1/2/08

Happy Friggin’ New Year. After taking almost two weeks off from work, I really didn’t want to come in today. You may have noticed that I didn’t post anything in the rant while I was away. Here’s why, the house renovation took on a life of its own and sucked all the time away. When I did make time to fire up the laptop, I didn’t really feel like telling y'all what was going on. I'll try to summarize the day’s activities asbestos I can. Let’s see, Friday December, 21 I went ahead and came in to the office to hand off the Dingleberry and the keys. I answered a few e-mails and did a smattering of work. I don’t remember what I did after I left but I'm sure it was along the lines of “beginning to clear out my room for the carpet.” Actually, I think I remember wasting the rest of the day in front of the TV since it was my first day of “vacation.” Saturday December, 22 I think Mario came over to put down the tile in my bathroom. Yeah, that seems right. Then again, it might have been Friday evening that he did that, I don’t really remember. No, it was Saturday, I'm almost positive. Anyhoo, some day during that first weekend the tile was laid in my bathroom. I did round up a bunch of trash in my room as well and got some boxes of “put abouts” together over those two days. Sunday and Monday, December, 23 and 24, were spent on that sort of thing. Monday evening I went to church with mom and she went to “Not Texas” with my sister to my sister’s step-daughter’s house. They got back to our house around 2300 h and we opened some gifts. Christmas day I slept in and when I did finally get up, mom and I finished opening gifts. One of the gifts I received was a set of DVDs of the Food Network program “Good Eats.” One of the shows was about cooking a standing rib roast. Mom had a standing rib roast she bought for our lunch so we watched the episode in question and then got to work cooking it around noon. The short version of the recipe is you start the thing in a low oven, 200 degrees or so, until the meat reaches 118 degrees, set it out to “rest” while the oven heats to 500 degrees then shove it back in for fifteen minutes, rest it again while deglazing the pan with some water and red wine, slice and enjoy. Well, our oven is on its last legs so we didn’t really trust it, much like Alton Brown didn’t trust his brother’s oven in the episode, so we used a ceramic cooking vessel thingy, also like Mr. Brown did in the episode. With the oven set at 200 degrees and a probe thermometer in the hunk o’ cow, we settled in for some cooking. Fortunately, I decided to check on the meat about an hour later because the alarm on the thermometer didn’t go off. I pulled the meat at about 125 degrees internal temperature and set it out to rest. I cranked the oven all the way up to 500 and watched the thermometer. When the meat settled in to a stable temperature, and the oven clicked off, I shoved it back in and set the timer for fifteen minutes. Mom came back down from her nap at around the “five minute to go” mark and thanked me for taking care of things. The timer went off and out came the roast. We let it rest while mom made the jus then I carved it up. HOLY FREAKIN’ CRAP! That was, by far, the absolute best damned hunk of meat I have ever eaten! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. We cleaned up the kitchen, and by “we” I do mean “mom” because she wouldn’t let me help even if there were enough room, and started looking at moving stuff from the rooms in preparation for carpet. We didn’t move anything but we did look at it. On Wednesday December, 26 my older-older brother came over with his wife to help clear stuff out. Mel, my sister in law, forced me into action in my room. We got almost all of the “put abouts” out and had my room to the point where it was just boxes of books and stuff, and the things I needed for basic living. When we finally called it a day it looked like the carpet people were going to be able to do my room, the hall, the bathroom vestibule, and the hall closet. Mom had set up Friday as the day they were to come so we thought we were looking pretty good. That evening, my younger-older brother arrived with his two girls to help out on Thursday. The plan was for us to rearrange the garage so we could stack stuff temporarily and finish with the upstairs. This we did but he also convinced mom that we should go ahead and clear the guest room and her room so they could carpet the whole upstairs in one day. I'd been saying that for some time but was not too adamant about it. Ted has a way of talking to mom and getting her to do it his way. That must be why he became a lawyer. Anyhoo, we cleared out my room the rest of the way and got mom’s room and the guest room