell. This means handing over his Halloween candy and receiving a shiny, new toy in return. While his parents have done a fabulous job of taking up where his pancreas left off, it's still not the ideal situation, which would be a life where James would not have to deal with any of this. A life where his pancreas worked and he could snarf candy at any moment in time, like any other kid.

While there are many downsides to juvenile diabetes, a major upside is that wiping this disease out of existence is extremely attainable. It's possible that, because of the fine work done by many scientists, there might be a day in the future that James will not have to prick his finger or inject himself with insulin. There might be a day in the future when James' body will be able to break down his food into the energy he needs to run it without any outside intervention. There might be a day in the future when he would be able to snarf a Snickers any time he wants to.

And that is why I'm pontificating at length today. Because I want him to never have to deal with finger pricks and shots and tightly scheduled mealtimes ever again. I want his body to work the way it should. But most of all, I want him to be able to eat a Snickers any time he wants to.

To work toward this end, James, his family and friends will group together, line up under the banner of "James' Jaywalkers," and will participate in Omaha's Walk To Cure Diabetes on August 6, 2005. From today until next Monday, July 18th, the Cake Eater Chronicles is sponsoring the official RAISE MOOLAH FOR JAMES' WALK WEEK. James' Jaywalkers is looking to raise $4000 this year. Thanks to some very generous donations from my devoted Cake Eater Readers I would like to help the team not only meet that goal, but to exceed it. We raised a few hundred dollars last year with the help of my devoted Cake Eater Readers, and I think we can do even better this year.

I know there are a lot of worthy causes out there. God only knows a lot of people need a lot of help in this world, but if you're inspired to help James beat this thing, you can go here and donate what you can. No amount is too small and every cent is appreciated more than you know. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, who sponsors the walk, is a wonderful foundation and if you're worried about the money raised going to support fat-cat administrators, instead of toward a cure, you should know that you have no need to fear: 80% of every donation made to JDRF goes toward research to find a cure.

We're grateful for any donation you should choose to make, and if you can't make a donation because times are tough, well, that's fine too. We appreciate any support you can offer.

In the immortal words of the Bartles and James' guys: I thank you for your support.

UPDATE: See where we're at as of Thursday, July 14th.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:20 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 1328 words, total size 8 kb.

For well over a week now it's hit 90+ degrees each and every bloody day.

I realize the folks down south might be laughing a wee bit at the revelation that this is awful weather for us Minnesotans, but, really, we're just not prepared for this sort of hot weather. Nor for it to last so long. Most people don't have air conditioners and if they do, well, in this neighborhood, they're the window variety. The heatwave started last Saturday---July, 9th. They said on the news on Friday night that we hadn't had this long of a heatwave since 1947. Today when I was chatting with Mr. H. he said they'd updated it: they had to go back to the dustbowl year of 1936 to find the last time we've suffered so.

Fortunately, it seems to be over with.

It's currently raining right now and I'm watching the temperature on the atomic clock/thermometer that hangs on the office wall go down, down, down. It was 99 in the shade earlier this afternoon, so this is a welcome relief. I can barely wait to open up the house. It will be so nice to finally have some fresh air blowing through.

Thank God!

As far as the title of this post is concerned, well, it may be raining, but it's also sunny outside. When I was a kid we used to say that whenever it rained and was sunny at the same time. Why, I don't know. I believe the theory went something to the effect that God was happy that the Devil was otherwise occupied, but I'm not sure if I'm goofing that.

Posted by: Kathy at 07:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 285 words, total size 2 kb.

The mother in law is in town and will be over for lunch in a couple of hours.

Which means I must forsake blogging for the wondrous activity of cleaning the bathroom which she will, undoubtedly, not use while she's here.

I'm tempted to not clean it. But I know the minute I don't, she'll use it and I'll have points removed from the "good daughter-in-law" column.

Sigh.

