Archive: October 2007

Our Halloween plans this year are kind of nonexistent. JG has class tonight and I’ll be by myself, so there won’t really be a festive atmosphere. He’ll get home around 7pm and we’ll chow down on slow-cooked beef burritos as we hide from wandering ghouls. Terrible as it might seem, we’ve chosen to abstain from handing candy out this year due to our neighborhood’s striking number of who I would deem to be ineligible trick-or-treaters. I don’t mind the kids in their costumes; I could do without the sponging parents, infant siblings, and teenage mooches. I have accepted the fact that I’m a Scrooge whose porch light will be off tonight and that is just fine with me.

That is not to say that we are completely bereft of any Halloween spirit. JG loves to carve pumpkins, so no October is complete without picking pumpkins, swathing the dining table in newspaper, and hacking away at a gourd. This year, we decided to go nerdy with our jack-o’-lanterns — surprise, surprise — and I was pretty pleased with the results. JG’s pumpkin pi came out really well, but my Scrabble BOO was not quite as clear when it was lit. I had to piece together the pattern on my own and it wasn’t quite the clean, sharp, Scrabble-tile look I imagined. I think I should have cut out larger pieces, but I am paranoid that the pumpkin will cave in on me. A dimly-lit jack-o’-lantern is my reward for caution.

JG finished his pumpkin in about 30 seconds, so while I chipped away at my letters, he roasted up pumpkin seeds for snacking (approximated recipe after the jump) and the house smelled warm and yummy. Our Halloween will be pretty low-tech tonight, but salty pumpkin seeds, a cozy house, and a snuggly puppy more than make up for it.

Right now, I’m donning a tiara and making my way to the hospital’s annual costume parade, which I hear is an event not to be missed in these parts. Happy Halloween!

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There once was a girl who hated to drive. She learned how to drive in her family’s third car, a 1995 Ford Escort sedan, and always felt as though the car was driving her. A run-in with a stop sign and a costly re-alignment didn’t help the situation. The girl didn’t get her license until she was 19, when she took her driver’s test over winter break with only one contact lens and the knowledge that she was in the easiest DMV in her county. She continued to drive the car throughout college and afterward, when her parents sold it to her for a song, thereby avoiding a car payment.

After a couple of years of relatively smooth car ownership (with the exception of a minor rear-ending incident), the girl started to have issues with the Escort, namely not being able to sit and idle because the engine would stop. Stoplights and traffic jams became a source of anxiety and the girl and her husband began to discuss the option of replacing the car by using the funds in their high-yield savings account. As painful as it was to consider using the vast portion of what they had saved (“It’s so pretty,” they moaned), it was comforting to know that they had the latitude to make a purchase. But first, the girl attempted to have the local mechanic fix the problem. Almost $300 and a spiel of incomprehensible mechanic-talk later, she took the car back on the road the next day and promptly stalled out while trying to park. The girl and her husband decided to give it until the end of the week while they did more research. The girl urged the car, “You only need to make it until Friday.” The Escort continued to stall out and re-start every day that week.

On Friday, the girl decided to run to the bank downtown over her lunch break. Halfway there, the car began to shake and the girl slapped the steering wheel, saying indignantly, “I am not breaking down downtown, do you hear me?!” Alas, just minutes later, in a left-turn lane, the car stalled out. The girl immediately put on her hazard lights and attempted to re-start the car, if only to get it out of the road. It took four or five tries before the engine sputtered to the point where the girl attempted to complete the left-hand turn, but mid-turn, the engine cut out again. The girl threw the car into neutral, slowly steered it into an illegal parking spot on the side of the road, and pulled the emergency brake. Shaking, she took a few deep breaths. She didn’t hit anyone. No one had hit her. People could see her car around the corner. It was okay. Except that her car was dead.

Fortunately, the girl was parked just a couple of blocks from her previous job, so she called to see if anyone was free and wouldn’t mind bailing her out. To her relief, a former co-worker came out in the rain, managed to get her car into an actual parking lot, and drove her back to her office. In hindsight, the girl realized that if she gone home as usual, she would have ended up on the side of a back road in the middle of nowhere, so it was really fortuitous to break down where she did. The afternoon was a flurry of e-mailing her husband, arranging a ride home, and finding a reputable towing company, all encompassed by the bittersweet reality that the Escort had finally given up the ghost.

Yesterday, feeling scarily grown-up indeed, the girl and her husband went to two dealerships to find a reasonable used car. At the first, they dealt with Dave, the slowest, oldest used car salesman in history, who tried to sell them a silver 2004 Civic that had almost everything the girl wanted. Because the Escort had, as the girl put it, “nothing automatic except the transmission and those stupid zippy chest seat belts,” she had resolved from the start to get a car with power windows and locks, at the very least. “As much as I like this car,” she explained to her husband, “it wouldn’t feel like an upgrade because I would still have to lock everyone’s doors and wind down windows.” Plus, the intention was to keep the car for a good long time and she didn’t want to buy something she didn’t really like, even if it came down to doors and windows.

They moved on to the second dealership and Khalil, a non-native speaker of English who “just wanted to be pals.” The girl kept her mouth shut as her husband played a good game of hardball, using the silver Civic as leverage and even walking out once. They ended up with a previously-leased 2004 Civic LX with surprisingly low mileage. After years of driving the Escort, the new car was a step into luxury. Power windows! Power locks! Keyless entry! A CD player! Adjustable steering wheel and seat height! Ability to accelerate! And brake! And idle! The girl had never known what she was missing. The only downside was that the car was beige, but the girl prefers to call the shade “antique gold,” thank you very much.

