so post-prom made for a pretty lazy day today. the elevated temperature (seriously? it's only April 13) further induced the desire to Not Do Anything. the obvious solution? chill some brewskis and fire up the grill!

another bit of plunder from my grandparents' house (almost ready to put on the market - heck, when we were there last week taking the furniture out a guy came back and asked when it was going to be for sale!) is a full-sized Weber kettle. big enough to cook a whole chicken! (which is what I did tonight.)

i love to grill. beats inside cooking all hollow on a day like this. and sitting around on the back patio, watching birds at the bird feeder while we ate one of their distant relatives... it was pretty darn spiffy.

i'm still going to bed early tonight, though!

well, just got back from the prom.

Yep. prom. Prom! PROM!!!!!

probably as many people at this shindig as were at my senior prom even though I went to a school with 4x as many students as Empire Academy. One factor, definitely, is that all students grades 9-12 were allowed at the Empire prom. and most of them were there... i think only 5 of the student body didn't go (they had previously bought non-refundable concert tickets before the prom date was announced.)

wack facts - 75% of the music played at prom was supplied by ME (don't tell the RIAA or ASCAP.) We did the photographs digitally and printed them out on the spot so everyone and their dates got to take home a photo. (Those who had dates, anyway - this was not a couples-only affair.) And the food was great, the location was beautiful (Seascape) and just... wow.

New userpic coming soon - my prom portrait must be converted.

third quarter is wrapping up. 2 1/2 weeks left.

sleep is not happening right now. combination of allergies, job nerves (they keep telling me they love me... what do they really think??!?) and lingering sadness over the loss of my grandmother. that last has really taken me out of the game, more than the deaths of my other three grandparents. probably because she was the last of them. who knows?

though, speaking of grandma... got her car this weekend. 7 year old Ford Focus with 17,500 miles on it. (little old lady drove it to the Sierra Club meetings on Saturday ;) this will be replacing the last of our Volvos and make us an all-Ford family... just as my parents have been for years. (so we're going from being just like songspinner9's parents to being like mine... eek?)

it's 9:45 and i still haven't had dinner. i should do that, and then go to bed. bye...

So Sadie's not feeling good and I've got the morning shift taking care of her. Yay me. So naturally I'm stumbling through various LJs I haven't looked at in a bit, and I stumbled on this:

Your Slanguage Profile

Aussie Slang: 75% Canadian Slang: 75% Victorian Slang: 75% British Slang: 50% Prison Slang: 50% New England Slang: 25%

amusing, yes?

so as if I wasn't having enough fun this week, I caught the cold that everyone's been sharing around work. No Mardi Gras party for me tonight. (I think this is the first time I've missed it since 1996.)

instead, hot toddies (heavy on the rum) and an early bedtime.

goodnight...

gooooooooooooo GIANTS!

and to the Patriots: you know, 18-1 is a perfectly respectable record.

Oh wait, except when that *one* is the Super Bowl. PWN3D!!!

i'm sorry, I had nothing personal riding on this game, but I did sort of really really want the Giants to win. Or maybe for the Patriots to lose. Tom Brady needs to experience *some* disappointment in his life...

it was a day of cooking, laundry and football. good mundane things to get my mind off of yesterday.

My grandmother died this morning.

( long, rambling remembrance hidden behind cut )

Marian Mae (Enzler) Reeve, 1920-2008

spotted on cnn.com:

Hillary's state funeral under way

of course, it's about Sir Edmund Hillary, but given its juxtaposition opposite the top story on the presidential primaries...

so as is not unusual, I rang in the New Year with a cold. Joy. Still getting over that - mostly just an annoying sinus drainage now, not the aches and pains of the previous couple of days.

It's been blowing up a storm since last night. This morning I went out and added extra tie-downs to the tarp covering our bikes on the patio, as it was flapping around and threatening to fly away. Then, off to work. No, the kids aren't back yet but the teachers had a work day today.

Didn't get a whole lot of prep done as fifteen minutes after I got to work we lost power. And then it came back. And then it went out again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Eventually it went out and stayed that way for the rest of the day. So I put on one of my other hats and went around doing maintenance tasks (including fixing a few electrical faults that had been on the back burner until such time as we were able to turn off the electricity for a while... perfect timing!)

Driving home, saw mighty high water in the San Lorenzo River... and it wasn't even high tide (couple hours past low water, actually). Should be interesting for the people in low-lying areas when the tide comes back in. I'm so glad we don't live down by the river any more...

so I rather enjoy having oatmeal in the mornings in cold weather. It is, however, one of those foods that requires constant attention while cooking to avoid burnage and sticking. Until now...

One of my aunts suggested using a slow cooker to cook it. Which would be great if I had one (and no, enjoyment of oatmeal is not sufficient justification to get one). But then, just before school got out for our current vacation...

went to local café that's just up the road from the school. They had a rice cooker out on the counter, full of oatmeal. The lightbulb went on and I thought "I do have a rice cooker... what a good idea!"

turns out, it also works rather well for polenta.

yay for modern conveniences!

So the tiger that mauled a keeper at the San Francisco Zoo last year managed to completely escape her enclosure yesterday, killing one zoo visitor and mauling two others before being shot by SFPD.

While I have a certain measure of sympathy for the families of those killed and injured, I'm really sorry about the tiger. IMHO they should have tried to find a way to get her into a situation where there would be minimal contact with humans after last year's incident. After all, she was now aware that people are tasty...

I think the zoo also needs to take a good, long look at how adequate the tiger enclosure is. Perhaps a 15-foot wide ditch topped by a 20-foot wall isn't adequate for something which, although rather large, still has the basic agility of a cat...

so we went up to San Francisco today to see SF Ballet's production of "The Nutcracker." High time for darling daughter, now 8, to finally see it live anyway.

'Twas marvelous. The current production is set in San Francisco circa 1915. Clever establishing during the overture, using slides projected on a scrim.

Marvelous sets, costumes etc. A few bobbles in the set changes - there were at least 2 places where nothing was on stage except dancers, who appeared to be interacting with things that weren't there yet. (There was also a major malfunction of a practical prop, which was however quickly corrected.) I doubt any of the hundreds of kids that were there noticed. We cynical oldsters (hey, lovely wife and I both have degrees in theater arts) were slightly more picky.

Afterward, we dawdled around Union Square for a bit and then went for dinner at David's Deli. Yum. Ended up bringing an order of corned beef and rye back for mother-in-law (yes, we called from the deli and said "we decided to go to David's for dinner, you want anything?" or words to that effect.)

All in all, a good day.

so, first night of Irish Christmas Choir went off well.

Not too many bobbles, anyway.

One more concert and the last three months of work comes to a close.

*sigh*

in two weeks, "Emeril Live" will no longer be.

I rather expect that Food Network will show reruns eternally, though.

so back the first week of November, I got called for jury duty (didn't get picked, but spent 2 days in selection).

The trial apparently ended last week - here's the result:
Santa Cruz Sentinel: Jury convicts "Operation Red Bull" suspect

( my thoughts, based on what i recall from jury selection )