kerewin's whine cellar

Hallelujah!

Not So Much With The Heat

The 90+ degree weather in Seattle is killing me. I am sure I am not the only one, but I certainly feel pissy, pissy, pissy. To combat the dreaded heat (which is not cooling down much at night, which makes our house not cool enough in the morning) we have been either dining out or BBQing. With friends coming over today I not only had to do apps and entree, but also dessert on the grill. Never fear. This recipe blew the doors off of any expectations.

(When you roll the bananas in the sugar mixture it leaks lemon juice/sugar all over the plate they are on. Grill up the fruit, then dish up the vanilla ice cream, top with the grilled bananas, then scrape up the sauce that runs off the bananas and drizzle over the ice cream. Amazing.)

Hemoglobin

Last weekend we drove down to Portland for a family reunion of the paternal side of my husband's family (not to be mistaken with the yearly reunion of the maternal side of the family which is happening in 2 weeks). We never eat fast food except for these odd road trips and this was no exception. We stopped at Burgerville and took our food to go. As usual they gave us a lot of extra napkins. Unusual for me, I tucked the extra napkins in the glove box thinking, "I have no idea when I might use these, but they might come in handy."

Fast forward to today. I have been suffering from a nasty sinus infection (goddamn sinusitis) and blowing my nose a lot. I am at that stage where I am mostly cleared up, but one point during the day need a hearty blow. So I was at that stage today. I got out one of those miracle napkins and cleared out my sinuses. Then about 2 minutes later I felt all congested again. Before I could blow my nose again, blood just poured out. Try driving and shifting with that going on. Not just some weak trickle, either, full on river o'blood. Pretty much I bled through all the napkins in the car. I was very glad for them being there, but afterwards didn't really know what to do with them.

My questions is, if I hadn't had those napkins would there have been no bloody nose today?

Miss Manners

Since when has it become acceptable to openly pick your nose, as long as you just use your thumb and "scratch" the just the side of the nostril? Get a kleenex.

M•A•C

I ran out of my foundation the other day. I was already out of lotion and almost out of facial soap. Another disgusting and annoying thing is that my eyeliner and mascara were getting old. So I had to go and buy some new stuff. All at once.

I had a really busy day and almost forgot, but remembered before I got home so I ran up to the mall. The mall being one of my least favorite places in the world. For some reason Nordstrom has a M•A•C counter just outside of their store. So I get there, knowing full well what I wanted and there was an entire squadron of employees standing right in front of the area I needed.

"Can I help you find anything?" they chirped.

"No, that's ok I know what I need."

They insisted on helping me anyway and soon I had a small bag and a somewhat lighter wallet. The chirpiest and youngest M•A•C girl of the set was ringing me up and asked, "Did you just get off work?"

"Yup"

"You just seem very chill." I am sure she meant it in more of a "You seem like a grouchy bitch" kind of way.

"I am just very tired."

"OhwellIjustgotoffworkandtodayispaydayandIcan'twaittogoandshopshopshop."

Then her head spun around and exploded. Or maybe that's just what I dreamed.

Everday Dishes

When you meet and fall in love with someone, you might move in together and get married. If this happens a few years after college each of you will have a full compliment of household stuff. Some you lose to contrition: "There's no way that crappy waterbed is going into my house!" Some to common sense: "We don't need three toilet plungers." But when it comes to dishes you likely just meld the set until a few years later you realize each of you is eating on mis-matched, college dishware. Not that there is anything wrong with that. What you have that does match at least one half of the couple will dislike. We were like this. Just about exactly.

So a couple (few?) years ago we went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and got a new set of everyday dishes (Thank you wedding for supplying our china!). Do not ask me how I keep wishing we could end up with some sort of minimalist look in our house when it is about 1,300 square feet and we are both genetically inclined towards packratism. But, I wanted to go with a sort of "Asian" feel for the dishes and we eventually got these:

We got four place settings in this brown color and four in black (Oooo, clever). Except for hating the coffee mugs it was a good deal. So we bought them and put the mugs up out of sight and use. The problem being that over time we both learned to loathe these dishes. The plates come up pretty high on the sides but have a small base. So if you were cutting anything the plate flopped against the table, probably dousing you with food. Also, all the food would puddle toward the bottom and sauces would mix with the wrong food. I had more of a problem with that than my husband. The bowls, well the walls were so high and straight that they didn't fit well into the dishwasher, nor sit well in the cupboard. Supposedly these things are microwavable yet everytime I put one of them into the micro, it would come out hot enough to burn you, but the food inside wasn't so much hot.

We finally broke down and admitted that we didn't want them anymore. So I was on the hunt. Back to BB&B. I looked through most of their sets and found a pattern I thought would be a good compromise. I didn't love or hate it, it would fit in the dishwasher, and probably not slop food on anyone. Basically, the kind of thing a husband would be fine with. The compromise dishes, since I picked out the last set and they were such a mess:

So I went home and showed him the pictures on the internet (damn, I love technology!). He found them boring and so I told him there was a pattern there with dragonflies and I thought he might like them, but wasn't sure if they were too feminine. Turns out he did like them.

Until we went and looked at them live and in person and then not so much. We looked and looked. Discussed. Held plates up against plates. BB&B still carries the evil plates so we used that a lot for comparison purposes. We found one set that we both particularly liked. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I loved them. The salad plate was done in complimentary tones. The bowls were cool, and the mugs. The mugs! They were very Seattle-usable. That is, they were HUGE. When I looked on my own I never thought he would like the pattern. (By the way, the rim is dark brown, not black.)

I had the lovely 20% off coupon with me. Why not buy them on the spot? The logic of the husband, however, said, "No, you are going to Oregon for the weekend tomorrow and it is tax-free there. Just get them while you are there." So I called his parents see if they had an extra BB&B coupon (we had to get 2 sets of dishes, because they only come in 4 place settings). They didn't but called all their friends and rassled one up. When I got there, we headed over to the nearest store. Searched and searched. Couldn't find the pattern we love. Check with Customer Service. Customer Service looked on the inventory of all stores. Turns out that pattern "isn't active" in Oregon. Closest place is Seattle. Do we want them to order it and pay for shipping? Oh, irony, how I hate you.

So, finally last Monday upon return to Seattle, I bought our dishes. We can finally be rid of the evil and bad dishes. So what if the new ones are almost double the price? Who cares that we have to box up and donate yet another set of dishes (man I feel sorry for those people!)? I feel a little bit like Steve Martin in L.A. Story when I gleefully say, "I've got the dishes that I want and I only had to look like a chump for two years!"