UPDATE: Helpful Household Tip For the Day:

The new dishwasher is stainless steel. I didn't have anything in the house to keep it looking nice---everything leaves streaks galore. I was about to go to the store to find some specialty stainless steel cleaner, but I happened to read in a Southern Living that club soda works just as well as some fancy-schmancy cleaner. I was skeptical to say the least, but considering we always have the stuff in the house, I was more than willing to give it a shot.

You know what? It works perfectly. WooT! You'll need to use something, ahem, a wee bit stronger if you get a splatter, but use the club soda to remove all the streaks, etc. Yippeee. I have no more room under the counter for one more specialty cleaning product. I just don't. So it's doubly nice that this is something that's a. already on hand and b. costs $0.79 for a liter.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:54 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 233 words, total size 1 kb.

Holy Cow! You guys are wonderful!

Through the RAISE MOOLAH FOR JAMES' WALK WEEK we've managed to raise {insert drumroll here} $345.00 so far!

Thank you so very much, you wonderfully generous people! James will appreciate it! As my sister said on the donation page, James is always amazed at how many people show up for the walk. It blows his mind that so many people want his disease to be cured. So, it's going to doubly blow his mind that people he's never met before---people who live all over America and the world----and who would not have known about him without the internet or the blogosphere would help him free himself from this disease. We, truly, live in an age of wonder and it's so nice to be able to make good things happen because of it!

But...

Just like a pledge drive on Public TV, we're not done yet. If you haven't had the opportunity to donate and would like to support James, you can go here and make a donation. No amount is too small and, believe me, every dime is appreciated!

I should probably add that we've had a wee bit of an issue with overseas donations. If you are, perhaps, in the UK, Canada, Australia---or any other country for that matter---and would like to donate, but are having issues with JDRF's American-centric donation page, please email me. There is a solution to the problem. Email me and I'll let you in on it.

Finally, I would like to thank these fine bloggers for helping me spread the word, and for adding wonderful words of their own to help the cause.

Go and tell them what really cool people they are. They deserve it.

Posted by: Kathy at 04:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 348 words, total size 3 kb.

There was a post here. There isn't now, because I changed my mind.

Because that's my perogative.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 23 words, total size 1 kb.

Remove leftover food, bones, toothpicks and other hard items from the dishes. It is not necessary to rinse the dishes before putting them into the dishwasher. The wash module removes food particles from the water. The module contains a chopping device which will reduce the size of food items.

Note: If hard items such as fruit seeds, nuts, and eggshells enter the wash module, you might hear chopping, grinding, crunching, or buzzing sounds. These sounds are normal when hard items enter the module. Do not let metallic items (such as pot handle screws) get into the wash module. Damage can occur.

From my new dishwasher's owners manual. Which is the Whirlpool Quiet Partner II, model DU1100.

Should be interesting to hear that puppy in action, no?

Posted by: Kathy at 05:10 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Ok, the good news is that I'm FINALLY getting a new dishwasher. Actually, the new landlord bought the dishwasher almost two weeks ago and it's been sitting down in the garage, waiting to be installed.

The bad news is that they're trying to install it now, and they're, of course, this being the Cake Eater Pad, having some issues with it. They got the old one pulled out all right, but when they were checking the connections or something like that, some ancient part blew. I was in the office and all of a sudden there's this hissing noise. It didn't sound right. And you know what? It wasn't right. There was water shooting all over the kitchen floor from underneath the sink. No one happened to be there at the moment, but the back door was open so I screamed, "TURN IT OFF!"

Well, we got that cleaned up. And, really, I did need to clean the kitchen floor anyway, so the fact that I now have to mop is really a non-starter. Really. But, as it turns out, the part that blew, well, it's because the plumbing's old and---FOR SOME STRANGE REASON---Tweedledumb brought a new cold line all the way up from the basement a few years back, but didn't bother to bring a new hot line up at the same time. The old hot line was, apparently, good enough for him. So, now they have to replace that. In case you didn't know, I live on the second floor of this house. It makes things interesting.

