Four Weeks Until Spring
7:13 p.m. - 2004-01-22


Jason bought himself a new VCR because the other one was acting up. When he paused it the picture was blurry, and you know how sometimes we pause it to read a newspaper they are showing or some other printing, so it needs to pause clear. He has the same luck choosing items that I do. You stand there looking at a stack or row of identical items, and you don't choose the top one or front one, but try to use your ESP to get the good one. I don't know why I bother, because my hand is always drawn to the dud. Joel was helping hook up the new VCR and the front door where you put the tape was jammed. They just packed it back up into the box and back it goes.

Jellie brought over her new keyboard and was showing me how it worked. Jason came over and asked if she could play Chopsticks, which she had never heard of. He played it for her with several variations, and both she and Jane were impressed.

Jason actually took my advice about his tamales and bought some lard to try out a new batch. This batch worked better and were quite tasty. He tried three different fillings; some Taco Bell brand taco filling, frijoles, and Dennisons chili beans. I ate the Dennison one, but Jellie let me smell her Taco Bell one, and it smelled terrific. While all this was going on, the big lamb chop discussion continued. January has chosen lamb chops for her birthday dinner, but half of us don't eat lamb so Jason is trying to get an accurate count of how many chops each lamb person wants to eat, lamb being rather pricey. Evan is going to grill them, but I don't care, because I will be abstaining. However, even though she picked a less-than-stellar menu, the dessert is strawberry shortcake, which redeems all culinary sins.

It was very cold today. It was freezing in the office because some bozo workman propped open the office building door for some reason, and the temperature in the lobby must have been in the 40's. I wore my jacket at my desk until lunchtime. On the homefront, I am a little at loose ends because I need to start a new knitting project, and I am avoiding the cornmeal-colored sweater, so maybe I should start some socks. I will also be needing something to knit now that some good TV shows are coming back, like American Idol and Survivor, and other educational shows.

I made a pizza tonight and it turned out very well. I love my Wilton non-stick pizza pan, which was cheap but somehow cooks the crust just right. I did not have pepperoni so just grabbed some of that already-cooked bacon and snipped it up over the pizza. It was pretty good, I'll have to remember that. I used the crust recipe from the book "The Perfect Recipe" and he complimented me on how good it was.

It is time to send off the seed orders for this year so I better go look for the catalogs.