warning: the following contains complete randomness that may actually bore you to tears

Three totally separate and random anecdotes...

1) I'll be the first to admit that my dreams often make absolutely no sense, but last night's took the cake. I won't go into full detail, because I don't even think I can piece it all together, but here's the gist...Cast: Me, Tim, Kirsten, and my crazy seventh grade math teacher Mr. Dillion. Supporting Cast: dozens of puppies, kittens, and guinea pigs. Part one took place in a location much resembling a human sized version of Hobbiton from Lord of the Rings. Mr. Dillion had to park his Jeep on top of the garage because the garage was actually a makeshift barn where he kept all the puppies, kittens, and guinea pigs. We all had to leap from the roof of the garage to the ground bellow. When I lept I fell and broke my arm. Off to part two: Somehow I ended up in a castle, I'm assuming Buckingham Palace in England with one of the kittens from Mr. Dillion's garage/barn. I was trying to escape with the kitten. I ended up in a giant pink room with two armed guards (who much resembled the giant cartoon guards; the one's wearing playing card uniforms, from Disney's Alice in Wonderland). They wouldn't let me leave until they were finished carving the giant Christmas turkey. Then I woke up....Huh?

2) I pulled out my much neglected box of unfinished knitting projects today. Since it seems like half my friends are pregnant or have newborns, I figured it was about time I finished the baby booties that I started knitting almost eleven months ago. I'm lame, I know. The best part about this though, is that Tim sat down on the couch next to me and actually offered to help me knit. It was a well intentioned offer, but really didn't last long. There's something about a guy trying to knit pink baby booties that I don't think sat very well with him. Totally priceless though. I can't imagine that this scenario will ever happen again.

3) Tim relayed this story to me a few weeks ago, and I forgot about it until just a moment ago. Now, as a disclaimer, let me say that the man mentioned in the following walked away from this incident mostly unscathed, so I fell completely justified making fun and pointing out the hilarious irony of his situation...Apparently there was a guy, who for what ever reason was very very tired, and was driving home. As you can guess, he fell asleep at the wheel. This could have turned out tragically, as you can imagine, but instead of causing a car accident, he ended up driving his car right through the glass display window into a store front....and not just any store front, a mattress store. Yep, that's right. If this had actually made the news, I would have cut out the headline and mailed it into David Letterman for his "Headlines" segment (or is that Leno?). I can just see it now: "Man falls asleep at wheel and drives car into bed store." There's no way that wouldn't have made the show.

That's all for now. You can now return to your regullarly scheduled programs. :-)

the perfect way to spend an evening when your boyfriend is working graveyard shift

I was determined not to be bored tonight. So what cures boredom? Shopping, cooking, eating, movie watching and blogging.

Since I've been obsessed for some time with Thai food, I decided that it was about time that I learned how to cook something other then my normal canned yellow curry with chicken, carrots and potatoes. So, I layered up (since it's about twenty-five degrees here) and wandered over to Barnes & Noble to peruse the cookbook section. I found Easy Thai Cookbook by Sallie Morris and was delighted to find inside a recipe for my all time favorite Thai soup: Tom Kha Gai; if you've been to Typhoon you should be very familiar with this treat. Now, anyone who's tried to recreate a dish they've had in a restaurant probably knows that disappointment is almost inevitable, unless it's something like spaghetti that you're trying to copycat. So, my hopes weren't very high for this endevor, but regardless I wandered around the corner to the grocery store.

Ingrediants now displayed on my counter top, I delved in. And let me tell you, this tastes just like what you'll get in a restaurant. It was fantastic, and even more fantastic because even with my tempermental cooking skills, I managed to pull this off!!!

If you don't want to go buy the book, here's the recipe:
1 2/3 cups canned coconut milk
2 cups chicken stock
1 1/4 cups water
3/4 inch piece kha, peeled & finely sliced (now, I had never heard of this stuff, so I skipped it and all turned out just fine)
2 red chilies, seeded & sliced (don't seed them in hot water because you'll sneeze like ten times in a row)
1 lemon grass stem, lower 2 1/2 inches sliced
3 lime leaves, torn in pieces
4 TBS fish sauce (this stuff kind of groses me out, and really you only need 3Tbs for this recipe)
2 TBS lemon juice
1 tsp sugar
1 chicken breast (6 oz or so), cut into slivers
cilantro leaves to garnish ( I also used sliced green onions)
--mushrooms-- (not part of this recipe, but I've had it with button mushrooms before)

1) Heat chicken stock with the water, kha, chilies, lemongrass, and torn lime leaves
2) Stir in coconut milk, then add the fish sauce, lemon juice, and sugar. Allow to come to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer 5 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
3) Bring back to a boil, drop in the chicken slivers a few at a time so that they remain separate. Cook 3-4 minutes until the chicken is cooked
4) Serve garnished with cilantro

YUMMY!!

Next up, the movie: "Priceless" with Audrey Tautou (the girl from "Amelie", one of my favorite movies ever). And yes, it is in french, so you have to be in the mood for subtitles. I've been waiting to watch this movie since Netflix delivered it five days ago. Waiting because I'm too nice of a person to put Tim through what he would consider a mind-numbing chick flick in another language. And, while I've been blogging I've also been watching the previews on the disc and should add that I am now very very excited to add the movie "Paris, Je t'aime" to my Netflix que. The cast seems to be quite good: Steve Buscemi, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Miranda Richardson, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Nick Nolte, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Elijah Wood, Emily Moritimer, Rufus Sewell, Natalie Portman, Gerard Depardieu, and Gena Rowlands. Can't be bad with a cast like that.

