Dungeons & Dragons: Pretend Baseball Edition, The Trailer, and the Importance of 50 Cents' Worth of Pasta

Today's main victory was Indian Lunch Buffet QUADFECTA.  By this I mean, not counting the three days I spent away over Memorial Day weekend, I've had Indian lunch buffet four days in a row.  Today I went back to Tamarind with Friend Jay, and had a tasty lunch -- I still think they've got the best-tasting lunch buffet in the city -- and nice conversation.

Speaking of Memorial Day, Ted and I and Friend Sarah took a vacation to The Trailer, and I'm hoping you'll read about it here; for one thing, you will learn of the existence of Sponge Candy.

Ted in front of some typical rural New York art. Painted saws. Who knew.

Otherwise, today I finished Ian McEwan's Atonement, which I plan to write a full review of.  I'm ... I don't know.  I've got a lot of feelings about the book, but I'm not yet sure what to say about it.  Hopefully I'll be able to work on that tomorrow.  Next up on the summer reading list is either The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, or Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.  It's not a momentous decision, because whichever I don't pick to read first will get read second, but still, if anyone wants to voice an opinion in the comments about where I should go next, feel free.

Meanwhile, it seems my wondrous vacation month is over.  We exhausted this month's money over the vacation weekend (oh, the perils of the once-a-month paycheck), and there's not another one, for me anyway, coming, so we're upon our annual period of brokeness.  I've got a coupon for a nice dinner at Nakama for our (sacramental) anniversary that came earlier this month, and Mom's visiting on Thursday, which always means a nice free lunch, but otherwise.  My habit is to like things to start on tidy times, so I'm going to finish out the week as though we were still fully in glorious May.  But next Monday, since I have to be all pathetically cheap anyway, I'd like to start a routine of ... stuff.  Less-than-fun stuff, like brushing up on Russian and such.  Self-improvement stuff.  Maybe even, God help me, a little exercise.  (Lord, I hate exercise.)  So let's see how next Monday goes.

Today's other small awesomeness was dinner, which was late, because Ted was off at the bar undertaking some kind of stratometric fantasy baseball match.  I think the word is stratometric?  Stratomatic?  I don't know.  Baseball is boring as shit already, and fantasy baseball is like some sort of godawful mathematical abstraction of baseball, and apparently stratospheric fantasy baseball is like fantasy baseball except with boards and papers and dice, so it's basically like playing Dungeons & Dragons: Pretend Baseball Edition.  That's what he was doing tonight.  If he weren't already married, he'd be consigning himself to a protracted, late-life sexlessness, I suspect -- he might be anyway.  Ahem.

How beautiful is rainbow Swiss chard?  Seriously.  What beautiful leafs.

ANYWAY, in the meantime, I used the rainbow Swiss chard that remained in the veggie drawer from last week, and was only now beginning to wilt, to make a pasta.  I've published the basics of the sauce recipe already, recently, so I don't know what made tonight's extra tasty, but swiss chard and peas in creamy parmesan garlic sauce came off extra delicious tonight, accompanied by a Parma sausage.  Part of the deliciousness was that I used Colavita pasta (radiator shape!), which I picked up at the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company last week.  It's dried pasta, about fifty cents more expensive per bag than the store-brand pasta I usually buy, and I don't really know how this is possible, because as far as I can tell dried pasta is basically flour and water, but man, that 50 cents was well worth it -- the pasta itself was much better than the usual stuff I use.  I'm going to buy more after pay day when I go grocery shopping.

I'm pretty terrible at taking food blogger pictures, but trust me, this was delicious.

Other than that, Chief demanded a lot of extra cuddles because we left him alone over the weekend.  Chief's Idiopathic Vestibular Disease seems to be clearing, and the steroids are making him spunky.  There's much to be happy about, upcoming poverty aside.

His "How dare you leave me without my permission?" attitude comes across pretty well in that look.

Adorable Robots, Enormous Lambs, Brain Eating Amoebas

Today was a good day, right up until I became convinced that I was going to die because of brain eating amoebas.

For one thing, the last student issue of the term was resolved via email, which means that the term is officially over.  Also, I finally heard from Chief's vet, and his spinal tap was clear, so it's really probably Idiopathic Vestibular Disease that's bothering him, and God willing, he'll be basically OK in a little bit.

"You can't see me."

For another thing, today is my sacramental anniversary. Four years ago, on the leap day, February 29, Ted and I eloped to the courthouse.  He had proposed to me over the New Year's holiday in 2008, and we had figured we'd have a cheap but regular wedding.  But then I got a job with health insurance, which Ted hadn't had for himself in like, five years.  So we were eating lunch together downtown on a Wednesday, and I was like, "Well, as soon as we're married, you can go to the doctor's," and he was like, "Let's get married."  So we walked up to the courthouse and applied for a marriage license.  I called Judge Alan Hertzberg, whose election campaign I'd volunteered for, and asked if he could marry me that week -- the soonest legally possible day was that Friday.  His office was like, yeah, sure.  Turns out that Friday was February 29th.  So we went up that day and got married.  You can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnMAbUxMFPk

But I'm Catholic, so, y'know, we still weren't married in the eyes of Jesus, or whatever.  Point is, we had a wedding mass and a kickass party the next year, on May 8th.  So, five anniversaries in four years: I'm a genius.

But then I got some tap water up my nose, and I'm a little worried I'm going to get brain eating amoebas.  I got water up my nose because I was washing up in the sink, because our roof is leaking into our bathtub -- thank the god of small favors! -- and I don't think it's entirely clean, y'know?  And it was raining like the dickens today, and I didn't want to take a shower in the roof/attic drippings.  But if you look into brain eating amoebas, you'll see that tap water up your nose can be a very dangerous thing, so.  (I have the same hysterical fears about rabies.  No I don't know why.)

But before I die in 1-14 days, I got the most awesome anniversary/birthday present ever from Ted.  A Keepon!  Here's the strange thing: I'm good friends with a girl (Sarah) who dated the roommate of the guy who invented Keepon.  But even though I was in that house a number of times, I never got to see Keepon.  This irked me to no end.

But then Ted, the Best Husband Ever, bought me a Keepon.

KEEPON.

Please, look how amazing Keepon is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g-yrjh58ms

Oh, and also he took me out to dinner tonight, to Casbah!  Look at this damn lamb shank!

With polenta and English peas.  YUM.

I thought lambs were tiny.  Sheesh.  Anyway, it's been a good day, and we're going to finish it off with $6 sparkling wine, and if I die in 1-14 days ... well, I told you so.