Culinary Solace

Ms. Packratty has been suffering badly from food issues since her return to Rome. In addition to her issues with corn products in food, she is starting to wonder if all the additives and so forth in American food is part of the problem she has with her digestion. She ate very well in Rome and only suffered grumpy tummy once after a particularly rich meal that also included some bleu cheese. Sadly, within 10 days of her return, her stomach was once again in frequent revolt and she has pared back her menu to try to eliminate as many additives as possible. And it seems to help.

One great help is the lovely little pizzeria down the road from her work, a charming little place in a strip mall called Il Bacio. She has been lunching there since they opened and while she does not love everything there, there are many things that are spot on. For example, this is the sandwich (on foccacia bread) and salad that she picked up for lunch Wednesday.



















That's for well under $10. Ms. P is not mad about the pizza, preferring crustier stuff, but they do a good basic NY style pie and some interesting variations. But the salads are always wonderful and the house baked foccacia is always good. I wish someone would do some really seasonal only Italian cooking in Atlanta and perhaps teach people that there is more than pasta to Italian food.

Friends and changes

Ms. Packratty is rather sad. An old friend has abruptly and without any explanation or any honesty, effectively fired her as a friend. She suspects this former friend had her nose put out of joint by Ms. Packratty’s Italian adventure, although Ms. Packratty extended several invitations to undertake a joint excursion – her now apparently former friend had countered a proposal for a week in Rome and a couple of days in Florence with the desire to do the sort of city hopping that makes your head swim – i.e. if this is Tuesday it must be Turin.

Since we had such opposing ideas about Italy, Ms. Packratty had concluded that she needed to go to Italy by herself and had suggested to this friend that they undertake a Grand Canyon trip, since her FF lives in the West and has made much about her outdoors activities. That was shot down, first with the comment that her FF was not comfortable with wearing a bathing suit and then with the plea that she was no longer very outdoorsy, countering with the idea of taking a cruise to Alaska. Ms. Packratty started doing research and sent her some details for a late summer 2013 sailing and then was flabbergasted to receive a deadpan, unfriendly, unemotional and patently dishonest “I think we have different ideas about what a vacation is.”

Well, what is a vacation?

Some vacations are for learning, some are for relaxing, some are physically demanding, some are all of the above. Ms. Packratty’s Roman holiday certainly was all of those. What other things could a vacation be like? Constant motion, I suppose, or sitting still and imitating a log, but in between those two opposites, what else is there? What a vacation is not in my eyes would be a frantic slog from one city to the next with minutes instead of hours budgeted for museums, packing and unpacking and checking in and out of hotels.

If I go to Naples, I want time to see Pompeii, to go to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli and spend half a day or more without time pressure, or wander through the Pompeii ruins until my feet are ready to drop off. If I go to Positano, I want more than a half day race to “see the sights” – I want to sit under an arbor, sip a limoncello and then go watch ceramic artists at work. You can’t do those things if you have allocated a week and you are trying to see most of the “boot”. You can rush around and do exhausting drive-by tourism or you can stop and concentrate and be in a place. Or two.

Am I sad? Yes, I am. I really treasured FF but apparently she has taken some offense and doesn’t want my friendship. I’m very sorry about that, but there’s absolutely nothing I can do. I know I have many faults as a friend, but lack of honesty and openness is not one of them and I am deeply offended at the way I was treated. However, knowing what I know about FF’s family and upbringing, I’m not surprised. Her family appears to suffer from one of the worst cases of emotional constipation I’ve ever heard of, although the only emotion her parents seemed to be perfectly free expressing was disapproval.

So I don’t know what FF’s underlying problem is. I’m sad about it, but you know – I can’t fix anything if she won’t be honest and open with me and I’m just not able to go digging for it. When someone lives 1000 miles away and you aren’t face to face with them, if they want to be hostile and evasive, there’s no way to get them to open up.

Do I like it? No, it’s always sad to lose a friend.

What am I going to do about it? Nothing. There’s nothing I can do. I’m going to send her the souvenir yarn I bought her in Rome, wish her well, tell her that I’ll be glad to listen if she ever decides to talk and get on with my life.