After the movie I get to finish decorating the christmas tree, and then I'll probably read some more of Toni Morrison's newest book A Mercy, play with Oliver a little bit, and go to sleep. All around, not a bad night.

:)

take a cue from Oliver and make yourself comfortable, grab a cup of coffee while your at it cos this updates long!

For a while there I wasn’t blogging because I simply didn’t have anything interesting to blog about. But, lately I haven’t been blogging because things got very busy there for a while! So, here come the highlights…

• We finally got a couch. It’s a nice couch. One that is a little less nice now because dear little Oliver peed on it two days after we got it. Now, we knew that this might happen, and we thought we had appropriately planned for this possibility. You see, when we purchased said couch we spent an extra $75 to get the stain resistant/waterproof “miracle guard” stuff so that it wouldn’t be a big deal when the inevitable happened. Well, it appears that we wasted $75 because our couch definitely smells like cat urine. I wrote the company an e-mail and told them that their “miracle guard” should really be called “big fat joke.”

• Tim’s mother flew in to town for Tim’s (second) graduation from the Park Police training program. This day also happened to be Tim’s Birthday, so this was all around a pretty busy day.

• And, that brings us to Tim’s (second) graduation. Now, I have no idea why they keep making these guys graduate. Isn’t once enough? He’d already received his diploma and his badge while training in Georgia. Got all dressed up and everything. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since the Feds really do love wasting time and money, but seriously? It was almost three hours long! Though we were treated to a slide show presentation of the rookies in training…the pic of Tim after being tear gassed was particularly amusing. All kidding aside, it was nice to see him in his dress blues and finally done with the longest part of the training.
  

• Next up: Thanksgiving. And for all of you who know that I don’t have the greatest skills in the kitchen, no, I did not cook a turkey. Though I did cook mashed potatoes (special, with cream cheese and sour cream and chives), stuffing, and gravy. It's actually a recipe I got from Sergio and Sherri's family, who we've spent Thanksgiving with every year since 1995 (except this year, of course). We ate with one of Tim’s friends from training and his fiancé, Kirsten, who live in the same apartment complex. This all went great, though I wasn't really prepared for eating dinner at noon. I think I just assumed that we'd be eating later in the afternoon, but it worked out just fine. Though, if I had known we were eating so early I definitely wouldn't have slept in so late, waited so long to shower or go to the store, and I definately would have started cooking sooner. No big deal though, we had a good time :) They're fun to hang out with.
  

• Somewhere in the midst of all of the above, we decided that it would be a good idea to move 36 miles away to Falls Church, Virginia. I could make up some really interesting story about why, like we got evicted or something, but then I’d just be lying. The reason is definitely not interesting at all. Where we were at in Maryland was too far away from absolutely everything, and since I don’t drive that was obviously a problem. If I had tried to get into DC from our apartment it would have taken me two hours one way, two buses, and one metro train. Plus, if I was working in DC, the earliest the system would get me into town was 8:30am, and if I had any plans of making it home at night the latest I would have been able to work would have been 5:30pm. One would have thought that we would have figured this out before moving there, but alas, we did not. Anyway, our new apartment is quite large, actually has a dining area, is three stories up so people aren’t walking right by our windows, is in a secured building, and is one twenty minute train ride to DC. And, there’s a free shuttle to the train station. A good move all around, I think. Though one draw back: It took me, Tim, some random guy who just happened to be walking down the hallway, and about twenty minutes to figure out how to maneuver the couch so that we could actually get it into the apartment (not to mention how long it took to figure out how to get it to fit in the freight elevator).
  

• And, speaking of the Apartment, it just so happens that I have a job interview tomorrow as a Leasing Consultant for this very building. I think it’s pretty ironic actually. We move all the way to Virginia so that my commute into DC would be more manageable, and now my commute might consist of simply walking downstairs in the morning.

• Finally, as of last night, Tim has actually started working in the field. We’ll almost. He’s doing ten weeks of rotations in the five different districts in the Park Police jurisdiction. This first two weeks they’ve thrown him to the lions. He’s working graveyard (6pm to 6am) in the ghetto. Though, I’m sure he’s going to end up with a ton of good stories, many of which I’ll probably end up wishing he just hadn’t told me. Last night was tame though, from what I hear. Though, I did learn that in the DC area there’s a law where you can’t hang stuff from your rearview mirror. I actually think Tim’s pulling my leg on this one, because that’s a totally stupid law, but sometimes I just can’t tell if he’s joking or not. edit: it appears that this was not a joke. It is, in fact, a law.
  

So that’s the last three weeks all wrapped up. Here’s a few tidbits that didn’t warrant there own bullet points: I found Tillamook cheese at Safeway, and Rogue beer at Trader Joes. Both of which are extremely cheap here. Apparently no one on the east coast cares about a fabulous cheese factory or brewery from Portland. Yay! That just means more for me. Also, I’m still thinking I might get to go to the inauguration in January. And better yet, I might also get to go to the National Prayer Breakfast with my Uncle in February. Apparently everyone who’s anyone in politics is there, and I’ll get to eat breakfast with the president (or at least I'll be in the same room).

That’s all for now.