yoga, books, movies, tv & too many crime procedurals – not necesarily in that order
So about a month ago I started having a problem with my phone, where the screen wouldn’t scroll correctly and it would freeze up sometimes. I’m incredibly lazy so since it was functional I didn’t do anything. Then it froze enough that I had to restart it – which took an inordinately long time – and then my theme didn’t come up the right way. While in Glenwood Springs I stopped into the Verizon store and the worker “reset” my phone. At that point it took about 10 minutes to boot and when it DID come up, all the screens were wonky. Thanks for that.
Today I finally called Verizon. They had me do the soft reset and it took about 10 minutes to boot again. This time when it came up, the screens were back to normal. Except because the boot time was way wrong and there’s clearly something bad with the phone, she transferred me to the REAL tech support. We do another kind of reset and discover there’s a force close error that shouldn’t be there. We delete all my personal info and reset it again. Error. Now we’re going to replace my phone. Great.
Except in the meantime, now all my info is on my SD card and whereas my phone was b0rked but totally functional, now I get this GD force close error almost EVERY time I do something. I can’t wait for Wednesday.
Tonight’s dinner experiment was prompted by a Food Network show. We’re making our own deep dish pizza.
We started with a refrigerated thin crust, a layer of sliced provolone, a layer of pepperoni, a layer of shredded mozz, a layer of sliced mushrooms, a layer of Italian sausage, red bell pepper, red onion, diced tomatoes and topped with pizza sauce. We’re cooking it in the oven at 375 for at least 30 minutes. I’m not convinced we’ll need to cook it longer because everything inside is already cooked.
ETA: At 30 minutes I put foil over the pizza to protect the crust and let it cook for another 20 minutes. Motherfucking DELICIOUS.
I was going to make this chicken recipe last night but our plans change and so I made it tonight, with The Spinach recipe and a couple of bags of SteamFresh roast potatoes with green beans.
1. The chicken was awesome and (in keeping with RealSimple tradition) very easy and DELICIOUS. The boys were very happy.
2. I dig those fucking SteamFresh things. I’ve probably eaten more vegetables in the last year because of those bags than I have in the last five years.
3. That might be a slight exaggeration but probably not by much, unless you’re counting vegetables on pizza.
4. I didn’t use the olive oil called for in the breading recipe because I use pre-minced garlic that has a smidge of olive oil in it. Turns out the olive oil was totally not missed.
5. Beer is AMAZING.
I’m also apparently having some blog issues with regard to commenting. I thought it was maybe the theme, so I changed the theme and then ran into a whole other bunch of problems so I’ve resorted to IntenseDebate as a temporary solution. I do like that you can use your twitter login to comment so I’m hoping it works out until I have time to poke at the bugs going on here.
Spouse and I are both set up on XboxLive (yay for prepaid cards on sale) so I’m looking forward to LOTS more BandHero.
In unrelated and totally lame news, I bought a scarf today that matches my rainboots. I’m embracing my lame. I’m also considering dying my hair a pinkish blonde, just for the hell of it. That would also, incidentally, match my rainboots although that’s not my main motivation.
I am INORDINATELY excited to find out that other people hate noise-canceling earbuds. I LIKE being able to hear ambient noise. It’s the kind of thing that keeps me from being mugged or hit by cars. While there are definitely times when it’s good to block everything out, I’ve found I can do that by using my attention span/imagination which makes it unnecessary to render myself nearly deaf. Yay brains!
Something I’m not excited about: finding a dentist. I haven’t been to the dentist since we moved to Colorado and I’m working up one hell of a cavity on one of my right molars. I hate the dentist. HATE.
Best news of the week: Colorado FINALLY got around to sending me state certification as an EMT-B (I’ve had national certification since the fall). That means I can finally look for a medical job!
