January 30: Who are you calling type A?!Turns out I have elevated blood pressure. The good news is I don't weigh 200 pounds. I did do yoga tonight. And proved, once again, that Linux is not ready for the consumer market. The Jorvo's DVD player -- Xine -- crashed while running through a second workout on the DVD. What's a Jorvo? It's like a Tivo, but made by Jorj. It's a black Dell with Red Hat, Xine, XML TV and lots and lots of custom software gluing it all together. He's quite impressive. Linux, however, is not. Something about not finding a certain type of header packet, and was I absolutely sure there's a DVD in the drive? Um, yes. Make no mistake, I'm impressive too. I'll be doing Suzy's wedding cake March 20. Had a bit of a crisis when Jorj realized we'd planned to fly to Seattle that day. However, when I called Wally at Wentz Travel in Warminster, she quoted me ticket prices $200 cheaper per person if we flew out a day later. Sorry Tobi, but it's worth losing the extra day to save 400 bucks. Anyhoo, very excited to be baking her cake, although fiance Kieth wants to be traditional and have vanilla cake. I did warn him I don't really decorate. Fresh flowers or berries, yes. Icing flowers, no. Must remember to ask about ordering pesticide-free flowers through Lynn (at retail cost, of course). This will be my second wedding cake; the first was for Robb and Pauline, and was a Tiramisu cake from Bon Appetit. I still have the recipe. Doing the cake justifies ordering cool things from Maid of Scandinavia. January 29
January 28: GhostsSandy found an article on a house for sale, originally by the firm of Willing, Sims and Talbutt, which led me to this this. (All hail Google, and there really are that few Talbutt's in the world.) Strange to see a biography of a man I never new, but who so strongly influenced my life, if only because of the mess he made of my father's. James Sr. was over 50 when my father was unexpectedly born. The status of unwanted although only child never left him. I'm tempted to write the site for more details of James Sr.'s life, but what could they tell me? He was a minor Philadelphia architect who had, like most of us, only minor success. He had one son and two granddaughters, and a sister who died at 33 of appendicitis. And yet ... I feel his influence today: University educated in 1906, with an architecture degree -- which is pretty close to engineering, and probably influenced his son to study engineering, which certainly caused me to study math (most women engineers and scientists are the daughters of engineers and scientists). Despite drinking and smoking, he lived to 83, as my father regularly and proudly told us when cautioned on the ill effects of both. Pity Dad took after his mother's side more, and will never see that age. His furniture is in my house. His name is on my driver's license. Yet I feel more connection with German peasant woman one generation back whom I knew equally little, whose name I also bear. And on that cheery note, I'm going to bed January 26: Snow day!Friends Select cancelled, Jorj is sick, and I slid on 73 before turning around. Jorj and I worked from home while Tobi did hardware and Linux experiments. I started red beans and rice at lunch, and we'll have hot cocoa for dessert. Martnet installed spam assassin. I've started white-listing e-mail. Meaning, only email from known addresses is getting through. For a while, I'll still be saving e-mail marked as spam, but in a few months, I'll just start sending out "account does not exist" messages. After Jorj applied for an extended warranty and a car loan, the spammers cross-checked his address with mailing address information associated with my account, and now I get spam for Jorj. Hint: this doesn't encourage me to use your service! Work progresses on the stairs. After falling down the stairs last week -- Jorj, Tobi and the cat have all slid down the stairs, whereas I, the graceless one, remain upright and uninjured -- Jorj called Jim and browbeat him into returning to finish some work. About half the stairs are carpeted, and it looks nice, if I do say so myself. We bought the carpet at Lowes and had Semper Fi Carpets cut and bind it. He did good work. I was warned that he has long hair (so does my huband) and tattoos (so do my friends).
A dishwasher was a requirement for the house. After living with piles of dirty dishes and Jorj's hot-water induced eczema for three years, the dishwasher was a absolute necessity. Last weekend, there was a bit of smoke; a lid had fallen onto the heating coil, and was burning. A day or two later, the dishwasher wasn't washing at all. In typical Jorj fashion, the dishwasher spent a Saturday with its guts all over the kitchen, and we learned:
It's back together again, and Jorj will be calling a repairman any day now. The new house rule is No dirty dishes in the sink and both of them are doing well with it. The kitchen has never been cleaner. Moritz: you know, there is always Easter. Shot myself in the foot on the re-design. Time to rename all those .bak files. January 25: Domesticity (still not folding laundry)The house is clean and Tobi has clean clothes; I have no fears of being branded a slattern and having Child Services take him away. Is this a serious fear? No, but you have to admit, I don't know what I'm doing.