So next stop? Planning for that Grand Canyon trip. It seems only fair to alternate US trips with trips to la bella Italia.

108

Today would have been the 108th birthday of Ms. Packratty's beloved grandfather. He has been dead since 1989, but there is scarcely a day that goes by that Ms. Packratty does not think of him and wish she could talk to him. Following close on the heels of this is the 60th anniversary of the marriage of the Packratty parents. It's quite a month.

Three weekends to go

Before my trip and I really have to get cracking on getting the house ready to decamp. The biggest issue is making sure that Her Ancient and Exalted Highness Delilah Fuzzybutt has sufficient food, water and litter boxes for the duration. She is terrified of strangers, so I really like to just set her up with lots of dry food left out, water dripping into a bowl in the bathtub and about 7 litterboxes lined up down the hall. But I really need to finish clearing out the unfolded laundry in the laundry room, do a boatload of dishes, clean out the fridge and make a sweep through my bedroom and get a lot of books re-shelved. I think I'll probably throw out a few bags of assorted junk too.

I'm almost over the chest and throat ailment that's been making me miserable for the last 3 weeks, so I'm hoping I can get some real traction on those tasks this weekend - as well as - once again - putting new innards in the upstairs loo. The fancy water saver doesn't - so bah humbug, I'll go back to the old sort with the float. However, kneeling on the bathroom floor while unscrewing and refastening all this stuff is definitely NOT my favorite occupation. I thought the first time would be good for 5-10 years - not less than 2 months.

I also have the newest David Weber in advance reader copy form - A Rising Thunder. This is the one where Manticore and the Peeps ally and - I expect - kick the Solly's asses up around their ears and start to deal with Mesa and Manpower. Although I expect THAT part of the story won't be done for several more books. I must resist the temptation to stay up all night reading. In fact, I hope to use chapters as rewards for getting on with assorted tasks - we'll see how that goes.

Waterboarding err, Software Testing

There's a peculiar and miserable sort of torture in the software world called testing and Ms. Packratty has just endured a round of it. The initial part wasn't bad, although it fell during the week when Ms. Packratty lost her still somewhat absent voice. The predeployment testing got finished after the QA person had finished *her* four day week and somehow, Ms. Packratty never got the script for the post-deployment testing. Until this morning. After a night of very poor sleep, Ms. Packratty had finally achieved a comatose state when her phone went off to tell her that it was time to test. So she drove down to the office, since testing on the laptop is a misery because you can't see the blasted reports very well and you can't print them to a non-network computer.
So, 4 hours later she was mostly done after a full handful of fits and starts and Sunday was shot - right between the eyes.
So Ms. Packratty decamped from work in gray drizzle and gassed up Charlie's Buick, picked up her supply of fizzy water and looked up at the lowering sky and said "To hell with this, I want some really good food" and drove straight to the Havana restaurant http://www.havanarestaurantatlanta.com/ for a #17 combo which she brought home and devoured (minus the pickles). With our spirits somewhat mended, we chucked a load in the washer, spent 10 minutes rounding up more hangers and zipped up to the library and checked out a big stack of fluffy reading.
And now, she is going to tell Charlie to shut up and take a nap so that she can shut her eyes and take a nap.

New glasses and a renewed zeal to conquer the laundry room

Ms. Packratty picked up her new specs this morning and will be able to ditch the pair purchased in December of 2010 which she never actually liked. At the time they were the largest lens area frames she could find at her optometrist's shop, most of the glasses available being those miniscule little ovals and rectangles that look good OK on approximately .05% of the population and look like boiled sin on the rest of us. But they were sort of rectangularish instead of the roundy type that Ms. Packratty prefers and now has once again

She is on call this weekend and not enjoying it but given that this is the first weekend in 2 months when there were not 9K things needing to be done IMMEDIATELY, she is attacking the squalid heaps of clean but unfolded and sorted laundry in the hopes of finding all the pieces she intends to pack for her trip.

