September? What the... who the... OK, how did it get to be September already? Wasn't it just April like two minutes ago?
I took tomorrow off work, giving myself a four-day holiday weekend. I had 6-1/2 days of vacation left when my company anniversary rolled around in July, and I got another 15. I was strongly encouraged to start using them up a little more frequently than I have for the last two years. My company's policy is that you're only allowed to roll over vacation days from one year to the next if your supervisor approves it (because they don't want you to take all of them for project-related reasons)... and if you accumulate two anniversary years' worth (in my case, 30 days), they won't give you more until you take the ones you have. I think it's their way of preventing people from saving up 6 months' worth of vacation before they quit, and having to be paid for all of it.
Hubby-head and I had been kicking around the idea of taking a trip for the long weekend - perhaps going out to LA to see mom-in-law and other friends and family members... although we'd prefer a longer stay if we're going to pack in that much visiting, and we will be there for several days for Thanksgiving. We'd just about decided to stay home, when our friend Christi invited us to visit her in Albuquerque for the holiday. We made our arrangements (switching lock-up days at church, rearranging the praise & worship team schedule so we'd be free that day, etc.) and were looking forward to the fun weekend, when yesterday evening the peripheral effects from Hurricane Katrina started to become obvious.
Gas prices jumped from $2.63 on Monday and Tuesday to $2.80-something and even over $3.00 at some stations. People heard that the refineries shut down in the gulf coast could affect our prices and supply, and started topping off their tanks and "stocking up" before the prices got any higher. Stations started running out of gasoline, which makes people panic, and which makes them more likely to fill up everything they own that uses gasoline and further deplete the supply. People are starting to behave like they did after the Kinder-Morgan pipeline break in 2003. The Governor's spokespeople are on the news telling people that there is plenty of gas, and not to panic and top off. We'll see how well that works.
Anyway, with the sudden spike in gas prices, as well as the question of whether the supply is adequate, I'm not sure if hitting the road for a 450-mile drive is such a good idea right now.
In other random updates on my life, I made another of my semi-famous cakes for CoWorkerB's birthday. I asked her what her favorite flavor of cake was, and she said "lemon" - so my first thought was to make a vanilla cake with limoncello liqueur. That's not the easiest thing to find in the liquor section of your average grocery store, and I knew I'd seen recipes for making it yourself, so I decided to give it a shot. Most of the recipes I'd seen use lemon peels and vodka, and involve weeks of preparation time, letting the oils from the lemon zest infuse the alcohol. I did find one that used grain alcohol (Everclear) and only required 3 days to infuse - which I had time for (just barely). I made that one. It burns like fire going down, but it has a really nice lemon flavor. It worked very well in the cake (water in the cake batter replaced by half limoncello and half lemon juice, lemon curd between the layers, and lemon juice/white chocolate glaze). It's also fantastic in a shake, with milk and vanilla ice cream. I wouldn't drink that stuff straight if you paid me. OK, maybe if you paid me, but only a teensy bit of it. I will probably try making limoncello again using the vodka recipe and more patience - I've heard the vodka version is much smoother.
The cake was a hit, by the way. I've just about decided that when we move, if my kitchen is reasonably-sized, I'm going to start taking orders and selling my cake creations. Right now my kitchen is unreasonably-sized. If you only knew... I will have to take pictures and write a post about it sometime so you can understand why I just can't deal with it.
No, no update on the moving thing. We still have some items that need to be taken care of before we can take any concrete steps in that direction.
In other cooking-related news, I found a tasty recipe for Curry Chicken which I made last week with a batch of basmati rice. Hubby and I had made a trip to the Asian grocery recently, and I had a can of coconut milk just begging to be used in something. I'll try to remember to post the recipe and get it into this week's Carnival.
Otherwise, life rolls on. Still on a reading kick - right now I'm working on pre-critiquing a draft copy of Jared's new novel. I also have a small stack of library books (including the first two of the "Voyage of the Jerle Shannara" series) to devour, and I've got 3 books on order through PaperBackSwap.com. I've sent out 3 more as of today, and have another one to mail tomorrow, so I'll have 4 credits coming my way in a few weeks. This is going to be fun.
There's probably more to say, but I can't think of it right now. Enough for the moment, there are other things to be done.
Oh yeah, and before I forget, Happy Birthday to Paul Fell. I was just thinking this morning about the blue moose, and how one of these days we'll have taught everyone we know about "puzfoomeny forbit". Love you, bro.
So....
....do you get a buzz of this cake? :-)
Posted by: Sissy | September 01, 2005 at 08:20 PM
I emailed Pablo yesterday to wish him well, and ask how thirty...something...felt. (Denni didn't reveal, so neither shall I). He proceeds me by two days, so I asked him how "that age" felt. (Un)Fortunately, it didn't feel that much different...
Tom
Posted by: Tom Henderson | September 02, 2005 at 06:49 AM