Particularly pleasing is knowing we don't need to shell out money for a graphics program, when we have a perfectly usable one sitting on CD. In my family, anything that costs more than $100 should last for at least five years, if not a lifetime. We don't rent, we buy. The software industry's continuous upgrade cycles are infuriating and non-sensical. Interface standards have stabilized enough -- the Mac is 20 years old now -- that software should be usable for 10 years or more. The switch from command-line to GUI was a big enough leap forward to warrant new software. And software has needed time to mature, to find the features that are usefule. Does every middle-manager need to flow text around graphics in a memo? I don't think so. As a result, I am very happy that my eight-year old software runs on my eighwhat-month old hardware. Jorj says the compatibility layer goes away in X 10.5, but I don't think I'm upgrading until 10.4 comes out (if then). Took Tobi to Millenium Coffee (12th and Locust) to show him Philly has at least one, good, independent coffee house. Actually, Millenium is fantastic, but let's not argue semantics. He approved, and liked having an alternative to Starbucks and XO, who seem to hire staff on the MickeyD's principle, and consequently have the same service level as MickeyD's. Last Drop always hired staff for attitude; there's nothing like watching the waitress gush over some guy with a bad dye job after she grudgingly, sneeringly poured a cup of mediocre coffee for you. And the furniture smelled funny. Millenium is pleasant, good house blend, and the furniture doesn't smell. Any trip to Millenium must include a stop at Afterwords next door, Center City's best -- only -- magazine store. That always seemed to be a natural pairing: the hip coffee shop and even hipper magazine store. Afterwords is closing Feb 1, because of declining sales. This is a tragedy for PHilly. Let's hope Avril 50 (34th and Sansom, near White Dog) doesn't suffer the same fate. Anita has a new Low Hug issue out. Find it. Buy it. And 'Nita -- loving the Bitch subscription! Accidentally picked up a second copy of the current issue: in the Christmas cleaning frenzy, Jorj hid my issue. I found it as soon as I came home. January 18: Quickly ...Eowyn rocks Read the book. Pictures of Julie, Martin and Theo visiting in November A fun time was had by all. January 15
After researching stollen, two things stood out: change the mixing technique, and use more butter. Just changing the technique -- adding softened butter directly to the flour and mixing in -- produced a softer, richer loaf. Tobi pronounced it good, and a real "Stolle," but I know I can do better. Marzipan is also a possibility. I'm still working on redesigning Christmas Baking. I've been on a blue with moon and stars kick for years. The problem is finding appropriate, non-cheesey, affordable clip art. Yeah. I thought I might have a good idea for another Cafe Press item. Target is selling t-shirts that say "I bring nothing to the table" (translation for non-Americans and people with real lives, the latest business buzz phrase is "bring to the [presumably negotiating] table," as in, what does each person/business/partner/muppet contribute to the grand scheme of things). My immediate thought was, "I bring cookies to the table." Then, "Wow! What a great idea for a t-shirt!" Jorj didn't seem so enthused. I guess you had to be there, in my mind. Moritz: we would love to have you visit for a few days or a week. We are also quite willing to ship Tobi off to you. ;) January 9As he has done for much of this week, Tobi is studying for midterms. Occasional questions are coming from the other room, and -- oh! Now I've been handed the math book to "control" his answers. He's moved on to trig so it's gotten easier. All in all, a good Christmas and New Year's: (photo links to more pics)
Every year, Santa visits my Aunt Gertrude's and tells a sermon (usually the ticket to heaven story) before handing out presents. As always, Santa knew each child who was there, even those thousands of kilometers from where they grew up. Tobi is a good sport. Made a potato gratin last night; the recipe was from Die beste Rezepten., possibly the first recipe I've cooked from it. Very simple (sliced potatoes layered with grated swiss cheese and finely chopped onions) and very yummy. Christmas EveHaving worked through lunch and late, I got out of work early. Tobi and I are watching holiday specials until it's time to leave for Church. Yes, Church and not meeting. Tobi specifically requested going to services for Christmas Eve. He's finally going to see his resemblence to the Heat Miser. Tobi pronounced my stollen "more raisin bread than stollen." Gah! Well, in the true Talbutt-Bauer tradition, that called for more research, and sampling some stollen at Mom's. German stollen is richer and denser than my "raisin bread." Re-reading my cookbooks, and reviewing Shirley Corriher's Cookwise, I decided it's probably due to melting the butter in the milk and mixing it into the bread. German recipes call for softened butter, and Corriher's recipe for cake-like brioche mixes the butter into the dry flour before adding the eggs and liquid. After Church, I'll be trying out a new mixing technique for the stollen. Speaking of which, there is an almond shortage in the Philadelphia area. A few years ago I couldn't find hazelnuts. Today I can only find whole almonds in the shell -- but there are hazelnuts to be found! Unfortunately, hazelnuts are not appropriate to stollen. I have some whole almonds, and can chop them for the bread. I also have hazelnuts. Tobi seems OK with the Christmas specials (although mostly he's yelling at the German Young Friends web site). However, one tradition has him totally flipped out: opening presents before Christmas. We got a lecture when we started to open the box from the Brennans, until we pointed out that we needed to eat the fruit before it went bad. No wonder he gets along so well with us! Another believer in the motto: there is a right way to do things, and we do things that way. Fortunately, we haven't visited family and he's received only a few presents. Dec 16: Eight years and countingThis day, eight years ago, we were all trudging through the snow to Cherry Street Meetinghouse, thinking, of course she wants snow on her wedding day! and what happens? it snows! Actually, what I was thinking was, in this order: 1) where's my hairdresser? 