There's also the matter of cleaning the litterbox and vacuuming and washing the floor in there and also AGAIN replacing the innards in the upstairs loo. the fancy-shmancy new innards lasted - oh 6 weeks - before failing to to cut off the inbound water, leading to another (small) flood and a lot of exasperation. Going back to the sort with a float and a mechanical cut off. We are irritated, but fortunately, the toolbox with all the proper implements is still upstairs right where I need it.

There is also a small boatload of dishes to do, the kitchen drawer to mend (again) and there are books all over the bedroom that need to be wrangled back into their proper places as well as running up to the library to get a new whack of books for the new week. Oh, and we need fizzy water and a tank of gas as well as something to cook for dinner tomorrow. But still, there's only a small plate of tasks as opposed to the normal platter of plenty that confronts most weekends. And with the temperature rather - temperate - right around 60 it makes working conditions rather more pleasant. Chez Packrat is not too warm, nor is it so chilly that we want to retire to the bed and continue our romance with the winterweight down comforter.

Voiceless

The voice is so very definitely AWOL. Had to get the prescriptions filled Friday - more $ gone. This is about the 4th time or maybe the 5th that I have lost my voice since that truly epic bit in 1996 when I lost my voice from Thanksgiving to around Christmas. Not the best ailment for someone who talks for a living.

On better notes, saw the first flying flakes of snow in 2012 Friday, but only briefly. The garden plots at the community garden got a great head start before the freezing weather hit and seem to be thriving. I wish I'd planted more carrots though.

Eyes examined - need new lenses, my left eye appreciably worse, dammit. Frame choice a bit better - I actually had 4 pair of non-tiny frames to choose from, 5 if you count the pair that was just too dark for my coloring. I could have worn them 30 years ago, but now that my hair is mostly white, not a chance. At least I''ll be shed of this pair that I've disliked since the day I picked them up.

Time to try to go to sleep if the cold meds will let me.

One damned thing after another

Ms. Packrat has lost something. Not a piece of paper or a skein of yarn - although a packet of bamboo DPs has gone astray. No. Ms. Packrat has lost her voice. Again. It started with a headache and fever on Monday that kept her out of work for 2 precious days of sick leave and by late Wednesday, she was croaking like a froggy. Thursday dawned after a restless night (hard to sleep when you want to cough all the time) and the voice was ... gone.

Thankfully, Ms. Packrat is mostly engaged in testing software this week, and was able to nip out and see a doctor today and get the standard round of antibiotics and prednisone prescription and a letter telling her manager that she needs to be silent. However, the added expense and the typically long recuperation with winter upon us and a long planned and anticipated trip ahead - just perfect, perfect timing. The co-pay and parking and pharmacy money would have been much more fun to spent in a corner osteria on a plate of pasta. Grumble.

Seriously, though, it could be worse timing, but still. Almost half the sick leave for the year gone in the first month. Of course, some of the coworkers have already used more of theirs, which probably contributed to Ms. Packrat's tired state that probably helped bring this on, but still. Hoovers.

Tonight applying a good stiff drink and an early bedtime to try to avoid having to fill all the prescriptions - a night without hacking like a sick dog would probably help the voice come out of hiding a bit.

Grumble.

Starting off reading

Books to date include:

Conquistadora - so-so
Three bedrooms, one corpse - amusing
Art and Madness - eh
Kingfishers Catch Fire - slim book with lots of texture
Gone - Rumer Godden short stories - lovely bits
Falling palace: a romance of Naples - BORING, read 1/3 and gave up
Subterranean Rome - not just the what, but the why and the hows and great background
The leftovers - interesting
The Cypress House - - ditto, good read
Blood Maidens - slightly different vampires
A secret rage
Shakespeare's landlord
On Borrowed Time
Robopocalypse - scary
All Wound Up funny as always

So that's 15 books in the first 11 days, not including several guidebooks for Rome and central Italy, but can't count as literature.

I also finished a sock, started its mate and have lugged out 3 giant bags of trash and spent a couple of hours on the bookbinding bench.

And am currently enjoying a miserable case of attempted bronchitis (I think I got to the antibiotics in time) but not enjoying the fever at all.

