infryq

Yesterday I washed my hair, did the laundry, and rebuilt Monster (it was time). He’s now shod in blue flannel, and has had his stuffing fluffed and re-stuffed. I minced and browned last week’s mushrooms over dinner. Crossword after lunch, Atlantis after dinner, then direct to sleep to help adjust to the time change. It seems to have worked. Dreamt of the teary retirement of a private CMU shuttle, an outdoor flea market with really excellent handmade boxes and containers in various materials, and a long caravan of trailers including C & family, loaded up with produce for a big trip. Also archers on horseback for some reason.

I finished The Return of Absent Souls, which wrapped up nicely in spite of it all. Not sure what to read next so clearing my podcast queue in the meantime.

Yesterday I monitored the staging run of the BIGINT fix, and wrote a thing to fetch the past versions of the output CSV files from last week and diff them all into issues. On breaks and while waiting for stuff to download I made another batch of lentils and wild rice (finally not overcooked! Ten minutes boiling plus five minutes heat off lid on), put postage on all the zines, printed two extra copies and two extra labels for folks whose addresses came in late, unpacked packages from last week (10# scotch oats, 3# popping corn, stamps, a New Years card from J), and watched some SG-1.

Dinner, crossword, SG-1, snack, sleep. Dreamt of taking grad classes in programming language design, knitted sweater patterns, and an advanced math class about Dvorák. The latter two turned out to be private lessons taught by a merged version of D and Z, though whoever it was had far too tidy an office to be either of them. I was extremely late for math.

Yesterday I made another batch of wild rice and lentils. 20 minutes is still too long, though there were fewer overcooked grains this time. I got a call from the sewing machine repair place saying could I please pick up my machine that’s been there since March, so that’s what we did after lunch. Very civilized pandemic-compliant curb service. On the way home the engine overheated; there seems to be something wrong with the fan. We got enough advice from our mechanic to make it home, barely— while there was plenty of coolant when P checked it at the initial stop, the engine had drunk it all by the time he checked again in our driveway. Thankfully the mechanic is all downhill from our house, so P topped up the coolant and will drop off the car there early next week.

I finished my slides for today’s talk, then we ate dinner. Mom called to catch up and report gift status, then we opened the box from them — highlights are kelp sprinkle and pickles, 3D-printed cookie cutters and impression molds, knifork-spoons and straws for the travel kit, and a pretty great shirt of women in science history.

A wretched game of scrabble, then a cursory snack and sleep. Dreamt of crocheted lace, maidservants, hot chocolate, some kind of group problem-solving effort that required a lot of hotel-hopping and living out of suitcases, an invasive freshwater tortoise.

I finished Making Money and started Snuff by Terry Pratchett. The older I get, the more I seem to like Vimes.

Yesterday I washed my hair, P did the errand run to pick up the vegetables, and I made one of the bunches of kale into chips with a touch of almond butter this time. The wild rice order arrived, so I included it in another batch of lentils and stuff. It cooks quicker than expected, but is delicious even when overcooked. Into wee jars and into the freezer for lunches. Crossword after lunch, scrabble after dinner (737, three bingos). SG-1, snack, sleep. Dreamt of refactoring a gnarly web app, C had a daughter for some reason, a small extra-neurotic dog, a skittish kitten that was sometimes a falcon, vacuuming a dead lawn, a dinner party, a western-style split level, taking a walk and getting pelted with a flock’s worth of bird shit, public nudity, dad getting really into restoring vintage cars.

Yesterday I reviewed J’s research plan for the science fair, re-ran the survey individual response files for wave 5, reviewed a shitton of pull requests, and helped figure out parts of the puzzle of how to integrate daily update files into the existing weekly time series roll up storage for HHS state-level hospital patient impact data.

While making dinner I also tried to make another batch of wild rice with stuff, but had less wild rice than I thought, so it wound up being lentils with wild rice instead. Still tasty though.

Dinner, crossword, SG1, no snack since it wasn’t that long after dinner, sleep. Wretched dreams of horrible college classes and campus half overrun with white nationalists. So I guess that’s on my mind.

Finished Born of Dragons and started Ring of Dragons. The biggest sadist is sortof getting his comeuppance? But I’m much more interested in what happens to the scholar, mage, mageling, dragonkin, and Strong Female Characters.

On Thanksgiving, we did a Zoom with P’s folks and M & A, which was lovely. A mostly chill day, and late afternoon started prep for popovers and a stuffed pumpkin. We are both out of practice; the popovers didn’t pop and the pumpkin was still not bubbling after an hour, but we ate anyway (I had extra stuffing going on the stovetop) and everything was delicious. Called my folks after for a nice long chat, played some scrabble, a very relaxing day.