Fortunately, both the landlord and the plumber seem to know what they're doing and are interested in getting it done quickly. Which is good because I haven't showered yet today. And I smell right now. So it would be nice to have the water turned back on sometime soon.

And I'll have a dishwasher by the end of the afternoon, which will really make my freakin' day! I cannot bloody wait for it. After dinner tonight, I will be able to load it up and NOT HAVE TO WASH EVERYTHING BY HAND!

Woohoo! That will be so freakin' exciting. I cannot wait. I LOATHE washing dishes. So, God Willing, I will be able to retire the marigolds after this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed that another bit of Tweedledumb's laziness doesn't come back to haunt this endeavor.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:55 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Just in case you were wondering, I, apparently, rule the universe.

Why, you ask, have I appointed myself ruler of the Milky Way?

Because I completely winged a recipe for pie today and it came out perfectly.

I wanted a berry pie, but all the berries that are normally considered to be suitable for pies (blueberries, raspberries) cost an arm and a leg. But Strawberries were (reasonably) cheap. (They really do stick us for produce here in the Great White North. It sucks, in case you were wondering. $2.99 for a feckin' pound of Roma tomatoes. Grand freakin' larceny!) Anyway, having no recipes for Strawberry Pie, I checked around to see what I could find, but they all either took forever and day to make, or they used frozen strawberries (bleh). So, I mixed and matched and came up with this. Enjoy.

Strawberry Pie

4 cups sliced strawberries
3/4 cup sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup all-purpose flour

Sift sugar, cornstarch and flour together, mix with berries and throw into a pie crust that you've already prepared and haven't gotten the recipe for from me. Because I suck at pie crusts. I use the Pillsbury pre-made ones you get in your grocer's dairy case. Really. They work just fine. Cover with the second bit of dough, cut some slits into it, and sprinkle some sugar on it.

Bake at 425 degrees for 45 minutes or until it starts bubbling. Cover the edge with foil so it doesn't burn, and take it off with ten minutes to go, so the crust gets baked. This only holds unless you're super-duper cool and have one of those nifty metal circles (available at your local cookery shop!) that serves this purpose. If you've got one of those, well, use that instead and save yourself the trouble of trying to fit square foil on a round pie pan.

Enjoy!

Posted by: Kathy at 11:40 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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So, life in general can be pretty freakin' weird. You never know what's going to happen from one day to the next. It's been said that whenever God closes a door, he opens a window.

I can testify that this is true.

One just doesn't expect the door to shut because of a wind tunnel created by the window that had suddenly opened.

My devoted Cake Eater readers will know that the Great White Hunter landlord put the Cake Eater pad up on the market in early January. The house sold at the end of last month and we were given thirty-days notice to pack it up and move it out. The husband and I, after a weekend of denial, started looking for a new place to live within our neighborhood. I started mentally plotting our move: what would need to be packed and in what order, etc. As of last Friday we hadn't found a place to move to. We weren't too concerned. After all, we found this place three days before we had to move last time. What can I say? We're picky.

But we've moved a lot in our ten-year marriage, so we know not to get too freaked out and not to give in too early. Something always turns up. If a door has closed, a window opens. If you would have asked me last Friday, I would have told you that a house up the street was the abruptly opened window mentioned above. Today, it's a different window entirely.

It's my own window.

Where I could reach out and touch the three pine trees that reside outside if there wasn't a screen in the way. It's the one that I'm currently seeing my own reflection in because it's dark outside. It's the one that's currently letting in a stream of fresh, early-spring air. And it's the one I'll be looking at and out of for another year.

Yep. That's right kids. We're staying put!

If you want the entire story, read on after the jump. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 12:33 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Woohooooo! I'm glad things worked out well for yas luv!