A Rerun Post for the 4th of July

A is for All of the citizens serving to protect this country and the peace of the world.

M is for Mercy. America has proved time and time again to be a terrible enemy but a merciful victor. This is another tradition I hope and pray we continue to follow even though it undoubtedly makes us appear weak to barbarians.

E is for English, our common tongue. Yes, we butcher the King's version, but American English is vibrant and lively and borrows freely from almost every culture we encounter. Barbecue from the Arawaks, amok from the Moros - if we find a useful word, we'll appropriate it. Look up boondocks, for example!

R is for our Revolution. We won our freedom and we have tried to spread the gospel of freedom.

I is for Invention. America was the first country to recognize intellectual property with a patent system and trademarks. The US Patent Office has patents that you can view online going back to 1790, when our country was barely a going concern. One of our Presidents has even held a patent.

C is for Charity. We excel at it both at home and abroad. If tragedy strikes a community or a country, Americans will be sending soup, bandages and cash within hours - and not primarily through government agencies, but through groups such as the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and dozens and dozens of smaller groups.

A is for ambition. In America, ambition and hard work can make you. Who your parents were or where they came from is much less important than what you want to achieve and how hard you are willing to work to do so.

The truth about this country is illustrated most vividly in the fact that all over the world in countries of every type, there are people standing in line and staking all they have on a chance to come here, whereas, I am informed, the line to leave here is small.

An honest prayer for President Obama

"Pray
for Obama. Psalm 109:8".

Psalm 109:8 ~ "Let his days be few and brief; and let others step forward to
replace him."

I was in a small accident a couple of weeks ago and got bounced around the interior of the SO’s car. I had my seatbelt on and the airbag deployed and all that, but it’s been a potent reminder that when you have fibromyalgia, everything can be a bit more difficult.

My right leg is still swollen and sore, even though the visible bruises have faded. I have to elevate it every evening for the swelling and aching to go down. And I’m sore and stiff all over in a way that is a continual reminder of the accident and I’ve been very worried that the physical stress from this would put me into a flare up of the fibromyalgia. I think I may have dodged the bullet on that, because I actually got some decent sleep despite a> being on-call and b> sleeping on the guest bed because the waterbed sprung a leak and I’m waiting for a replacement. A week on a regular bed is a potent reminder of ALL of my sore spots.

But I’m getting better – eating lots of fresh cherries and the amazingly sweet Athena cantelope that will be gone in another week or so not to return until next year.

And my garden has started to yield. Mostly tomatoes, but I've had arugula, sugar snap peas (eaten in the pod tossed in salads) and some lovely radishes. Since it is a small, not quite 4 foot by 8 foot bed, the yield has been quite generous. However, it only stokes the desire for a yard where vegetables and flowers and a happy little dog could all have space.

Gardening

After about 3 weeks of scant or no rain, we had a fabulous drencher Wednesday night, followed by late afternoon soakers on Friday and Saturday.

My garden at the North Fulton Community Garden is growing well and I expect to have ripe tomatoes in the next week.
Pictures to come

Whew!

It's been as hot as the hinges of hell's barbecue grill this week and no relief in sight, although we usually get a brief cool spell in June before the bronze bowl of summer heat closes over us for the duration.

On call this week, so up at 7:30, waited until after the office opened at 8 to walk Charlie, then zipped down to the Peachtree Road Farmer's Market at St. Philips. http://www.peachtreeroadfarmersmarket.blogspot.com/ It was already steamy by 9 and by 10 a.m. I was happy to be back in my car with the ac on. Ran by Trader Joe's and then by the community garden to water my plot and Mar's and clip away some of my beautiful, pungent arugula and lettuces. I even found a couple of the watermelon radishes big enough to pull. Whee. Picture of the garden soon. The tomatoes are fruiting like mad - I have all Romas in my plot and an assortment of heirlooms in Mar's - all but one of my Italian starts from seed were flattened in our late April hailstorm. The sole survivor is doing well. Ah, next year - a girl can hope.

