Archive: January 2008

From my 100 Things:

3. I have one sister who is four years older than I am. She and I are eerily similar in regard to mannerisms but vastly different in terms of fashion.
We both have super-straight black hair, and we are exactly the same height. We wear the same size in clothes, although my torso is longer, and her legs are longer, so sometimes we have to swap if the fit isn’t quite right. We sound the same over the phone, according to our parents. We call each other “zeester,” and we both throw our heads back when we laugh. We both talk really fast. We both drive 2004 Civic LXs. We both love the color green. I shop at Ann Taylor Loft; she goes to Anthropologie. She always has on nail polish; I never do. I look for classics that will last me a while; she hunts for tops with trendy details. She loves argyle; I prefer solids. I play it safe with black accessories; she goes for flash. She owns a pair of skinny jeans; I shake my head when I see them.

26. I am addicted to used book stores; it’s almost impossible for me to pass one without at least going inside.
After I got my hair cut yesterday, I passed my favorite used book store on the way back to my car. I knew that I should resist the gravitational pull of the shop, but I just couldn’t do it. I greeted Harry, the manager, and immediately found two Pearl S. Buck books (The Good Earth and My Several Worlds) from the classic literature section. I headed to the trade paperback fiction shelves, where the books are $3, at the most, and I snapped up The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I had heard good things about this book, but I really didn’t want to pay full price for it. With such good luck, I had to stop myself before I ended up with an armful of books, so I brought my finds up to the register, and the total came to a whopping $6.50. Score!

49. On the first anniversary of our engagement, JG and I found out that the offer we made on the house we wanted was accepted!
The original plan was to go out and celebrate our engagement anniversary, but friends called us up and asked if we could watch their three well-behaved kids. Normally, we would have said no, but we had given this couple a gift certificate to a restaurant and babysitting services as a gift at one point, so it seemed low to bail on them. JG and I had an easy time with the kids, and we were surfing through all of their luxurious cable channels when our real estate agent called with the news that our offer had been accepted. I was about to shriek with glee when JG wisely shushed me up because the kids were asleep. I think it’s funny that we were babysitting when we received the news about our first real estate purchase — isn’t that odd? It seems to me that we should have been doing something very grown-up at the time, like investing in something or going to a wine tasting.

94. For the most part, I am a very good speller, except for a few recalcitrant words that always seem to end up with red, squiggly lines underneath them.
Vaccum? No, vacuum.
Inadvertant? No, inadvertent.
Commemmorate? No, commemorate.
Accomodate? No, accommodate.
Influencial? No, influential.

100. I am horribly nearsighted.
These days, I can’t see a darn thing without my glasses or contacts, but I was eight years old when I first got glasses. My parents told me that I had to get them because I was reading too much, but myopia runs in our family, so I’m not sure which came first in that situation. The optometrist held up two pairs of glasses from which I could choose: one was a plain pair of red frames, and the other was red, but with a fashionable pink, paint-splatter effect. I knew immediately that I wanted the paint-splattered pair, but before I spoke up, my mother warned me, “The plain ones are cheaper.” I hesitated, then said boldly, “I like the painted ones better!” As though to console her, the optometrist told my mother, “They’ll last her for a while…” For the next five years, I believed that I had the coolest glasses in town.

Sunday Scribblings #95: Miscellaneous

Hurrah! A new recipe success! Following my dismal enchilada experience, I was cautiously optimistic that my foray into an untried baking recipe would raise my spirits, and I was not disappointed. The sweet combination of measuring and timing, an excuse to bust out my new nonstick baking mats and magnetic measuring spoons, and a yummy result all conspired to raise my self esteem. Thank goodness for you, baking.

(Later that night, I was further bolstered by a successful batch of fettucine alfredo, which demonstrated that I am not, in fact, hopeless at making a roux. Whew.)

I turned to my trusty America’s Test Kitchen cookbook for my first attempt at an oatmeal cookie, and the recipe came through in spades, that is, if spades are two dozen jumbo cookies. Even though the dough was unnervingly thick throughout the mixing — I feared for the motor in my mixer — I was pleased with the final texture of the cookie, which was crunchy around the edges, but still chewy on the inside.

Raisins are not welcome at our house, so I split the dough in half to make a version with semisweet chocolate chips and another version with dried cranberries and white chocolate. I also experimented between my usual method of dropping cookies from spoons and rolling balls of dough, as the recipe suggests. I imagined that my dropped chocolate chip cookies would be all craggy and interesting from the dips and waves of the dough, but they turned out to be depressingly flat. The rolled cranberry-white chocolate cookies emerged much more nicely-shaped, so my motto has been confirmed: follow the recipe at least once before fouling it up with any wayward modifications.

