Last to arrive.... first to leave.

'Tis a sad day.

Out newest Tivo started acting up last week. Lots of reboots, just not working right.

Yesterday, it froze up totally while I was watching TV.

Since then, I've been attempting to reboot to run diagnostics on it every 15-30 minutes with very little luck. I did get one diagnostic to run twice and it didn't solve anything, and I was going to move to another diagnostic, but I haven't been able to get the bleepin' thing to work since this morning to the point I can even run the diagnostic.

Windows has the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death". Apparently, for the Tivo, it's the "Gray Screen of Death".

Summary... the hard drive is hosed. I've seen enough hard drive failures to know what the problem is.

Why does this shit always happen when someone is out of work? Stuff never breaks when you're ripe with cash. It's just not fair.

But we can't live without Tivo. Like, to the point we'll happily eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a month to justify the expense of a new Tivo. It is seriously a drug... once you get used to it, you cannot live without.

Oh, and Tivo's "warranty" service sucks. This one does still happen to be under some warranty, but it'll cost $100 to have this fixed/replaced.

And for half that price, I can buy a new hard drive, void their crappy warranty on the unit, and stick a new hard drive in myself. Wanna guess which option we're choosing??

Seriously bad warranty service. When it's totally worth voiding the warranty for what is a very simple computer repair (I've built up my own PC from scratch.... twice....) and there are also many geeks out there like me that have always wanted to have a good reason to crack open the sacred Tivo (I tried to get the hubby to let me do it with our original, he said NO!!!), you can count on people doing repairs themselves.

Guess I have a new project on the horizon.

The first beauties of summer......

Happy, happy day.

The first cherry tomatoes of the year have been picked and will be appearing in a salad with dinner tonight.

It's also nice to have the reminder that I planted yellow cherry tomatoes, and not red ones. I didn't know that until these stopped at yellow and didn't go to red. Go me.

Happy 4th of July!!

I'm rather proud of myself.

We went to the usual parade party at my brother-in-law's house this morning (their yard is prime viewing space for one of the bigger/better parades in the NW 'burbs) and some fun was had.

1. I'm surprised I showed enough self-control to not take a run thru the yard to go into the street to whack our current governer in the head, since he's apparently just as useless as good ole Blaggo. But the thought did cross my mind.
2. I'm also surprised that no violence came to the "jazz clowns" by my hands. Clowns that play jazz. It's the stuff that nightmares are made of. I took the time they were passing the house to go make myself another bloody mary.
3. My sister in law's father can apparently be spotted by a politician at 50 yards. It was hilarious - EVERY politician walking the parade went over to shake his hand.
4. Since when do churches have floats in parades? And have people trying to convert you on the spot? Apparently the hubby tripped someone's "heathen radar" and some chick came beelining off the float and made a path right to the hubby (I was in the chair next to him) to hand him some literature. He just replied "Sorry, but you have picked the WRONG person" and we all went into hysterical laughter. Seriously - the woman had eyes ONLY for the hubby in the crowd. It was just odd.
5. Funniest kid moment - when the parade was just starting up and the first round of bagpipers started up, my oldest nephew saying with MUCH excitement "I *LOVE* bagpipes!"

Good times.

Proof that I actually cooked today....

I know it's July because I had to break out the Absorbine Jr. for the first mosquito bite of the year, but I'm more than happy with the 60-ish degree temps of the past few days because it's a nice chance to open all the windows and spend the day running the oven.

During the course of the day, I did also make some pizza dough for Grilled Pepper, Onion and Sausage Calzones for dinnertime. I also made some tomato confit and prepped the filling for the calzones (I actually just threw everything under the broiler rather than grilled the filling stuff). And while I was doing that, I managed to always have my hands burried in something before remembering "well crap, I should probably be taking a picture". I must be out of practice.

But the final calzones did look good...



Ok, there were some ery brown spots where the dough was kinda thin. Oopsie. But the dough was good, the filling was really good. Oh, and I used regular pork sausage. I know the hubby, he'd have sniffed out turkey sausage in a second and not eaten them. With the pork sausage, the hubby ate two calzones for dinner.

One thing I like about this recipe... deals with making the dough ahead of time, so you could make it in the morning and then just stash it in the fridge until you get home after work.

One thing I did NOT like about this recipe.... when you look, it makes 4 calzones, but they say that makes 8 servings. Now, I do understand that our country has some serious issues when it comes to portion sizes, but half a calzone was NOT enough.

In the afternoon today, I went out to grab some thyme for the tomato confit I wasa doing, and I ran into this nice little creature on my tomato plants....



If that looks a little like a Where's Waldo... dead center, a big ol' bug, black body and half clear/black wings.

The odd thing was, I went out to water my plants after dinner, and the bug was still there. And this time I didn't see it until I had my face inches from it while I admired all the lovely green tomatoes on my plants. Thankfully, I spared the neighborhood the "eeeeeeek!" that went through my head and just slowly backed away.

I sure hope it's moved by tomorrow.

And the blog goes on......

Sorry that the last week was radio silence around here... was busy helping with MamaFrau and crawling into a nice little dark hole for a week. It happens.

And this week has already seen the fun of a totally crippling migraine yesterday (in which I discovered that no room of this house - even the basement - gets dark enough for my migraine tastes on a sunny June day) that has at least dulled to a bad headache today. I'll take it.

Add to that a very cranky and overworked hubby, and I haven't had the energy to do much. It happens. But hopefully now that life is resuming a more normal pace/schedule, I should be better.

For now... random observations I've had over the past week.....


When they go out to buy new furniture/paintings/lamps for a doctor's waiting room, do they actually purposefully buy something that doesn't totally go with the rest of the decor?