It's time for more housework as well as trying to fix the disposal. It whirs, but grindeth not, so I have tried the reset to no avail and wend and bought a set of Allen wrenches looking for the size that fits in the bottom to try to clear whatever is ailing it. If that fails, I'll have to buy a new kitchen pig, darnit. Not something I want to do. For the moment though, I'm, loading the dishwasher, catching a shower and waiting for 1 when I have to got online to my computer at work and publish the June schedule.

Housework done properly can kill a woman

I have:

gone to church
done 4 loads of laundry
washed out the fridge
cleaned the stove
two dw loads of dishes
gone to the library
walked the dog 3 x
handed out pool keys and parking permits for an hour
grocery shopped

and I have to clean the cat box
take out more trash
do one more load of laundry
and cook dessert and make a salad for the staff potluck tomorrow
and walk the dog at least 1 more time
and I'd like to get down to the community garden and water my bit, but I'm kind of thinking that's not happening today.


As far as the community garden goes, it's chugging along, especially since hail trashed all the first planting of tomatoes and then it's been on the dry side. My arugula is awesome, awesomely pungent and the other lettuces thriving. The watermelon radishes have started out well, as have the sugar snap peas.

I'm so thrilled by having a real garden space, small as it is

Roundup

We got back to work Wednesday after the great snowstorm. A skeleton of the loyal came in, the usual suspects failed to show. We closed up at 5 prompt on both Wednesday and Thursday and we got paid for the full day. Those who didn't show lost vacation or floating holiday time or pay. Dumb. By Friday, there was absolutely no reason why anyone shouldn't have been at work. And not very fair to the rest of us who did come in and handle the whole horrid pile. But that's about what I expect from a significant cross section of my co-workers - slackness.

Today the sun was out and the temperature close to balmy - a lot of melting, but the entryway is far from clear and I suspect it may take through Monday to clear it up. I picked up my new glasses, went to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and also got a new filter for the humidifier and some goodies at Tuesday Morning - including some rain boots - because I don't think the snow and ice are over and I discovered that none of my shoes were really great for coping with soggy snow.

Read "Citadel" by Ringo; "Intrigue" by Mercedes Lackey; "Finders Keepers" by Craig Childs and an utterly forgettable continuation of the Pern series by the son of the original writer - who, sad to say, does not have enough of his mother's skills. By the end of the book, I had no clear image of any of the protagonists, no desire to read an more about them and no real idea what had happened other than a lot of action and running around. Off to the library for a refill tomorrow.

Charlie drank some meltwater in the parking lot and sicked up - have to keep a firmer grip on him - even if he's just had a quart, any standing water interests him - silly beast.

Impending snow?

The weather people are going bonkers, but no snow in sight yet. On call this weekend and hence have not done much - other than mislay a piece of jewelry that is quite dear to me. And tear the house apart trying to find it. Unsuccessfully.

Ms. Packrat has been very tired this weekend, possibly as a result of being on call and constantly having one ear cocked for the phone.

Books for the weekend "The Room and the Chair" by Lorraine Adams. Odd, vague, meandering. Not a great read. "Body Work" by Sara Paretsky, good thriller. Have a nice stack of fresh reads, most light, for the week ahead. 10 books read by the 9th. Could I possibly go 365 for the year? Actually, I read two utterly frivolous and forgettable bits of fluff Saturday morning, but I really can't bring myself to count total fluff. A good mystery - yes, but chickfic? Nope.

Find of the week - a thick tome on sharepoint at the library from 2005 but 50 cents instead of $49.99 The basics of handling data can't have changed that much.

Latest books; knitting progress

Finished "All Clear" by Connie Willis and "If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This" by Robin Black. That's 8 for the YTD.
Finished and Kitchenered Xmas sock for MPU, working on hat for PPU, need to start hat and mittens for nephew.
Have a lace edging for a bride's hankie to finish, finish a scarf for Mark, a market bag for a friend's MPU, the edging on my Aestlight, the beginnings of a Citron. So 7 UFOs and one pending project. Oh and I have some pretty alpaca to make a burgundy scarf for moi to match new leather gloves.
Speaking of Kitchenering, there's a blogger called TechKnitter who is a total GENIUS. Her Kitchenering with knitting needle instead of sewing needle is nothing short of brilliant.
On call this week, looking forward to the weekend being mostly spent at home and hopefully productive - err, well, if you can call getting rid of things "productive" ...