On the way home, while carefully avoiding deer, the girl pondered what to call the car, since she is the type to name cars. A Civic. Beige/antique gold. Reliable. Not flashy. Ned? Charlie? Walter! Perfect.

After the dust settled and the car insurance had been updated, the girl and her husband sat on their couch and watched their DVRed television shows from the night. The girl turned and said, “You know, today’s our second house-aversary. I guess this is the car year, huh?”

#82

It was a dark and stormy night when JG and I left our house on Friday to drive down to my sister’s place in Maryland in preparation for the Delaware/Navy game the next day. We squinted through pouring rain to make out the lane markers, merge onto the Beltway, and read road signs, but we managed to arrive in one piece, though not completely dry. JG crashed on the futon with ESPN in the background while my sister and I made sandwiches for our tailgate, strategized about which bags to use, and made a timetable for when we needed to be where. After long drives and days at work, we did not look forward to the early wake-up call, which was heralded only by an alarm clock since the sky transitioned from black to dark gray to somewhat lighter gray. Packing up my sister’s boyfriend’s family’s minivan for the trek to Annapolis was quite the soggy situation.

Upon arriving at Navy about half an hour later, we managed to find a great parking spot within sight of the stadium. Realizing that the rain had slowed to a faint mist, we excitedly pulled out the cooler and camp chairs and poured congratulatory drinks, but it was not to last. The sky darkened and the heavens opened as we scrambled to get our stuff and selves back into the van. The prospect of tailgating, much less watching the game, in these conditions was not encouraging. Part of me wanted to push through and say I’d done it, but the other, more insistent, part of me hated being cold and clammy. I brought an extra change of clothes in case the ones I wore grew too uncomfortable, but I hadn’t anticipated doing the wardrobe switch before the game. Kind of pathetic, really. Thankfully, the wet weather cleared a couple of hours before the game and we enjoyed a relaxing session of eating, talking, and napping. Most importantly, jeans dried and hands warmed, so I didn’t feel like a drowned rat while we walked to our seats.

I left the Navy game with the following souvenirs: a boatload of pictures, a game program, and a hoarse throat. So I did a lot of screaming, but Delaware won, so it must have helped! When the total score exceeds 100 points, it’s clear that there was no defense going on and the defensive line felt my wrath. Apparently, the plan is to try and trip the players rather than tackle them like you mean it and I did not approve. They managed to make the one requisite defensive stop and be the last team with the ball, so — huzzah! — victory! I really enjoyed all of the tradition that Navy instills into their games, like the midshipmen march-on, a flyover at game time, and the freshman doing push-ups at every Navy score. (However, I could have done without the custom of noting a Navy score or the end of a quarter by firing a cannon, which made me jump out of my skin every time. I mean, I get that Navy is a military academy, but is it really necessary?) Even though the student section was just as rowdy as any other, it somehow felt more dignified to me because the students were in uniform. Not that that stopped me from being anything but dignified as I hopped up and down and screeched at the refs who were obviously trying to give Navy some kind of upper hand when it was clear that all was lost. Obviously, I am not over it.

JG and I drove back home that afternoon and crashed in front of the Penn State game, which did not have as appealing results, unfortunately. No matter — this is why we follow more than one team. We are hyped up for our last three games of regular season play because we are definitely headed to the 1-AA play-offs if we win just two of them. If those play-off games are within driving distance, you can bet that we’ll be there.

Get a load of me! I’m like a sports person or something.

#68

This weekend, JG and I are trekking down to Annapolis, Maryland, to see the Delaware football team play Navy and we’re meeting up with my sister and her boyfriend to tailgate and watch the game. As a treat, I made a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert, which was only fitting since I am kind of on a pumpkin streak this fall.

When I was in high school, my mom clipped this recipe and asked me to make it for our family’s Thanksgiving dinner in New York. I had never made a cheesecake all by myself before, but they always seemed to stress my mom out, so I had this vision of a complicated, soufflé-like concoction that required tip-toeing past the oven. I agreed to make the dessert and was stunned by how not-so-bad it turned out to be. I won’t say that it was easy because it dirties up a lot of dishes and I won’t say that it was simple because judging done-ness of cheesecake is more art than science. Essentially, though, I just mixed the crust, pressed it into the pan, baked it, mixed the cheesecake, dumped it in the pan, and baked it. The problem with making a big dessert meant to be doled out on the spot is that you can’t taste it to make sure it has come out right, so I just hoped for the best. Well, the family raved about the cheesecake that year and I’ve had to make it ever since. Last year, when we hosted Christmas at our house, I adapted the recipe slightly by replacing the graham cracker crust with a gingersnap one and it is a definite improvement, if I do say so myself.

This cheesecake holds a special place in my heart because I felt it confirmed me as a dessert provider for family gatherings. In a holiday season dominated by chocolate, I think this cheesecake holds its own by being sweet and light, but still fully festive. As a person who could never really get into pies, I love eating this dessert because it gives me all of the pumpkin goodness, none of the hassle of crust, and adds in cream cheese. Who can complain?

(Recipe after the jump)

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