Bullet Blog

(Annie, I'm stealing it.)

• Here are some pictures of our house:

The kitchen

 Our hallway!

 And the living room

 James is apologizing that it's messy. But it's a little messy.

We love our little place. It's two bedrooms above a mom, her boy, and their cat. It's little and cute and has some personality, and was redone by a bachelor with ok taste, so the carpet's nice and the kitchen's tiled and the walls are neutral. Sort of the perfect scenario. Oh, and the rent is good.

We live in the downtown-ish part of Mt. Horeb, just a block behind Main St. Our front door looks onto a little lane/alley that our neighbors backyards open onto, so in the summer we have great views of gardens and backyards (also parking lots).

• We made this cool thing: 

 

What happened was that I fell in love with this upside-down planter and bought it on sort of a whim. When it came in the mail, it was much smaller than I anticipated, so looked a little funny just hanging by itself (a group of them would be very cool). Also James was worried about the integrity of our ceilings which, to be fair, are plastery and occasionally questionable). So we put our heads (and James' Christmas drill) together and came up with this. I like looking at it so much And what you maybe can't see is the way the bark nestles right up against the pine block. So polished-looking.

• So there are recipes, and there are recipes. The first are good for, you know, a little out-of-the boxing and they're fine and whatever. On the other hand are those recipes that, like, change the way you look at food: like the time I made this Colombian chicken soup that had me mixing beef and chicken stock and cumin and thyme for the next year. Or this recipe. Dill and horseradish? Horseradish and sour cream? Why had this never happened before? In my mouth? We made them for Christmas dinner (paired with ham because I couldn't resist) and ever since every potato I eat has horseradish and sour cream and dill
• Our house has a ladybug infestation. I didn't know this was possible, but these guys are all over the place.

The end.

Detroit!

So I have been staffed, which means I've been assigned to a customer (hospital/hospital group) which means that I know a lot more about what the next several months/up to two years of my life is going to look like. And it's going to look a lot like Detroit.

Which is wonderful and fascinating. And, yes, a little dangerful and sketchy. We were walking back to the hotel (in a large-ish group) after dinner the other night, almost lost and sort of worried about it, but mostly there was nothing: only a very few cars and a very few other people. And this in the heart of this beautiful city--traffic circles with statues and boulevards that used to be lined with huge picture windows, now bricked in, windows replaced with brick and glass blocks and bars, or boarded up and over.

The hospital downtown is an exception--a sort of epicenter of activity and productivity. I'm glad to be helping support such a productive spot.

Because 1: I've been thinking about production and revitalization. Like, I watched Provo trying to rebirth itself, hopefully at first (galleries! and restaurants!), then less and less so. Because, and whatever, this is a little draconian, people don't *need* art. Or they do, but only when they have jobs first. Recreation is only meaningful/useful/important when actual creation (of the things you need and food and jobs) is taken care of I think. It's the principle of the sabbath--work work work so when you rest the rest is legit. I guess I think that real productive business--business that produces things (read that however) that people *need* trumps pretend business (galleries/restaurants/the MGM Grand, which by the way didn't bring tourists into downtown Detroit but did bring a casino, which is obviously an awesome decision) any day of the week.
I guess this is a place where Ayn Rand stuck with me: produce things! Real things!
And I read/heard an article about Detroit, about a woman who started a luxury lifestyle magazine that went under a year after she started it but how she's been hired by a consulting firm to talk about how to draw people to Detroit. Like starting coffeeshops and things.
And I'm ranting/simplifying. The moral: I trust reallife production over faking the fruits of reallife production any day of the week.

And 2: Detroit is very real and compelling. I'm super exited to be there.

Oh, and 3: it's a 40 minute flight from Madison.

In other news: I skipped out on work sick early Friday, reached a temp of 104 yesterday, spent some time in the ER (mostly because everything else was closed of a Saturday night) getting anti-bodied up. A kidney thing. The good news: I'm mostly better. We have *awesome* health insurance. And there's no bad news really. James is the very nicest and most supportive, up to and including going on a 6:30 OJ and tylenol run in the snow.