2010 kind of vanished...

And here we are in 2011. A new decade.
Ms. Packratty is still at the same employer, but there have been many changes, almost all for the better, including the departure of her manager for a non-managerial job. Ms. Packratty is always distressed when another woman makes a total hash of it, and severely disappointed when a woman behaves worse than men. And that is all she has to say. Suffice to say that her desire to come to work has returned to a great degree.
Charlie is well and happy and somewhat calmer and this is approximately the 5th anniversary of when I went to Alabama and got him from the foster home for Louisiana Westie Rescue. Yes, it's odd, but Charlie was rescued in TN and the closest formal rescue was Louisiana and the lady in AL was the closest person to pick up Charlie and the little girl Westie with whom he was found. Not a day passes that Ms. Packratty is not thankful for Charlie.
The latter part of 2010 brought back a return of Ms. Packratty's knitting mojo and she has completed quite a few UFOs and started a couple of small amusing projects, while staying focused on finishing things before casting on new stuff. However, there always needs to be a relatively mindless project for work. Useful to prevent foaming insanity during printer and scanner installs.
Much progress has been made toward the elimination of debt and savings - although it may be the end of this year before all but the house is discharged. Still, even with making extra payments on things and savings, Ms. Packratty often finds a bit of money remaining at the end of the month. This was facilitated greatly by a bright young AC repairman who discovered that the reason the AC was not cooling was because some aged fire dampers in the ductwork had snapped shut from old age and metal fatigue and were preventing any real airflow between the cooler and the vents. Although the summer was nastily hot, the portable wheel around ac upstairs was not pressed into regular service and the upstairs remained tolerable most of the time.
And on a final note - Ms. Packratty discovered a wonderful product and a lovely service during 2010. The product is Firefly vodka's Sweet Tea vodka made in SC and the service is organic vegetable and fruit delivery from Nature's Garden Delivered which is a special benison during the 4 long months when the Peachtree Road Farmer's market is closed. Ms. Packratty is also enamored of Malabrigo's Chunky and Rasta yarns, but yarn pashes don't count.

She does have three friends who are suffering from long term unemployment and asks any readers to think good thoughts in their direction. For some reason she is quite sure that 2011 will be a better year and hope this is true, especially for these friends.

2011 Reading to Date:

"The World Made by Hand" and "The Witch of Hebron" by James Kunstler.
"The Garden Angel" and "Secret Keepers" by Mindy Friddle.
"The Sound of A Wild Snail Eating" by Elizabeth Tova Bailey.
"Provence A-Z" by Peter Mayle.

In progress "All Clear" by Connie Willis.

I am only counting new reading, no rereads and no books on tape count.



bout to start "All Clear" by Connie Willis.

Coming up on Christmas

St. Philips Cathedral held the last farmer's market of the season Saturday.
Purchases: arugula, butter and red leaf lettuces; watermelon radishes (white outside, red inside), carrots, local organic vanilla yogurt, 4 ounces locally produced pancetta, 2 ounces of fantastic Parmesan, 2 ciabatta; a pound or so of baby turnips and kohlrabi mixed; small Hubbard squash and a bundle of rosemary. There was also a nice bone from the homemade dog treat lady for Charlie.

Sunday - cold, cold and mostly gray - There was shopping with a certain young lady who needed to finish her shopping and then a library run for Ms. Packratty.

2009 - fairly productive - the bookbinding classes were the most exciting part of the year. Still at TVCC under conditions I consider less than ideal, but with 5 years in at one place, once the economy starts improving, I should be significantly marketable. Ms. Packratty is beginning to come to terms with the things in her lie that are't going to change and better about not having false hopes that other people will ever change their behavior.

The laundry calls, Ms. Packratty has only a 3 day workwekk ahead, but she needs to disassemble the computer tonight and try to get the DSL working.