Quick Update

I've been futzing with work things and stuff today, so only time for a quick update:

Weekend: The cherry pie Saturday night was awesome, not that there were any doubts. Evelin used our "personal" pie dishes, making two small pies for the freezer and a third that we ate. I am of two minds about this: 1) we have pie in the freezer; 2) hey, I want more pie!

Sunday, we had an early lunch with an online friend of Evelin's who was driving through the D.C. area with her family on the way to Florida. She was going through an IVF cycle the same time we were last November with equally ineffective results. We ended up at Franklin's and had a nice meal and visit, but a bit on the short side as they were aiming to make it to South Carolina by nightfall and traffic north of D.C. had been much worse than they'd expected.

Garden: Sunday afternoon, we did a little work in the garden, ripping the last of the peas out of the ground and planting corn. Seeds of Change Triple Play sweet corn were the only corn seeds the food co-op had (I stopped in for some milk on my way back from the farmers market), so we'll see how the tri-color tastes in sometime in August.

We also took the netting off the goldrush apple tree. The cicada menace seems to be past for the most part. There are a few live ones still around, but the singing is almost gone and 99% of those I see now are dead (and often half-eaten).

Bread Pudding: The reason I picked up milk (and an extra dozen eggs) is that Evelin wanted to clear some things out of our freeze. Back around Easter, Evelin made penia^* -- a traditional Italian sweet anise bread shaped like a doll -- but wasn't too happy with this year's results. Thinking it would make a good bread pudding, however, she froze the three dolls and yesterday decided to test the theory.

We talked a while about what could go into the pudding and Evelin ended up making four versions. A big plain one with no additions and three personal-sized ones: one with raisins, one with Craisins, and one with golden raisins and dried cherries. I can attest to the tastiness of the raisin (although I think macerating the raisins in rum would have been a nice touch) and plain versions. The others have yet to be tasted.

The Da Vinci Code: The rest of the day was a hodgepodge of napping, taking a walk to find out where the go-go music was coming from (there was a very big graduation party about two blocks away), getting Father's Day cards, and reading The Da Vinci Code. I won't pretend it was great art, but the book was a good enough read to keep me up until almost 1:00 a.m. finishing it.

Today: Today was back to work, slipping away for an hour to donate blood. I haven't donated since January (I just kind of lost track of time) and I got a call late last week saying the hospital needed O- blood for the neonatal unit. Plus, by donating now, I'll be able to donate again a few weeks before the baby's due date; hopefully there won't be any need to, but it's good to know that I won't be a pint low if Evelin or the baby needed any blood.

Tonight, I need to paint the ceiling in the guest/media room. Yes, I ignored it all weekend. However, we think we found the paint that'll work for the walls, so once the ceiling is done, I'll only have the walls and trim to ignore ...

^*Penia is the spelling that's come down through her family, but the pronunciation is bi:n jə. I'm not sure of the exact dialect/idiolect Evelin's grandmother's family would have spoken, but googling penia doesn't turn up the recipe or anything like it.