Posted by: silk at March 29, 2005 02:20 AM (JqjMx)

2 Theres always a sense of wonderment when things fall into place. Some call it luck or good fortune I prefer to call moments like that blessings. I thrilled for the both of you, a sense of permanance is a good thing!

Posted by: The Wizard at March 29, 2005 07:25 AM (N7YGA)

3 Huzzah! I liked the Cake Eater pad.

Posted by: ss at March 29, 2005 07:49 AM (fcxdR)

4 Wow. You are SOOO living right, girlfriend. Good for you guys!

Posted by: Christina at March 29, 2005 07:52 AM (zJsUT)

5 Wow, what a ride! Congrats on the landing, tho - Yip! Yip!

Posted by: Robert the Llama Butcher at March 29, 2005 08:02 AM (XBUdh)

6 Great news!

Posted by: Ith at March 29, 2005 02:24 PM (YUR+k)

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Oy.

I ate dinner almost six hours ago and I'm still full.

We had:

Ham (duh). After sticking about a thousand cloves into it, I glazed it with a gooey mixture of brown sugar, dried mustard and vinegar (if you can't figure out what the vinegar is for, just think sweet and sour and you'll get the drift)
• Pecan topped sweet potatoes. (This actually has a nice brown sugar/butter/flour crumbly topping. Mmmmmm)
• Biscuits. If I used Bisquik do they count as homemade?
• Asparagus. And the husband used his skills to whip up some fresh Hollandaise for it. MMMMMMMMMMMM

ML and The Doctor joined us for dinner and they brought cookies for dessert. I'm stuffed.

Still.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Being an Uber Geek is not an easy thing for the husband. He is the IT guy for plenty of people: my parents, his parents, our friends and a number of small to mid-sized corporations. One of his jobs as Uber Geek is to hook these people up with software, as such he is a Microsquash Partner, because he gets good deals. He also gets loads of marketing tchotchkes from Microsquash. Some of this stuff is cool---a free USB memory key, beta versions of Office, etc.---but most of it is pure, unadulterated crap. T-shirts. Oxford shirts. Little foam rubber cars that have Windows XP Pro plastered all over them. Pens. Paper. You name one cheapola marketing tchotchke that you have on your desk currently from some company you have to deal with, and Microsquash has sent us a version of it.

These packs of tchotchkes just show up at the house. Today, for some unknown reason, DHL dropped a box from Microsquash off at the back of the house. The Cake Eater neighbor pulled his Passat into the garage tonight and just narrowly missed the box. He brought it up as I was fixing dinner and I handed it off to the husband, wondering what they'd sent him this time---particularly because the box was intended to cause a frisson.

I mean, it's not every day you get a package that declares, "Partners in Paradise: Maui may only be a deployment away." I thought, hey, here's our chance to go to Hawaii on Microsquash's dime. They're finally going to play free and loose with the payola! Excellent!

So, the husband opens it up...

And it's more crapola, of course. No free software. No free USB memory cards. Instead, it's leis. They sent him leis.

Ron freakin' Popeil should have been standing there, announcing to the world, "But, wait! There's more!" Because there was, indeed, more.

My devoted Cake Eater Readers, I have the pleasure of showing you just how Bill Gates chooses to spend that $40 some odd billion he has lying around on the people who recommend software for him.

Bill sent the husband a...

What the hell?

So now I have a freakin' pineapple in the fridge. Thanks, Bill!

Fortunately for me, Feisty Christina has some ideas for what I can do with it.

Posted by: Kathy at 08:20 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Tweedledumb just called.

The Cake Eater Pad sold yesterday.

And the new owners want us out by the end of March.

As in they want our apartment to live in---because it's the nicer of the two---while they rent out the downstairs unit.

Fuck.

Pray for a miracle. Please.

UPDATE: Well, just got done chatting with the Cake Eater neighbors downstairs. Yesterday we got a call from them telling us that they'd put an offer in on the house. I wondered if their offer had been accepted, and they wanted our apartment to live in.