Saw a woman at a grocery store one morning, and I swear, if she's not known as "Chesty Melons" or something, I'd be surprised. Not that I have anything wrong with adult entertainment... but dude, ya don't need to advertise at the produce mart on a Tuesday morning.

When did I cross the line with the dude who sells me cigarettes that it was OK for him to start asking me about "how to go into a Victoria's Secret store to buy some nice things to take to his bride-to-be in India later in the summer"?? Because he's asked me. Twice.

I've come to peace with the fact that everyone else in the world will look at me with two heads when I admit that I think the whole "Twilight" books series was horrible. I could also just learn to shut my mouth when people start talking about the books, but that would be too easy.

I didn't think I'd take to it... but I am sooooo addicted to books in PDF format on my Palm. I have embraced the Ebook and given it some very sloppy kisses. Me love Ebook.


The End

Frozen eggs, anyone???

(MamaFrau is home resting comfortably... well.... at least more comfortably than she rested in the hospital. I'm here for the night and a good part of tomorrow, then it will be heading home to deal with a grumpy Mr. Frau who will be working way too many hours next week because they're swamped with work and his boss is going on vacation. My life is just SO much fun)

So..... in the landscape that is our fridge, egg cartons usually end up on the top shelf, above everything else (this happens because there is usually a 30-pack of beer on the top shelf, hence the lack of room for a lot of other things). This is also where some freezer air blows right into the fridge section, hence, we occasionally get frozen eggs...



Neat, huh? (Or is it just me???)

On to other topics.... tuna salad nicoise!!

I love me some tuna salad. It was always best when Dad made it, because anything that wasn't nailed down usually ended up in there (carrots, celery, onion, etc.). But I am growing quite fond of the salad I make in summer (kinda ripped out of the Bouchon cookbook). It's a true summer treat for me, because I need to use fresh tarragon. And as hard as I try, I usually kill my tarragon plants when I try to bring them inside during winter.

Tuna, fresh tarragon & parsley, some diced radish, nicoise olives, capers, some chopped tomato (I prefer tomato confit, also out of the Bouchon cookbook, but fresh tomato is good too) and some hard boiled egg.



All that and some mayo, mix and you have a sammich filling....



I actually walked over to the nearby market and got a nice, fresh roll....



I also decided to give a try to the "Speedy" No-Knead Bread. Mostly because I forgot to start the regular bread the night before. Whoops.

It starts out the same... scraggly mess....



No pictures of the end product, mainly because I had a HECK of a time trying to get it outta the stoneware. One section decided to stick, for some reason. Never had that happen before.

Just not as big of a fan of the "speedy" version... tastes really flat. The longer rise time one is just better.

Served the bread with some Spaghetti ala Carbonara (aka "artirial plaque on a plate).



REALLY liked this recipe. The hubby thought the sauce was a bit thick... I can see maybe thinning it a little with some milk next time. But man, was it good. And rich. And the green onions on the top were a really nice compliment to the richness of the dish.

Can I smack everyone who has been saying "It doesn't feel like June" for the past two weeks??

(Mama Frau came through her surgery with flying colors and the hope is that the horrible "C" word is totally out of her body now, along with a couple of organs she wasn't using. She's recovering in the hospital now, hopefully will be sent home on Sunday. Yay! And then I'll likely be her nursemaid for a few days. Um, not so yay.)

So... we've had an unseasonably cool and rainy start to June in the Chicago area.

Which means everyone has been going "it doesn't feeeeeeel like Juuuuuuuune yet...." for the past two weeks. Except me.

I've been happy to not have to turn on the air conditioner or worry about watering my tomato plants.

But tonight.... the infamous Chicago Summer Weather attacked.

Hot and muggy in the day.

Oh, what's that? It still doesn't feeeeeeeeeeel like June?

How about some nasty thunderstoms to go with that muggy heat? And throw in a couple of tornadoes for good measure??

Hausfrau raises the smackin' hand....

One reason I had NO interest in going to school downstate is because tornadoes usually try to keep to the untamed lands of the middle and lower sections of Illinois. I'm way up north. Like, really close to Wisconsin, north.

And this evening, there were tornadoes in Kenosha. Which is in Wisconsin, just past the Illinois border (for those who don't understand the whole Illinois/Wisconsin or West Gemany/Czechoslovakia geographic thing). If there are storms that can make tornadoes into Kenosha... there are storms that can make tornadoes where I am.

I am not good when tornado sirens go off. I am aware of this fact. The couple times they ushered us into the hallways or gym while I was in grade school when the sirens went off, I got sent to the nurses office when it was over for being a nervous wreck.

At least while we were living in the apartment that I am much braver about tornado sirens when we decided to take the case of beer with us. Beer + tornado = not quite as terrifying

So, the hubby got home tonight and announced he never got to each lunch today (we had some similar, non-tornadic storms thru the area around lunchtime... enough to flood many many streets where the hubby works, and most eateries closed) and was on his feet all day running around (power surge managed to fry ALL the desktop computers, but not-so-lucky for hubby since the Blackberry servers were still fine) and he didn't stop for beer on the way home and needed to eat but wasn't sure what he wanted.

Wait a minute... we have severe weather upon us AND NO BEER????

I got the beer run out of the way first. And apparently I was not the only one doing that... I saw more people in the liquor department of the grocery store than I have ever seen there. Seems like everyone was stocking up.

I did finally bully him into accepting Culvers as a dinner option, and I got home just before the skies opened up, the tornado warnings started a'coming, and the trees started blowing horizontally. Fun!

We had a downright odd power surge... brown out for about two minutes. Usually after ten seconds, we either loose power or it decides to play nice.

That storm system has passed.... now we just have to wait out the next wave that is supposed to come thru tonight. Um, yay. Not.

So... can I smack all those people who have been complaining about it not being summer weather? Because it sure is now.