ready. I took 1,050 pounds of trash to the dump in the back of Fifi then they took off around 1500 h. Oh, the gift I got from Ted was the book “I Am Legend,” a DVD of the Vincent Price movie “Last Man on Earth” based on the story, as well as a DVD of “The Omega Man,” also loosely based on the story. We watched “LME” Wednesday night before doing any work on the house. Friday, while watching the carpet people work, I read the book. Ok, the “zombie-vampire” story is only the first half of that book. The rest are short stories by the same author. They might have pointed that out somewhere on the cover, but they didn’t. Anyhoo, here’s my review before seeing the Will Smith “I Am Legend” movie: the Vincent Price movie tells the story better than “The Omega Man.” “TOM” delves ever so slightly more into the sexual frustration Robert Neville has to endure as the last man alive. One of the other stories in the book is, I am convinced, the basis for the Karen Black movie where she’s chased around the house by a little voodoo doll thingy. I don’t remember what that was called though. My favorite story though was the one where a little man goes into a mortuary and arranges for his wife’s funeral. As he's leaving, the mortician asks when she died. He replies, “As soon as I get home.” I just about peed myself when I read that! I saw it coming, but it was still funny. I think that was used in a “Twilight Zone” or “Night Gallery” episode as well. It just seems too much like something Rod Serling would have done. Ok, I seem to have digressed from the narrative. Thursday evening, Mario came over and we replaced the delaminating plywood in the hall so the carpet folks could lay Friday. By Friday evening we had new carpet upstairs. It was weird. It felt like a new house. On Saturday December, 29 I went to the shop with John. We went to “Not Texas” and picked up a car. I drove Mr. Wiggly home and later Mario came over to grout the tile in my bathroom and finish caulking mom's. I didn’t do much of anything after that except continue to move stuff back into my room. My older-older brother came back on Sunday December, 30 and reconnected mom's computer while she and I were out to lunch. He and I then returned Mr. Wiggly to the shop while mom napped. I threw out the entertainment center I built in college, it was time, during the carpet fiasco and wasn’t sure where I was going to store my albums. We went to Best Buy on the way home from the shop and bought a CD rack thingy which had adequate shelf height for album storage. It was halfway home when I realized height was only half the issue with albums, they take up twice the depth as CDs. Then I remembered the stereo we had just given away to the cleaning lady, its rolling rack thingy would have been perfect. Oh well. I assembled that while he finished with mom’s computer. I figured out that if I used the extra shelf from the CD rack as an extension of the bottom shelf, the albums would fit fine. That is what I did. Monday December, 31 I spent the morning organizing albums, and CDs, and junk, and stuff, and things. I had also throw out the cat’s scratching post tower thingy during the move from the room so I wanted to get her another one. I called mom, who was at the church, and asked if she wanted to meet me for lunch somewhere near the PetSmart by Ridgmar Mall. She suggested Olive Garden so we went there. On the way, Fifi’s clutch hydraulics crapped out. I limped her to the restaurant where mom and I ate lunch. We went to PetSmart and bought a scratching post thingy then went home. I hopped in Matilda and went to the Ford dealer. I arranged service then went back to wait for the tow truck. They called this morning to tell me what I already knew: it needs new clutch master and slave cylinders. I think they’re doing the pressure plate and disk as well. They’d better for $1,250.00! We’ll see. I wasted the rest of New Year’s Eve until time to go to Amy's. Amy, Sam, Allison, Edie, and I rang in the New Year and then I went home. New Year’s Day saw me and John at the shop working on the Toyota he bought. We finally got it fired up around 1600 h and called it a day. Yeah, there’s more to the Toyota story than that but I'm already on the third page of the rant so I think I'll save it. Don’t hold your breath waiting for it though as I've got stuff I glossed over in the other narrative yet to tell. I'm going to list them both as an hors d’ouvre for y'all and as a reminder to myself. First off there’s the “taking a shower in mom’s bathroom” story, then there’s the “sushi on Christmas eve” story, and some others I can’t remember at the moment. Well, I'll think of them I'm sure. So, on that note, I think I'll call it a rant and talk to y'all tomorrow. Toodles.