Turns out their offer was rejected. They hadn't been called by Tweedledumb yet. And they showed me their new six month lease they'd signed with the Great White Hunter landlord and there is a provision in it that if the house sells, well, the lease is terminated.

Which is a new one.

Not only wasn't that clause in our previous leases (we looked), but also Tweedledumb had promised us that any new lease we signed with the GWH would be honored. So we have duplicity on their part. Not like this counts for us, because they never sent us a new lease to sign---even though they'd promised they would, repeatedly--- so it looks like the downstairs neighbors are screwed as well. Even though they haven't gotten a phone call yet.

Sigh.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:19 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Ohhhhhhhhhh crap. I'll be begging for a miracle for ya, Kathy.

Posted by: sadie at February 26, 2005 02:10 PM (4CLu3)

2 Wait a sec...do you have a current lease under which you are operating or do I understand that the old lease expired and you are operating month to month under the old lease? It does make a difference. I'm with Sadie and am begging for a mercy for you. ; )

Posted by: Christina at February 26, 2005 03:05 PM (zJsUT)

3 Our current lease expires at the end of February. Perfect timing, no?

Posted by: Kathy at February 26, 2005 08:11 PM (Tosbv)

4 We just went through that a few months back. The owner of the house we'd rented for nearly ten years decided to sell. First, she said we could stay till the house went on the market in 2005, but then decided we had 6 weeks to vacate. Still getting over the stress of that one. I'll send good vibes your way.

Posted by: Ith at February 26, 2005 08:23 PM (+80Iy)

5 I'm sending my good karma vibes your way.

Posted by: silk at February 27, 2005 05:48 AM (W2z8L)

6 Kathy, I'm so sorry. That really sucks! However, maybe you'll find something nicer with a better landlord, one who actually fixes things!

Posted by: Phoenix at February 28, 2005 11:04 AM (4N2f4)

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So, I had to call the cops this morning.

This really isn't my favorite thing to do, but living on a busy street, where accidents have been known to happen, my fingers have done the walking more than a few times. I learned this morning that I can dial '911" without looking at the phone keypad. Woohoo for me, eh?

Fortunately, there hasn't been an accident, but rather some truck driver has decided to park his eighteen wheeler/semi/tractor trailer out on the main drag we live on. His engine is still running and he walked away from it.

Now, I don't know about you, but this makes me nervous. We live in a residential neighborhood. A residential neighborhood with a lot of traffic, I'll grant you, but eighteen wheelers generally do not use the streets around here as a truck stop. Which I'm pretty sure is what this guy is doing. I saw him get out of the truck and walk toward our little downtown area a little over a half hour ago and he hasn't returned.

Neither have the cops shown up. Which is irking me.

If I haven't explained the weirdness of our locality before, let me explain. We live in Cake Eater Land. Directly across the street, however, is the Minneapolis Province of the People's Republic of Minnesota. The boundary line between the two cities, apparently, is the divider line in the middle of the street. I call 911 and I am routed directly to Cake Eater City's Emergency Response Line. They listen to my schpiel and when they find out the truck is on the east side of the street, they immediately transfer me to Minneapolis. Where I have to repeat my story to a woman who, surprisingly, takes me more seriously than the Cake Eater City woman did, and promises to send a car out. (The Cake Eater City chick seemed disappointed when I told her there wasn't an accident involved.)

Forty-five minutes later....no cops.

And great, the truck just drove off. Fantastic.

This is the second time this guy has done this. It's the same rig. The first time was a week or two ago. The guy just parked his rig, left it running, and walked away. He's not delivering anything. He's just parking there for whatever reason. I'm high-strung, I know, but this makes me nervous. While I'm sure it's probably nothing, that the guy just wanted to get some breakfast or something, even if it's harmless, I don't want eighteen wheelers parking across the street from my house! They're stinky and they're loud. Besides, it's tacky as all get out.