For the pumpkin: use a small pumpkin or squash meant for eating that sits nicely with the stem at the very top. I used a UFO squash, dark green shell and dry rich flesh something like a buttercup squash. Take the top off the pumpkin and clean out the guts. 1/3 cup each lentils and wild rice, soak in 2 cups boiling water with a healthy pinch of saffron. 2T each chopped marcona almonds, red bell pepper, mushrooms, and dried cranberries, and sizzle in olive oil until the mushrooms brown. Mix everything up, add thyme and sage. Use a measuring cup or tiny ladle to fill the pumpkin no more than half full of solids, then top up with liquid to a finger thickness short of the bottom of the cap. Bake uncovered at 350 until boiling (I did not uncover for this step and that was a mistake; squash is an excellent insulator), then cap and bake 30 minutes or until liquid is absorbed, wild rice is beginning to split but not curl, and pumpkin is soft. Meanwhile, simmer remaining mixture on stovetop 30-50 minutes until wild rice is done. Reduce away any remaining liquid. Serve to normal people with crispy garlic and shallots or to Katies straight up.

Yesterday we ate leftovers (the stuffed squash made great soup) and puttered around. I transferred the pattern for the gearbox to a sheet of brass and started learning how to/how not to drill holes in it (do put something behind it; do use a power tool; do back off frequently; do drill more sizes of pilot holes than you think you need). We went through the FedCo seed catalog, and started looking online for missing bits (we want to grow rue so we can try some of the ancient Roman recipes from one of the historical cooking channels we watch). I finished Avatar and started hemming another dish towel. A good day.

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Yesterday I went to the farmers market and got Bulgarian pastries, apples, zucchini, eggplant, buttercup squash, turnips, mustard greens, bell peppers, onions, and mushrooms. I did the laundry and P and I hung it out on the line. After lunch I roasted the turnips and the squash, and had a call with my Olin mentee. I practiced with the saw and clamps on the basswood, and used an exacto as a sortof free plane to get the rough-sawn edges down to the cutlines. Pretty proud of the results. Dinner, crossword, Tales of the City, early sleep. Dreamt of chemistry class and building paper mache globes.

Trials of Koli continues excellent; the additional narrator is enriching.

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Yesterday I turned the furnace on. 65 is my limit as far as interior temperature goes. I took apart the naked-seeded pumpkins and roasted the resulting pepitas with olive oil and salt. They puff themselves up pretty good in the oven, and they’re delicious— definitely will grow these again. P and I did the laundry and hung it out on the line, and I opened packages from the jewelry supply and modeling supply places. The tubing I had sized so carefully didn’t fit, and P was headed in to SqHill anyway for wine, so he picked up a couple better options from the art store. I started practicing with the new tools. I found a bunch of ways that didn’t work to center punch on a rod, but eventually got a hole started. The mini bench vise was a very good call. The pin vise is difficult to clamp on straight. I might look for a better one, or for bits with a constant-diameter shaft. 0.5mm is too small to practice with. I was able to get a 0.7mm bit straight enough to give it a try. I was able to drill a hole through the rod! But I was so surprised when it worked that I broke the bit. Welp, that’s what practice is for.

Spent the rest of the afternoon watching Umbrella Academy and continuing to hem the linen dish towel. Dinner was slightly different (zucchini green beans carrots cranberries lentils, oregano and smoked paprika), then brought in the laundry, did the crossword, finished Umbrella Academy but not the hem, snack, sleep. Weird dreams of distant family, shapeshifters, sprinklers, a robot controlled by the temperature of its power pack, then a morbid turn of death notice after death notice.

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Yesterday I peeled the rest of the peppers, and attempted to purée them in the blender only to discover after the first batch that the rubber chuck had gone very, very bad. I set that batch aside until I could check the gasket and make sure nothing had got into the purée, and did the rest by hand with the food mill. P went to Costco and got paper products, almond butter, and other incidentals; I was brain-deep in the blender fiasco when he got back so I’m not sure what else. After lunch, got all the purée into a pot to bring it up to temp and check seasoning; added a bunch of sugar and some smoked paprika. The gasket was fine, so the blender batch went in too. Attempted to reduce it on the stovetop but gave up after a while, since it was prone to sticking, like 8-minutes-is-too-long-between-stirs prone. Sautéed a tablespoon as part of dinner and aside from an expected panic attack of “new food?! what r u doing” it was delicious. Crossword, sewing and Originals (finished attaching the waistband; side two is next), snack, sleep. Dreamt of weird bathtubs you were supposed to somersault into.

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Yesterday I did the laundry and hung it out on the line. P went to the market and got pears, nectarines, pluots, peaches, green beans, lettuce, spring mix, tomatoes, eggplant, hatch chiles, wee bell peppers, parsley, basil, and Bulgarian pastries. I fixed the next problem with the F pipeline, then watched Legacies and worked on my sleep shorts. I washed my hair (new shower head, very pleasant). Late lunch, made all the very ripe pluots into glop, and did some work in the garden while it simmered. Mostly weeding the paths and making the escaped tromboncino vines more navigable. I found a surprise squash that had become rather large, and two others of more reasonable size. The volunteer squash from the bean bed has revealed itself to be a white acorn squash. A couple cucumbers are brewing. Stripped the cherry tomato of fruit. Inside, put the glop away, watched another episode of Legacies and sewing, then dinner and crossword. No more Legacies, so started the new season of Lucifer. Sleep. Dreamt of a game where a magic garden grew ingredients (“magic” because no you can’t actually grow raisins or granulated sugar) and you were trying to build the best sandwich before everything went to seed.