Supernatural was back this week and although I’m only halfway through the ep, I’m stoked. I missed the massive amounts of sarcasm and creepy/scary (not to mention hawt). Mercy is on a par with the sarcasm but balances it out with more humor (and laugh out loud, at that). This weekend’s movie lineup includes: Jennifer’s Body, Sorority Row, The Informant, Tenure, The Princess and the Frog and Where the Wild Things Are. Yes, we are random. I may also do a Yg + Spouse recap of Twilight/New Moon because we cracked me up.
I’ve been reading Finch but I’m not gonna lie, the CONSTANT use of. Fragments. Is Really. Annoying. Probably it’s supposed to convey. Speech pattern. Or tone. Mostly. It makes me want to throw. My fucking Kindle across the room. So I keep putting it down. Listening to Oryx and Crake on my ride home from work each day and it just reminds me how much I love Margaret Atwood. The listen is a refresh before I start In The Year of the Flood (ALSO very excited about).
That pretty much sums up all the immediate stuff. I’m going to do a yoga post before the weekend is out (shocking, I know) but for now I’m going back to my chocolate chip cookies and delicious Coors Light. Shut up, I like it. I don’t critique YOUR beer.
I feel like I actually have three jobs. After work today, I stopped at the grocery on the way home. Once home, I made chili (for dinner tonight), beef tikka masala (for this weekend) and blueberry muffins (for breakfast). Things not to do after cutting up your hands all day working with cardboard: cut jalepenos. Yeah. Awesome. I ALSO managed to get the kitchen cleaned. I am Supergirl.
The muffins allowed me to test my new silicone muffin pans and they are FANTASTIC. I love them. If I could, I’d replace most of my bakeware with silicone. On the current wishlist: those measuring cups/spoons that flatten, as well as a colander.
My Xbox is wending its way to the house as we speak. I’m very excited about it and picked up some used games from GameStop. Fatima promised we could conference and watch bad movies on Netflix, so I’m looking forward to that.
My hands ARE pretty thrashed from work. I’ve been having issues for the last year/year and a half with dry nails that peel (rather than split or break) and recently discovered that a fix seems to include 1. No nail polish and 2. Lots of lotion. I trimmed my nails tonight and there wasn’t a single peeler. The hands ARE hella dry from all the cardboard though. I might actually have to get out my lotion gloves overnight.
New current playlist is an autolist with Lily Allen, Kelly Clarkson, Britney, Gaga and Katy Perry. I’m REALLY enjoying it.
Other random news. Brit Hume- WTF? Because Christians, especially FAMOUS Christians, NEVER have extramarital affairs? WTF *SouthCarolinaGovernor* cough. I think Brit’s a first class idiot. See also: not everyone subscribes to your idea or need for forgiveness. Jackass.
Tomorrow’s post-work excitement will consist of seeing Avatar again and/or cleaning the basement. Piper was mad that we left today and got into the coffee grounds in the laundry room garbage. Mmmm. Coffee grounds. This would likely be less annoying if I 1. drank coffee and 2. thought coffee smelled good. Damn dog.
I might do some more reading before bed tonight- Middlemarch is even more effective than Ambien.
It gives me an incentive to cook. Otherwise, there’s about a 99% likelihood that I would subsist on a rotation of Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Mini Wheats and Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch.
My new laptop continues to be amazing. Tomorrow I’m supposed to get the hard drive case that will allow me to transfer files from the old computer to the new. I’m kind of stoked about being able to dismantle the old laptop at work (when it’s slow) and Frankenstein it back to life.
Speaking of new things- I got some coupons in the mail this week so I picked up some Febreeze air fresheners. The reed diffuser (I got Willow Bloom or something like that) is pretty fantastic. Immediately effective and not overpowering. We’ll see if it actually lasts 60 days. The shaded luminaries are only supposed to be good for a week and – surprisingly – it’s the SHADE that is scented! I wasn’t expecting that.
