readsalot

Getting ready to head in for what is probably my last day at this job, after 9 years. My official last day is next Wednesday; however, as part of a consolidation of all IBM facilities into one area, most of my division is being moved from Lexington (Massachusetts, about a half-hour from Boston) to Littleton (also Massachusetts, about an hour from Boston) tomorrow. That means that everything has to be packed up by 5pm today, everyone works from home tomorrow, then on Monday they go into the new building to start unpacking. I don't see any point in going in to the new office for two days, so I'm just getting all of my stuff out of there today. Then I'll go in on Wednesday for my exit interview, and then have a goodbye lunch with all of my friends.

More cooking this weekend: I made chili black bean sauce tofu with carrots, turnips, mustard greens, and zucchini last night, somewhat adapted from this. It was awesome. I'd never used black bean sauce with chili before, and it was delicious and spicy, and the vegetables all worked very well. I was especially impressed with the turnips, and will have to look for more recipes that use them.

This morning I made aebleskiver, because Richard's mother bought me an aebleskiver pan as a present. They were delicious--fluffy and light and cardamom-y. They're a bit annoying to make, because the pan only makes 7 at a time and that's approximately one serving. We split the first pan's worth, and then each had one batch, which used up the half-recipe that I made. The book suggested that you keep batches warm in the oven while making more, but that seems awkward. It wasn't bad for two people, but I'd hate to try to make them for a crowd.

I started reading The Lightning Thief after seeing a trailer for the movie recently. It's ok so far, though the scenes where Percy is putting up with his awful stepfather were ruined for me by my wondering why on earth his mother ever stayed with someone like that. Perhaps all will be explained later.

I just finished a manga series called Hana Kimi, about a girl who disguises herself as a boy to attend an all-male high school so that she can meet an athlete she hero-worships. It was cute and sweet, and the ending seemed kind of abrupt, though perhaps not to the people who spent 8 years getting there, as opposed to my 5 or 6 months.

On Sunday, I made a lemon tart that I had to throw away, because the filling tasted like soap. I thought that it was because the food processor in which I'd made the filling hadn't been sufficiently rinsed after its last washing. However, I just tried again, and the same thing almost happened.

This recipe uses a whole Meyer lemon. You slice it thinly, remove the seeds, then grind it up with sugar, and then add butter and eggs. I made it once before, and it was completely delicious. Then, on Sunday, soap. I was trying again tonight, because I had another Meyer lemon that I'd bought with the previous one, and I noticed while I was slicing it that it didn't smell very lemony, and it did smell a bit soapy. So I tasted a bit. Yes, that was the soapy taste. Richard confirmed it.

I'm trying to figure out what to do next. I'm not going to make the tart with this--hopefully my partially baked pie crust will keep until tomorrow. But how does something like this happen? What would make a lemon taste like soap?

This may be the silliest credit card offer I've ever seen. It's for an exclusive Visa Black Card--but this one isn't "just another piece of plastic." Because it's made with carbon!

Oh, and the annual fee is only $495. How can I resist?

Montreal is lovely, at least, the bit of it that I've seen.

( in which I am long-winded )

Tomorrow morning I'll be buying tickets for the Steeleye Span concert at the Somerville Theatre on September 19 for me, mathhobbit, merrylg, and aleph_1.

Anybody else?

Food successes from the weekend: haddock filets coated with herbes de provence and fresh breadcrumbs, excellent spicy fried chicken, and very good buttermilk biscuits. (There were vegetables, too, but steamed spinach, zucchini, and broccoli aren't all that exciting.)

The rhubarb pie failure mode this time was because I didn't put enough water in the dough, though I used the maximum amount in the recipe--4 tablespoons. So it kind of fell apart. It's still reasonably tasty, though.

I'm most of the way through The Gone-Away World, as recommended by firstfrost. It's just as good as she says. Today, while I was reading, I got to a point where something very strange happened. Just as I was thinking, "hey, maybe it's because x...", the narrator thought the same thing, and dismissed it. I love it when the characters actually think of wild hypotheses! It's so great!

I went to the Funimation website to try to watch some episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and discovered that there's a second Gunslinger Girl series! woohoo! So I watched an episode, and it was great. Details later, if anyone's interested.

I had a nice drive home from work in a nice warm car. I appreciate this, because last Friday I noticed that there wasn't any warm air (well, any air at all) coming out of the vents, and the first appointment I could get at my dealership was yesterday. Driving there through the snow with no defogging on my windshield was an adventure I'd rather not repeat. They replaced a blown transistor, and all is now well.

Also, apparently it's quite lucky that I have gas at home. I got a notification a couple of weeks ago welcoming me, under an entirely different name, to my gas company. I was going to call to ask what was up, but I forgot. Today, I got a bill under that name. I just called, and apparently when someone calls the gas company to establish service, they assume that the person is reporting their address correctly, and that they're a new occupant of the house, and that the old occupant is going away. Their suggestion was that this other person had transposed some digits in their address. If I had read the details of my last bill, I would have noticed the bit where it said "this is your final bill" and freaked out then, but I get my bills in e-mail, and I didn't bother looking at the details, just paid it and went on my way. They've reset the system to be in my name, but I do wonder about this other person and where they actually live.

I have a dual-tuner TiVo box, and since I didn't need a cable box with RCN's basic cable, I had all the channels I wanted, and could record two shows at a time.

Starting on Dec. 15, we have to use a digital converter box to get RCN channels. I tried the setup for the first time yesterday, and failed because I hadn't done the extra wiring necessary. (I just used one extra cable to do wall-to-cable-box-to-TiVo instead of wall-to-TiVo.)

Looking at various diagrams and the forums on the TiVo site, it looks like I won't be able to use the second tuner after the 15th, because one TiVo can't control two converter boxes.

Am I right? What's everyone else doing? I can probably manage without a second tuner, but this is kind of irritating.

...and I am a zombie.

Dear readsalot,

You cannot sleep on airplanes. Do not schedule travel that assumes that you can.

Love, readsalot.

Also, I got an iced mocha at Bloc 11, and it is the yummiest thing ever.

Also also, this is the best Worldcon report ever.