I have emerged from my cave for the first time in two weeks today, after having been down for the count for two weeks from the H1N1. Good, good times. I say this from a position of personal experience: GET THE H1N1 VACCINE. YOU DON'T WANT THIS FLU.

Rick is home abed, floating in a swoopy dream of Nyquil. The poor thing got sick just as I was starting to get better.

Our trip to Boston is still on the agenda, but depending on how he does (or if I get sick again, which I understand is not uncommon), it may have to be tabled. (This has been the worst freakin' year for vacations. Oy.)

ETA: I did hit the illness jackpot with this one - after my immune system was weakened, I got socked with both conjunctivitis and an ear/sinus infection - not one but TWO antibiotics for this girl! So YMMV, but my point still stands: you do not want the H1N1. :)

We had a wonderful dinner last night at West Town Tavern.  We started with corn-avocado-cilantro chowder; then we had slow cooked barbequed lamb in a vinegar black sauce over a cabbage/mashed potato mix and a corn cake; pork tenderloin with sauerkraut, maple glazed apples and potatoes, and a homemade pork sausage (that was AMAZING); and for dessert, "banana cream pie" which was really more like a banana brulee and was out of this world.  It's a beautiful restaurant, has a friendly and efficient staff, and everything we ate was delicious.   EDIT: And Raj tells me that the owners/chef of WTT used to own the late, lamented Zinfandel, which was probably one of my favorite restaurants of all time.   Which makes sense, now that I mentally compare what we had last night with the kind of food you used to be able to get at Zinfandel.

Over dinner, we had a good long talk about the shape of our wedding ceremony, what we want to accomplish, and what we feel is important (and what we can do without).  As Rick put it, up until now we'd just been tossing things in that we thought were cool, without knowing what we wanted the event to be.  It was much like choreographing a fight by putting in a lot of cool moves, but without having decided the story of the fight: nifty, but lacking cohesion and meaning.  Now that we know what the story of our ceremony is going to be, I think it's going to make a lot more sense and feel better to both of us.

On the way home, we called the friend we want to be our Celebrant, and he joyfully accepted.  So that's one thing checked off the (semi-enormous) wedding checklist.

We're visiting another venue tonight, and then I think we're going to make a decision about that.  Yay progress!  Yay at least a few venues having open space on such relatively short notice! (And, seriously, I thought people were crazy when they told me 8 months was not enough time to plan a wedding.  However, I am noticing that a lot of venues are booked up already.  That being said, I still think that this should be more than enough time to plan a wedding.  For pete's sake.)

And finally, I think I may be onto something for dealing with insomnia.  Last night (for the fourth night in a row) I was having trouble going to sleep.  I turned on the light and read a chapter of a book on how to deal with insomnia.  It was so boring that I started to drift off.  :)  And after I turned out the light and found myself waking up a little bit, I practiced a few of the techniques I just read about and rapidly fell asleep.  Yay sleep!

So, yeah... it had to wait until we had a chance to talk to both sets of parents, but the #1 thing that has been making me happy all day... is this: we're getting married.

 

Woot!

This made me laugh.  And since it's making me laugh, I refuse to even look at the comments on the article, since they will probably make me want to cry.

Someone out there (was it you, learnedax ?) was talking about making their own maraschino cherries at some point in the past.  (That narrows it down, I know.)    Did that someone actually end up making them?  Was it worth it?  What recipe did you use?  We're buying a bottle of Luxardo to try to recreate The World's Best Brandy Manhattan that we had this weekend, and I started wondering about real vs. imitation Maraschino cherries and if making them from scratch was worth the effort.  Also, my search at lunch today yielded about a million recipes (brine, don't brine, almond extract, kirsch, maraschino liquer, etc, etc) and if someone had good or bad results with a particular recipe, I'd be curious to hear a report.

So for Alexx's birthday (really intended just for Alexx's visit, until I found out it was his birthday at which point it became a Birthday Feast) I made a recipe I've had my eye on for a while: Big Bucket O' Meat.  (Yeah, they've got some fancy-pants name for it.  Whatevs.)  It was good, although I'm not sure it was worth all the effort, but it led to a larger discussion of meat preparation methods (specifically of braciole, which I'd never made before I made this recipe), which led to the shocking discovery that I don't have an Italian cookbook.