And James has found some good leads on places to get some hours. That man has hustle. The thesis is still looming (for both of us) but. We'll finish.

So. Life is happening and good and new all the time. Dig it.

Birthday Week!

This week was my birthday! I turned 29 which is both weird and fine.

James brought me breakfast in bed, we got Mongolian BBQ (which felt *awesome* in my congested drippy head. I couldn't even taste anything, just the burning.)

On Saturday we went to breakfast with some friends and saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which was perfectly made and made me nostalgic for a childhood I never had but which I think my dad wanted me to have? It was very pretty and got me writing about Dennis. And also was just a perfectly made period spy film.

In other news: my job started for real this week. I was sort of in training for the last 4 months because I wasn't assigned to a customer. This week I met some of my customer counterparts and met with the coworkers I'll be working with. It's really nice to be doing real things, and things that I feel pretty comfortable doing.

Aaaand...James and I joined a gym and have been running again which feels great.
And we took out the Christmas tree.
And James is making good progress on the thesis.

So a good week. And we're happy and like you all.

Loves,
ke.

Thanksgiving

We were in Tx with James' family. Soo warm and very lovely and also very TX-y.

(I didn't get a photo because I was filming, but this pic of James was post bull-riding. ! )

An iPhone Christmas.

This is our Christmas tree: fat and sparkling. Love.

Ooh (sorry, figuring this out as I go:) picture #2 is of our dinner tonight. Leftover Christmas ham and pineapple pizza and Harry and David pear and sharp cheddar + dill and white onion. Win.

Lunch on Christmas eve was shrimp. Huge and beautiful and perfect.

Quick Update on my life:

So the vertigo is a viral thing which means for all intents and purposes that it's inucrable and also tricking my body into making me sick (do you remember learning about viruses? Using your own cells against you? Nasty, ingenius things). As a result I've spent major portions of the last week in bed. Today I started working from home, which is surprisingly effective--it's not that I'm incapaciated, I just can't move around. And I need more naps I think. I don't like being sick. I don't like not being in control, I don't like the part where I need to gauge how much time, really, I can and ought to take off.
I do like laying in bed, visitng with James, being able to eat again (and wanting to occasionally!). I like that the sun's come out today (high of 28). I like that I got my Thank You cards addressed and my Christmas presents started. And I did all that while watching Netflix which I also like.

And that's the end. :)

Nov. 20

I'm thankful for delicious food. Is the end of the Thanksgiving portion of this post.

The other (still food-related) portions:

Something magic I just found: (white) balsamic+olive oil+garlic+cabbage might be the most delicious thing I've eaten this week. I'm roasting it which I'm sure will also be delicious, but I can't imagine it significantly improving the flavor. Also one of the most stinky foods I can imagine.

Speaking of which, I'm reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon who I love. The premise is fantastic: apparently (in real life) after WWII there was a short-lived proposal to allow misplaced Jews to relocated to the Alaska territory. The novel is set in a world where this happened. Anyway, there's this scene in a shady bar in the morning (outside of operating hours) where the two main guys are talking over a  table of "pickled tomatoes and cucumbers, a basket of poppy-seed rolls, and a bowl of sour cream." Why do I love this so much? There's this line: "Berko reaches for one of the pickled cucumbers, shaking off the peppercorns and cloves that stud its freckled green skin. He crunches it between his teeth and frowns happily.
'It takes a sour woman to make a good pickle.'"
Moral of the story? #1 Michael Chabon, I love you. #2 I need to find my way back to the motherland. My mouth is watering.

And food thing #2. Food blogs. I generally don't love as much as I'd like. Because they're either too simple and I'm insulted or they're too complicated and I'm incredulous--"Yes, of course you had leftover exotic grain that you roasted with organic farmer's market vegetable into something impossibly beautiful and lowfat in your gorgeous seaside kitchen." Blah blah I'm jealous of your life. But I've found one that is just perfect: complicated enough to be interesting, with an engaging voice, good but not ostentatious photography. And the writer lives in Chicago which means we're practically neighbors.