I'm Bored

I am. But I don't feel like doing anything, either. I just want to lay low, but at the same time laying low is driving me crazy. I'm ancy, but I'm tired. I woke up early this morning and went to work for a few hours. That's right - I played hookie from church. And I did it for one of the worst reasons - the associate pastor was going to be ministering. So sue me. I really wrestled last night while doing my laundry with whether or not I even wanted to go to work (I'd already decided I wasn't going to church). I had a HUGE stack of stuff to file that has been accumulating for three months and I wanted to change our "In The News" marketing board in the file room for weeks. So I decided that Sunday morning was as good a time as any and besides I'd have Monday off so it would still feel like I got a weekend. And the real plus was I knew none of my coworkers would be there cause they all WOULD be at church :-)

So I got all that stuff knocked out at work, including doing the monthly newsletter which I'd suddenly remembered at three in the morning I hadn't done. It felt good to go down to Clear Lake (a 35 minute drive) and finally stop that stuff from staring me in the face... at least until it piles up again. I spent a good three-and-a-half hours down there and then decided to come home on the new Nasa Road "fly-over" - a new extension of freeway that by-passes all the lights and intersections and dumps you right in front of Johnson Space Center. It's only 3/4 done right now, but once they get it fully complete, it will be wonderful. I stopped off at Mike and Pam's to check on their cat Precious while they're in ABQ and then got back to my place, sneezing and itching, by 1pm. Not bad. I made myself quite a nice little lunch of sautee'd spinich and garlic, canned chicken with walnuts, lite Miracle Whip and Hot Curry, and a small side of macaroni and cheese. It was quite tasty and filling and from there it was off to what I thought was going to be a nice little nap. I woke up two hours later. I guess I must have needed it.

I've since tried sitting around and reading, but started getting ancy so would stand up and walk around my apartment a little. I finally got hungry enough to try to make something for dinner and settled on oatmeal - sticky, chewy, salty and spicy oatmeal. Yes, you heard me right - SPICY. Like everything else, I like to put Cholula sauce on it. Well, actually tonight I put on a powder Cholula makes that is chili and lime. It's wonderful. And believe it or not, I'm not the only one who does this!

When I was in Denver at the end of July, Michelle and I went for breakfast on my last day at a Denny's on the way to the airport. I asked for grits with my plate and a bottle of tabasco. The waitress put down her order pad and told me she was thrilled to hear that because she's sick of watching people put sugar and all sorts of sweet stuff on their grits when you're supposed to put salt and a tobasco. She then told me she was going to bring some of the best tobasco sauce I've ever had and when she brought out our food she brought me Cholula sauce! I spontaneously began singing her praises! We were instant friends and she told me then that the absolute BEST way to eat grits was how they did it in her home state of Georgia - salty cheese grits with fried cod to dip in it. She then voluntarily brought a piece of fried cod and a new, piping hot bowl of grits to which she had added some cheese and salt. I broke the cod in half, dipped it in the grits, put it in my mouth and thought I was in heaven. And this was breakfast! How gross does fried fish sound for breakfast?? But it was amazing. As I'm typing this I'm wishing I could have some more. And I see you wrinkling your nose and going "Ewww...". Don't knock it till you've tried it.

So how about some photos? I don't think I've ever started a blog with a diatribe before....

This is Sophie, the Kutner's dog that I housesit when they go out of town. They had me over for the customary Sunday night dinner a week ago, and as usual it was wonderful. This time they invited our mutual friend Jim. It was his first time to experience it and he said he thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Here is Pam lighting the shrimp on fire. You can barely make out the flames. Seeing food on fire makes it feel more special for some reason :-)

And here's the evening's spread - chicken parmesean, pasta with tomatos and shrimp, ratatouille and my absolute favorite, their homemade Ceasar salad.

This is their youngest daughter, Lindsay, preparing her "first-day-of-school" shirt by reverse tie-dying it. She and her older sister Jenny went back to school the following Monday in matching purple shirts that they had wadded up and then soaked in bleach.