The real star of these cookies is the taste, spurred by a hint of nutmeg. There is such a large proportion of oats that I could almost forget about the two sticks of butter and two cups of sugar. Although the chocolate chip cookie I sampled proved to be quite tasty indeed, I will leave those to JG and stick with the cranberry-white chocolate ones. The cookie in my bag may not make it to lunchtime.

(Recipe after the jump)

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One may recall that, regarding the subject of dog clothing, JG is staunchly opposed. Despite my stirring arguments about cuteness and photo opportunities, he stands firm. It should come as no surprise, then, that I was beside myself with glee when I opened a Christmas gift from JG’s brother that revealed a tiny, yellow, football jersey for Ted!

I love that the jersey is made of mesh, and it even sports a bona fide Delaware logo. Best of all, since both JG and I recently got our own jerseys, I think that we may just have to do a Delaware-themed Christmas card next year.

Contrary to JG’s pessimistic predictions, Ted doesn’t hate his first piece of clothing, he hasn’t chewed at it too much, and I don’t even have to wrestle him down too heavily to force it over his head. For his own part, JG is surprisingly acquiescent to this new development, even going so far as to say that he is “actually okay with Ted in a jersey.” He’s already scheming about when we could bring the dog to a football tailgate and it wouldn’t be too hot or cold for him to hang out in the car during the game.

Ah, there is a chink in the armor! This is going to be the year of Ted in a lobster Halloween costume. I can feel it.

Come and get your (almost) daily dog dose with Rufus, Ben, Gus, and Zapp!

Over the weekend, our climbing gym had hosted a bouldering competition, so when JG and I walked in on Monday, there was a brand-new expanse of untried problems, or specific climbing paths. Bouldering is not really my climbing style; the problems are relatively short in terms of height, but they usually require big spurts of power. I am better at climbing longer routes that require precision, balance, and endurance, and I can usually figure out a way to complete a route, even if I have to make up something. I stay away from bouldering because I waste all of my energy before I get to climb what I want, but this week, the new material was irresistible.

Bouldering problems are rated for difficulty, where V0 is the easiest, and an increasing numeral indicates greater difficulty. I made a modest goal to finish out all of the V0 and V1 problems, and I felt pretty confident after I ran right up the first four that I tried. Then, I attempted a V0 problem that other climbers had pegged as awkward and poorly composed. After the fourth or fifth attempt, when my fatigue resulted in backward progress, I slapped the crash pad in frustration, leaving a chalky hand print. What was wrong with me? A zero should be a ladder, not a struggle! I grabbed my shoes and dropped down on the floor to take a break.

JG came up to me presently and asked what I was working on.

“That one,” I said sullenly, pointing.

JG tried to be encouraging. “It’s awkward. It’s not a V0, but it’s probably a V1.”

I should be able to do a V1! “Well, whatever it is, I can’t do it. I got to the second-to-last hold, but I couldn’t finish it.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“That’s because you can do it,” I snapped.

“Sorry.” He walked away.

Great. First, I was just a sloppy climber, but I had progressed to a sloppy climber who was also a jerk.

JG and I like to say that climbing was our first form of marriage counseling. We were brand-new climbers in the free rock gym at college, and our 15-inch height difference resulted a loss in translation:

JG: There’s a red hand hold right there!
RA: I can’t reach it!
JG: Are you sure?
RA: See where my hand is? That’s as high as it goes!
JG: There’s a blue one, too. Go for the blue one! Go, go, go!
RA: I can’t reach that one, either!
JG: Come on, just go for it! Go!
RA: Stop yelling at me!

Even though I could intellectually understand that JG was simply pointing out what was available to me, his encouragement voice, honed from years of team sports, hit me like a barrage of hail. At the same time, my sniping seemed unprovoked, because wasn’t he just trying to be helpful? Over the years, we’ve gotten better at the climbing-talk (”There’s a yellow foot chip, if you want it!”), but sometimes, the default natures emerge, like at the foot of that frustrating problem. JG instinctively pushes me along, but I take his words like insensitive commentary on my inability.

What to do? Usually, the best thing is to stop talking and keep climbing. Despite the frustration, we both know that the other has good intentions, but it doesn’t come out the right way. Eventually, that temporary sticking point fades, and it’s not as hard to see that we’re supposed to be having fun. In the case of Monday’s problem, JG went off to climb on his own while I tried out other things. We reconnected at the end of the night after respective successes, and we left on a good note. It’s not often that therapy and a workout can be combined for a low monthly fee, but we’ll take it.

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