I’ve found some great pictures of Italy that I’m going to print and hang around the house. There are some especially great ones around Macerata, where I spent a semester in college, that highlight pretty much everything I love about Italy- rolling hills, lush green acreage, amazing sunlight. The beauty there is second (I think) only to here. I haven’t seen a photo yet that adequately captures the quality of light up here. I’m not sure if it’s the altitude or lack of atmospheric interference but midnight here isn’t black and when the moon and stars are bright (almost always) the snow reflects the light back and makes the deepest part of night a kind of magical neither-here-nor-there color. In the daylight, the mountains are soft or sharp and when I drove down the hill the other day a very faint snowstorm made it all look like an impressionist work. Probably someday I will stop marveling at the beauty of this place with every turn, but not in the foreseeable future.
Last but not least, in the dooce community someone asked a question about ‘designer babies’ – the idea that you can choose genetic aspects of your offspring (lack of illnesses or specific traits). It takes almost no time at all for Godwin’s Law to come into play and then it’s all “Eugenics! Hitler!” Ironically, those were the exact same arguments that opponents used regarding In Vitro Fertilization – a practice now so commonplace that it is covered by some insurance companies.
While IVF was scandalous and groundbreaking and ultimately helpful to millions of people wanting to conceive, it opened the rabbit’s hole of the human genome. One of my professors was a part of the Human Genome Project, which we discussed in my medical ethics course. One of the most challenging things about medical science is the questions that it raises. IVF is a perfect example- a practice that many called an abomination which has since been accepted by society. We don’t know which answers will be socially palatable or which arms of research will be most successful. Doesn’t that mean we’ve got an obligation to at least put concerted thought and effort into the pros and cons of each before passing judgment?
One of the questions that we discusses was, provided that the government subsidizes genetic testing for all children and provides the option to eliminate birth defects or disease-causing genetic expression, if parents decide to have a child that has a disability – who bears the cost? After all, you’ve been given every opportunity to give your child the “best” (and the determination of ‘best’ in these circumstances was hotly debated) opportunities. If you deny that to your child, should the government be culpable for your choices and potentially having to provide treatment for preventable conditions?
You can’t use the “against nature” or “against God’s will” in these arguments because as statements they have been made irrelevant by the other medical advances our society embraces (caveat to Christian Scientists and others who opt out of any/all medical treatment). IVF, according to those “arguments” is against nature and god’s will. It’s an artificial process to achieve fertilization for people who are biologically incapable of doing so on their own. One could argue then that god provided these medical advances and therefore it is NOT in conflict with its “design”.
That’s not to say we don’t need oversight. We do. Lots of it. But more importantly we, as a society, need to talk about these issues in terms of pros and cons, actions and consequences, rather than “right” and “wrong.” The beauty of the United States is that everyone is entitled to their own interpretation of right and wrong. BELIEVING something is either right or wrong does nothing to convince – or create common ground for a dialogue – with someone who doesn’t believe the same way. Beliefs can’t be debated- outcomes can.
Med ethics was one of my favorite classes mostly because it was impossible for ANYONE to come to easy answers. We all know what WE think is right or wrong, but for each of those scenarios ANOTHER can be posed to put those same convictions in doubt. The best part of the class is that we weren’t allowed to cop out- you had to provide logic for your conclusions and beliefs didn’t count. Unfortunately those kinds of conversations – DEBATES – don’t lend themselves to soundbites or firestorm ratings, so we don’t see them on television (where they are arguably needed most). Hopefully as a culture we aren’t losing the ability to converse without condemnation. Problems don’t get solved by pointing fingers and calling names.
I’m feeling pretty good about Thanksgiving cooking!
Both pumpkin tortes are done (one for us, one for the club), the cranberry sauce is finished, and my apple pie is smelling delicious in the oven.
All that remains is, in a few hours, to brine the turkey and tear up bread for stuffing. That and clean the house. Heh. I’ve actually kept on top of the dishes as I was cooking so there hasn’t been TOO much damage done.
This year I’m thankful for good friends over long distances, new friends we enjoy sharing our home with, our family, our health and our jobs. Moving all this way could have been terribly lonely and, while it’s been lonely at times, we’ve got great folks who make up our ‘extended’ family – some of whom we’ve never even met. My life would be a very different thing were it not for the internet. I’m thankful for those who’ve chosen to share their pocket of it with me.