The Cake Eater neighborhood has undergone a tremendous renovation since we moved here. A couple of blocks away, in the little suburban downtown area, there used to be a gas station and a little tobacco shop on one of the four main corners. They bulldozed these buildings and put in a little mini-mall/office building and ever since construction was completed, traffic has gone through the roof. It's jampacked every day during rush hour and during lunch. Backups galore. And that's when it's not snowing. It used to be quiet around here in the evenings. You could count on it. But no longer. It's noisy all day long and doesn't quiet down until well after ten p.m. Add to this the problem we have with speeders, because once they get through the nightmare that is the little downtown area, they jam on the gas and blow through this residential neighborhood at anywhere between forty and fifty miles per hour. Ever since that damn mini mall went up, well, traffic has become a bitch---including a huge increase in truck traffic---and because of our lovely little jurisdiction problem, there apparently isn't anything anyone can do about it, either.

I called the cops about the speeders this summer. Of course, I talked with someone over at the Cake Eater Cop Shop and he said there wasn't anything they could do about the speeders on the east side of the street. Because that's Minneapolis, and they've protested before, claiming the Cake Eater City Cops were poaching on their jurisdiction. The Cake Eater City cops, accordingly, don't bother with that side of the street. If I wanted to do something about that, he said, I had to call the Minneapolis Police Department. I also chatted with him about huge increase in truck traffic, and he said there wasn't anything he could do about that, either, because, technically speaking, the road is owned by Hennepin County and that's their jurisdiction.

AIEEEEEEEEEEE! It's turning into a nightmare. This used to be a quiet neighborhood. Now it's a throughway for commerce! While I'm a free trade kind of girl, this is annoying me. Furthermore, it seems as if I'm going to have to become one of those City Council meeting cranks if I want someone to do something about this, because, currently, no one cares.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, I took yesterday off.

I had a few things to do around here, the least of which was spot cleaning the office carpet. For some strange reason, the spot right where the husband's feet rest whilst he surfs the computer was positively filthy. As in it was two shades darker than the usual beige. Gross. We rarely wear shoes in the house, so I don't know why it was so filthy, but I have my suspicions. I think it might have something to do with his pipe ash. That stuff is positively toxic.

Smoking a pipe is a high maintenance event: it takes a lot to keep one going, and then there's the added fun of cleaning out the bowl, when ash will scatter, no matter how careful you are. The husband is very careful: the man is anal-retentive, so I know he tries his darndest to keep things nice and neat. It's just that the pipe defeats him. I smoke and ocassionally a bit of ciggie ash will flitter down to the carpet, but the vacuum always takes care of it. Pipe ash, however, is a whole different story. If a biggish chunk of ash hits the carpet, well, it melts the stuff. And, no, I'm not kidding. I have a feeling, though, that the occasional flitter of ash adds up to one big stain on the carpet.

After many shots at it with the Resolve Carpet Cleaner, it's now back to normal, but it was yucky.

I also managed to clean the sofa upholstery without ruining it, so I've got that going for me. Hand me a can of Woolite Upholstery and Fabric cleaner and, apparently, I'm your girl. Laundry was also done, so that pretty much knocked out the entire day.

Anyway, as soon as I get caught up, something will inevitably set me en fuego and there will be new posts for your enjoyment. However, until then, GET THY ASSES TO THIS POST AND GIVE ME SOME RECOMMENDATIONS, PEOPLE! Don't let Goldstein walk away with the Literary God award. Make him work for it.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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For the first time since I began wearing glasses at age eight, the opthamologist has told me that I do not need a new pair. My prescription has changed very little, he said, and not enough to warrant a new pair unless I want them.

Wow.

So that's what that feels like. Cool.

Although I'm frickin' blind right now because my pupils are the size of dinner plates. Arggh. The light! The light! Someone turn off the blasted light!

Posted by: Kathy at 02:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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