Sweet Blog o' Mine

Have You Seen the Little Piggies Lying in the Dirt?*

Look at that snout!!!  Don't you just LOVE it!?!

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit a small scale abbatoir and farm upstate yesterday.  I learned a great deal about meat processing and fell in love with about ten piglets.  I swear I could have watched them all day.  Here's the photo gallery of piglet cuteness.

* ah, the Beatles.  Gotta love 'em.

Dining

I am waiting for one more major piece of furniture at the moment -- a dining table.  For those of you who have eaten at my apartment, you'll know that my "dining table" was, for many years, my coffee table.  This is now gone, and I'm planning on having a proper table that can expand for company.  Until it arrives next week, as my friend Jimmy discovered last night, my "dining table" is currently your lap as you sit on my couch.  The new coffee table substitute is backordered until June.  Slow and steady improvement, folks.  Slow and steady.  Pictures to come soon!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

You're making it very hard for me to focus here.  All I want to do is snuggle on the couch with my Netflix DVD's.  I most certainly do NOT want to swim tonight.  The view from my office window reminds me of this poem, Waiting at the Window, which popped into my mind from my childhood -- quite odd since I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast this morning.  Enjoy!

These are my two drops of rain
Waiting on the window-pane.

I am waiting here to see
Which the winning one will be.

Both of them have different names.
One is John and one is James.

All the best and all the worst
Comes from which of them is first.

James has just begun to ooze.
He's the one I want to lose.

John is waiting to begin.
He's the one I want to win.

James is going slowly on.
Something sort of sticks to John.

John is moving off at last.
James is going pretty fast.

John is rushing down the pane.
James is going slow again.

James has met a sort of smear.
John is getting very near.

Is he going fast enough?
(James has found a piece of fluff.)

John has quickly hurried by.
(James was talking to a fly.)

John is there, and John has won!
Look! I told you! Here's the sun!  -- A.A. Milne

An Unlikely Scenario

Watching TV as I fade off this evening.  An Olive Garden commercial comes on -- young woman is talking about bringing the guy she's dating to meet all of her friends.  "I had the perfect place," she says.  Flash to group joking with said guy over seafood pasta with cream sauce.  If I brought the guy I'm dating to meet my friends over dinner at the Olive Garden, it would be really hard to determine who would be the most horrified person at the table.

Second Seder

And where was I for the second seder?  Although I had an invite from my brother (thanks, Bill!) I was too tired, so I had a quick drink, cooked some dinner, and watched LOST on my DVR.  But thanks to the 8th St. boys, I had a little Pesach spirit:

The Long Walk

I was exhausted yesterday, suffering from a late-night return from Long Island for seder (thanks again, Tamara!) and possibly still recovering from the salumi-fest on Monday night.  Although I managed to work out on Wednesday, I couldn't handle it last night.  Instead, I walked home from work, which takes about an hour.  It was lovely out, and on the way home, I saw many, many signs that spring is indeed here, despite the flurries the other day -- daffodils, crocuses, cherry blossoms, and plenty of fresh blooms and green grass.  Later in the night I was outside of my apartment and caught a gorgeous tableau of the bright full moon behind the blooming branches of a tree, all framed by the majestic buildings of Fifth Avenue.  If only I had my camera . . .

Go Team!

NYC Triathlon training has started in earnest for me.  I have re-joined a pool and swam laps for 30 minutes on Friday, went on my second 15+ mile bike ride with Lauren (including one in yesterday's blustery wind, no less), and went for a run today.  I was wearing my new Team in Training shirt, and on my way back, someone shouted out to me, "Go Team!!"  So the game is ON.

Yes, this year, I'm raising money to support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, which is the world's largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research and providing education and patient services. I have committed to raise $2,600, and I hope you can help me achieve this goal.  I also plan to beat my time from last year!! 

Please donate online here - thank you in advance for your support, and Go Team!!

Split Pea Soup from Hell

So Monday morning I head off to work, my slow cooker loaded with the makings of this split pea soup.  I set it for eight hours on low, and off I went.  When I came home, I was surprised to find that it hadn't switched itself to "warm" mode, but was completely off, and the soup was underdone.  I put it on for a few more hours, but put the soup in the fridge before I headed off to bed.  Oddly, I woke up stupidly early the next morning, so I took out the slow cooker, put the soup on high with the idea that I could finish it and then take some to work, and fell back asleep until my alarm went off. 

Before getting in the shower, I checked the soup, declared it done, but wasn't thrilled with the consistency.  I pulled out the large pork shoulder bones and the meat and then gave it a quick buzz with the immersion blender.  All was going well when suddenly, soup splattered EVERYWHERE and the blender stopped.  Now, my kitchen is not that big, and when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere.  Surveying the damage, I decided that I should ladle the soup into containers and move the slow cooker so that I could clean up.  I inspected the immersion blender and noticed that a small (maybe 1-1 1/2") piece of bone had gotten caught in it.  Argh. 

I began ladling the soup into quart containers and in my caffeine-deprived, irritated state, I somehow managed to ladle scalding hot soup ONTO MY HAND.  Shrieking, I put down the ladle, spun around to the sink, and ran cold water on it.  In that moment with my hand throbbing in agony and soup all over my kitchen, I couldn't help it -- the tears started flowing.  I somehow managed to clean up while giving my hand doses of cold water, and I even managed to pack a small container of soup for lunch.

Later that day, after several doses of Advil, with my hand wrapped in magical burn band-aids (seriously -- it's healing wonderfully thanks to these beauties), I tasted the devil soup.  It was quite tasty, I'll admit, but I did find tiny pieces of bone in it.  That said, I can now see the humor in the whole situation.  I should have taken some pictures for you all . . .