Art of the Odd

(XML Cake courtesy of one of the IT guys at work - actually, he’s the only one at work who noticed it was my birthday.)

As Lisa and Melanie noted, Tuesday was my birthday.

“You didn’t blog on your birthday!” Novy said Tuesday afternoon.

“No, but I’m going to,” I said. It’s taken two days, but here it is - the belated birthday blog.

Tuesday morning - birthday emails from my mother (telling me she’ll call me later) and my brother (asking what I’m up to for the day). I told him I’d wanted to take the day off, but had just a bit too much work. “I might be able to work a short day, though,” I said. (Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.)

Around 11, Mom called, and promised not to sing. (My mother is funny. And she likes to think she can’t sing.)

At 12:30, I took myself (and Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother) out to lunch at Maxwell’s Cafe, then went to the Venice Grind for chocolate chip cookies and kick-ass iced chai. (The brewed kind, not the blended kind. They fill their own tea bags. I love that place.)

“Sounds like a good birthday so far,” Novy said, via IM, when I got back.

“So far, it is,” I agreed. “Despite the client bugging me for an update on a job he ordered Friday.” (Our normal turnaround’s 8-10 business days; we’ve told him he can have it in 4-5, but dude, 2?).

At 3, the mail came. And in the mail, there was a notice that my health insurance had been canceled. Um, what? I called my manager. He promised to get back to me. “It’s just a clerical error,” Novy told me. “They’ll get it sorted out.” Well, yes. He was right. I’m not sure whose side the fault was on, but somehow, everyone’s insurance was canceled - and then reinstated, on the same day. There was no actual interruption of coverage, but legally, they only have to tell you when your insurance is canceled. They don’t have to tell you it’s been reinstated.

Brief panic averted, I went back to work. Got a heads-up there’d be some work coming in from another department. That’s fine; I’m not that busy right now. A little past 4, I see that it’s not just some work. It’s a lot of work. And all of it’s due by the end of the week, because most of it came in last week and they’re just now getting around to sending it out.

This does not make me happy.

So instead of taking off early, I work late, which also means I miss class. And when I’ve done as much as I can stand, I finish my last assignment for American Art History. (One of the online classes I took through SMC this semester.) I was almost done when Novy came home.

“I turned the oven on,” I told him. (Tuesday night is pizza night, because we both get home late.)

He turned it off, and took me to La Cabana for margaritas and Mexican food.

It was a pretty good birthday after all.

NovySan got the invite for his high school reunion yesterday. It’s at the Hilton, in a town near the one he grew up.

The invitation included a brief description of the event. There’ll be an open bar - four hours worth of an open bar. This is a good thing. And dancing, yes. We like dancing. And a buffet. That’s alright. Nothing wrong with a buffet. But what’s on the buffet, that’s the question. Well, it appears to be… Heavy hors d’oeuvres.

Heavy. Hors d’oeurves.

Heavy. Hors. D’oeurves.

Nope. Still can’t wrap my head around that.

I’ll plan to take a camera. And maybe a scale.

I’ve been craving a cheeseburger for days. Yesterday I said, “We should do cheeseburgers tonight! We’ve got that double gloucester/stilton blend that we should really try to eat before we leave for Ireland, and we can make sweet potato fries, which’ll get rid of some yams, too.”

Of course, I had to get buns, but those can be frozen before we go. “We’ll also need a tomato,” I thought, but then I remembered - we have a jar of sundried tomatoes. Might as well get those out. Ooooh, and look! Just enough spinach left to put that on the burgers, too!

We do have some hamburger patties in the freezer - left over from the last barbeque - but I didn’t want beef. I wanted venison. Fortunately, thanks to my stepfather, we’ve got quite a bit of that. (Our wedding gift from my awesome mother and her husband - a small chest freezer and a regular supply of game meat. Sam’ll take any excuse to do more hunting.)

Then NovySan got home and made some brilliant additions to the meal - like chopping one of the leeks that’s been languishing in the crisper drawer into the meat, with a generous helping of garlic. (This is where I complain that I looked everywhere for the jar of crushed garlic a week or so ago, and Novy found it behind the much larger jar of minced garlic. Which I also didn’t find. Gnomes are hiding my groceries.) And then, because as long as we’re finishing off cheese before we go, we might as well finish it all, he topped the Gloucester with herbed goat cheese.

There are reasons I love this man.

And as long as I’m talking about food…

I made this back in January. White bean and sweet potato soup, with walnut-sage pesto. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever made. The recipe is here. I substituted a pepper-infused olive oil for the walnut oil, to give it some heat.

This is Yammy.

He is a Yam Tater. He is, in fact, the King of the Yam Taters.

A YamKing, if you will.

Only the king is allowed to wear the nose.

Schokie didn’t trust the YamKing.

Yammy shared with us our holiday cheer.

Sometimes a little too much cheer.

But, like all seasonal kings, Yammy’s time on Earth was brief.

One dark winter night, the Banaaratots were dug.

The Delicatas sliced.

And Yammy was sacrificed to the cast iron gods.

We ate his flesh by candlelight.

And he presided over the feast.

Actually, I think it was time for bed about an hour ago. I’ve got more work I should be doing, but I can’t face it. I’ve got a headache, I’m cold (the cat is, too — she’s gotten quite aggressive about trying to be in my lap), and I need sleep.

Because I was working, I didn’t go to Melanie’s class tonight, which left me a bit of time to cook dinner — we had deer chops with garlic, leek, bell pepper and sweet potato, plus salad. Took about half an hour to make (I just sauteed everything in the oil left over from the sausages we had Sunday night, then simmered it in a tiny bit of vegetable broth), and between the garlic and the Italian sausage oil, didn’t require any other seasoning. I’m very happy with it.