 

Any recommendations out there for a good Italian cookbook?  I need to polish up my braciole skills...

Hey everyone -

My theater company, Babes With Blades, is having an eBay auction this week.  There are jewelry, housewares, and more!  Have a look!

What should I make for dinner?

My parents are driving in at some point after 7 PM.  When after 7 PM?  Hard to say, depends on traffic.

I need something that can either be prepared quickly or that I can make when I get home that can sit for a while. 

Suggestions are welcome.

...and they're pretty freakin' awesome.

I could not be prouder of this cast, this crew, and this company right now - I think we've made something really special here. 


...and on a purely personal fight choreographer note, I'm gratified to see things like, "the sword play was excellent" and "a 100 percent chance of awesome girl-on-girl broadsword fights."  I'm so invested in this violence that I haven't been able to see it with an unbiased eye - it's good to know that complete strangers think it looks good!

I must unpack.
Boxen are the mind-killer.
Boxen are the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my boxen.
I will permit myself to pass over them and through them.
And when I have gone through I will turn the inner eye to see the floor.
When the boxen have gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Bacon + The Spirit of Scientific Inquiry = this.

On Sunday we got a call telling us that the theater where we were scheduled to do Macbeth has been closed by the city.  (Angels and ministers of grace defend us!)

Last night we signed with La Costa Theater.  Performance times and dates are the same, but the location of all performances has changed to 3931 N. Elston.  

And now, I start looking at fight choreography and figuring out how it needs to change for a stage of a completely different size and shape.  Wheeeeeee!

ETA: Sadly, NOT an April Fool's joke.

Hey achaosofkittens, you might find this interesting: The Straight Dope talks about how the Chicago of the Dresden Files compares to the actual Chicago. 

We had just pulled into the parking lot of the Home Depot to return a couple of broken light fixtures.

Rick: Do you have the receipts for these?
Me:  Yep, they're in my bag.
Rick: De bags of de wimmens be full of receipts.
Me: *splorf*

So... close...

But not really.  They still have to finish plumbing, finish electrical, install countertops, finish cabinets, finish painting, refinish stairs, put down final coat on all floors, etc, etc.  So... probably three weeks to a month before we actually move.  Hopefully sooner, though.

( a few pix of the greatroom )

As the move approaches, I'm going to be selling a whole bunch of stuff, including furniture.  I'll probably keep photos and whatnot on facebook (let me know if you need to know how to spell my last name in order to find me there) but I may periodically mention things here too.  I'll try to keep it all under cuts for those who aren't interested.

( Selling music & music cabinet )

Construction is getting close to completion, and moving will probably be happening in a month or so.  In preparation for this move, I am engaging in a traditional activity that I learned at my mother's knee - creating a scale map of each room of the house on graph paper, cutting out scale 2-D models of all of our furniture, and determining the furniture arrangement on paper before it's time to move in.

So far, almost every woman I've mentioned this to has done the same thing when she moved to a new place.  One even offered to lend me her graph paper pad if I needed it.  None of the men I've mentioned this to have ever done this before, although they do concede that there's some virtue in playing with furniture arrangements on paper instead of with full-sized furniture.

So... how about you?  Have you ever made graph paper furniture & floor plans to prep for a move?  Is this a gender thing, or is it that my friends with the same organizational tic just happen to be female?

ETA: Clearly, from the responses, this isn't a girl thing - it's a geek universal thing.  And I stand humbled before kr4sh  and his 3D rendering skilz.  :)

Some new photos:
( January construction )

Drywall has been completed, flooring has started.
( Looky look! )

Backstory - For Christmas, melebeth  gave me a cute octopus cake pan.  When I brought it home, Rick squee'd, "is that a CTHULHU cake pan?!?"  I had to disabuse him of the notion.  But then I got to thinking about gummi worms, and tiny candy men....

So Happy Birthday, sweetie!

( Oh! The Horror! )

Yep, we're all massive dorks here.  :)