2) do I even own lipstick? 3) what is Donna saying happened to my dress? 4) would he say the simple vows already! 4) I did what?! My goal in marrying so close to Christmas was to have the anniversary subsumed by my favorite holiday, and to get snow on my wedding day. (I firmly believe the snow earlier this week and month was the Universe sending me snow for my anniversary.) And for seven years, I happily forgot about my anniversary except when it snowed, usually in January. Did Jorj take advantage of this? No, he did not. The first year, he sent me flowers (calla lillies). Until I read the card, I wondered why he'd sent flowers. Every year since then, he's sent flowers -- last year they were blue. This year, without any outside reminders, I bought, signed and gave him a card. And waited for my flowers to arrive. Now he's in trouble; he must send flowers. I've suggested Jorj change the anniversary to another day so that I'll stop expecting flowers. He suggested not telling me the day; I pointed out I probably wouldn't remember the date even if he did tell me. So, here's to Jorj, the best part of my life. Dec 14: Not folding laundry
Cleaned, baked, tried to get ready for the party. Conclusion: I'm not ready. And Tobi has a math test Thursday, so we'll be doing homework this week. I also see a lot of caffinated drinks in my future. Some of Tobi's photos are up at Christmas Baking, here and here. Talented, or? Dec 12: Halfway to Christmas?!
Tobi is playing food stylist. I've had him taking pictures of cookies every weekend. He does a fantastic job. He's very intent, adjusting the camera, the tripod, the cookies. For a picture of chopped Citron, he mounded the Citron on my marble pastry board, balanced the board over a tall, translucent tupperware container, and had me shine a flashlight from below to simulate a light box. I think we should borrow Lynn's light box next time! Got some baking done. Got some recipes on the site. Had a disaster or two, in addition to getting totally wired on Mokka with Tobi Monday night. It's the crack cocaine of coffee drinks. Good news for the young-uns: the dining room table is piled with presents. Presents that are even wrapped! Jorj is installing train cam Mark II into the HO scale engine. The first camera burned out while he was trying to get it to power off the train. The new camera arrived today, and will use batteries, as did last years. We'll see about broadcasting the feed on the web during the party. Last but not least, Sunday I had lunch with Jo-Ann, Ryan, Sarah and Cecily.
Dec 4: It's Christmas baby!Started baking finally, and got the first of Tobi's mother's recipes onto the site. Zitronenherzen! Advent calendars I like: |
What I'm readingIn New York, we hit Kitchen Arts and Letters
What I'm listening toiTunes jukebox running off the Linux box
Things that make me happy
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The website redesign is moving along, now that Jorj kindly rooted through
the attic for harddrives for Tobi and the great big box of
software, which contained the CDs of all the software installed on
the old Mac, including PhotoDeluxe 1.0, now installed and running mostly
happily under MacOS 9.0 emulation mode. I'm really, really pleased; all
non-photo graphics on all my sites were done with PhotoDeluxe. In 1995
it was a stripped-down version of PhotoShop (now up to version 3 or 4, and
called Photoshop Elements, and about $150). It came free with the camera.
It has the kind of interface that designers create when they design for
"housewives": unusable by everyone, including computer experts, stay-at-home
mothers, rocket scientists and politicians. However, I'm used to it. I know
what effects I can acheive and how to get them. Unlike Gimp, I don't need to
learn and new set of commands and options, and learn a whole new
set of mouse movements. But X is a rant for another day.
Mid-terms are over, and I'm having a celebratory beer. Am growing increasingly
disenchanted with American education -- it seems a lot of stress for things
that are not real world related. Learning is fun, but for a lot of kids -- Tobi,
Jorj, Sam -- school isn't. And if you'd offerred me at 8 or 12 about the chance
drop out and learn independently, I'd have taken it. I'm having a similar
attitude about many things: if it's not life and death, it's not worth the
stress. On that note, expect a curtailed Christmas party next year.
First of all,
doesn't Tobi look like the heat miser in the photo? This
was taken the day before he had is hair cut. He'd spiked his hair out in all
directions (so cute! so 80s!) and I just kept thinking He's Mr. Heat Miser/
He's Mr. Sun/He's Mr. Heat Miser/He's Mr. one hundred and one! Of course,
he had no idea what I was talking about. I told
him to pretend he was angry while I took the picture. This was angry. I see
a long night of watching Christmas specials in our future. 
Another long week. Last night I soooo wanted a beer, but there was
physics to do. Tobi has promised me Mokka. 