Ricky Nelson Mandela's first snow at my house

He finally got a name. The boys were originally named Nelson and Millhouse by ARL but I wasn't too sure about those until Millhouse got sick and Nelson's true personality came out. Millhouse was tormented by Nelson and was too sick to defend himself. This was really awful to watch one morning when I put down some wet food and Millhouse nibbled a bit before getting hissed at and smacked with paws with still uncut claws. Didn't move an inch. Two dishes - sounds simple and logical but no matter what dish Millhouse went to, Nelson would attack. I did grab him and held him on my lap with the second dish but he really was intent on going after his brother. Millhouse's condition didn't improve and I finally got him back to ARL. Nelson, meanwhile, was becoming friendlier and nicer and I was feeling guilty about sticking him with this name. So ended up with Ricky Nelson (because he's so cute as you can see in the side by side comparison) Mandela (because I'm trying to convince him that he is a peace loving cat).

Manhattan #1

Technically not #1 for 2009 but we are going to cheat and begin commemorating our drinks both out and in. This one was made by Robert at the downstairs bar at Marliave on 12/29/08. It was made with Old Overholt and had a nice dark, marinated cherry in it. They have some very nice glasses at this place; this martini glass is stemmed and has the lip. The men next to us had square, heavy looking glasses and I'm guessing they were drinking scotch, whiskey, or bourbon straight up.


The martini was made with Bombay (not Sapphire) which you don't always find in bars but is the preferred gin of both my drinking companion and me.

Meatball sliders with sauce and cheese (almost giving it a pizza flavor) come three to a plate and were quite tasty. The roll was toasted but still soft.

Disappointment #1

OK, technically not #1 since I wanted Hillary to be president (There, I said it. I'm sick and tired of feeling ashamed of it and refuse to be any longer) but that's another matter entirely. Open any newspaper to read about Obama's pick of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. Salon.com's coverage, as usual, is very good.

From Mike Madden's piece: "Obama and Warren have often used each other to demonstrate that they'll be willing to listen to people they disagree with -- and yes, also to let everyone know that they'll be willing to anger their friends. This isn't one of those political controversies that pop up out of nowhere without warning; whether they want to admit it or not, it seems Obama's advisors brought on this fight with his own supporters knowing full well what was coming."

It's up to Mr. Obama if he wants to listen to people he disagrees with and up to the rest of us if we chose not to. All I seem to hear right now is the slap in the face so many people just got.

Vitale was "engaged in no classically criminal wrongdoing"

Now there's a ringing endorsement if I ever heard one. And it's from his attorney!

Read the full story here:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/12/19/dimasi_ally_indicted_in_lobbying_case/

Interview me

That Damn Ex Pat sent me this:

Here are the rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

And here are her questions and my answers:

You are a new blogger. Introduce yourself to me in five sentences or less.

Am I introducing myself to impress or so you get to know me (two very different things)? I like run on sentences and parenthetical comments so I can go on for days and days (but for purposes of this exercise, I’ll play it straight). I am over educated and under employed. I bought my first home last year; OK, it's a condo but still .... I love manhattans and hats. So if you don’t count the opening question, this is my fifth and grammatically correct sentence (and that should tell you something too).


If you could go back would you change anything about your life? Explain.

There is really only one thing in my life that I truly regret and wish I could go back and do differently. Sure, there are moments when I wish I hadn’t quit this or that job (but then look at all the good things that happened because I did) and there are lots of moments when I wish I hadn’t left California (case in point, we are going to get 10-12 inches of snow in Boston tomorrow but I like living in a city and am not ready to give up my public transportation just yet). So here goes. I was dating this guy named Brian and, to put it delicately, there were performance issues. We had more or less stopped seeing each other for maybe six months and out of the blue, I get a call from him at work one afternoon. The usual chit chat ensues and he wants to see me. Sure. What I didn’t mention was that I was moving the next week (new phone number – those were the days before cell phones and your phone number changed if you moved to a different city) and I was quitting my job that week (another new phone number). Thing is, I liked this guy and feel badly about what I did to this day. And thanks so much for reminding me; I haven’t thought about him for a while.


What is the one thing you love the most about yourself?

Tenacity

What is the one thing you like the least about yourself.

I was going to say impertience but I think of that as a good quality so I'll say impatience.

If you had to eat just one type of food for the rest of your life what would it be?

Italian

Did you know...

That you have to take pictures of food when it is cold. Otherwise you end up with this whitish blob in your pictures. It's called steam.

Pictures later. I've got to avoid another of those unnecessary Admin Team meetings so am going to lunch early, er, or was that to an appointment. No, wait, I have to wash my hair.

Soup, mmm (part 2)

Here's what I'm cooking - pasta fagioli. I usually make this with cannellini beans but this time I tried it with kidney beans. I either didn't use enough beans or used to much of everything else because the ratios seemed wrong. I want at least one bean in every spoonful. But nothing to be done about it - I'm not soaking more beans overnight and adding them; that just wouldn't work. And the tomatoes - ehh - not the greatest. Still the soup was good. I had doubts about my stock this go round because it seemed a little cloudy but it seemed fine. One picture is of soup, one is of soup with cheese and cookbook (OK, sorry, I bought a camera, I started a blog. What did you think was going to happen?) - James McNair's Soup. He has a whole series - soup, fish, pizza, pasta, chicken, more. The recipes I've tried are fantastic; some are way over the top ingredients wise (for me anyway). The photography by Patricia Brabent is fantastic. She makes you want to cook and eat everything.