A Pillar of Virtuosity and I do memes.

In my ongoing, yet futile, attempt to assuage vengeful gods, I have been striving to be the Pillar of Virtuosity.  Alas, I am naught but a tower of sea salt.

Well.




There is a new car.  There was a new water leak.  There is progress on the sweater.  There are no fires in the fireplace, due to a faulty flue lever.  (You remember the fireplace - the $3,000 chimney replacement?)  There are duck eggs.  And I saw a bluebird.  There was more quail drama - but there was also the arrival of "The Egg".  There was mud, then there was lots of snow.  We are currently heading back to mud.  The weather is finally heading in the right direction, although the next 500 days have rain in the forecast.




In an attempt to negate all this vengeful action by whatever gods I have so royally pissed off, I have been pretty virtuous.  Almost cloyingly so.  Since all my moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth has not seemed to make things any better, I'm trying to clean up my act.  Instead of my usual go-to meal when highly stressed (nachos), I made butternut chili.  And carrot ginger kraut. 

Cannot wait until it's ready!
Carrot Kraut Nachos, anyone?

And baked falafel. And caramelized onion quiche.  I am so virtuous, I can barely be in the same room with myself.  And let me tell you, I can stretch a butternut squash to within an inch of its life!  There was chili, Buddha bowls and GF butternut/onion pizza.


The only resident of the LLF who seems to have had a banner week(s) is The Pat.  Peanut's favorite things in the world, besides food of any sort, are men.  Especially workmen.  He has been in workman heaven this past week - we went to the mechanic, there were two visits by the plumber, and his all-time favorite, Billy.  When he sees Billy, he levitates across the ground like a heat-seeking missile and launches himself into Billy's arms.  If I had video production skills, I would film it in slow motion and put romantic music in the background.  It is interesting that, no matter how large and hairy the workman, they all reduce themselves into falsetto baby-talk.  I'll have to admit to liking the plumber - he was working away on the shower drain when I hear him say, "Could you send Peanut back in with that gasket?"  Just as Peanut the Helper appeared with the self-same gasket clenched in his teeth.


The car.  After finding out that the power steering was on its way out on the Hyundai, I slogged through the jungle of car dealers (I actually felt that I needed a shower after one visit - talk about oily...), ending up at the Subaru dealer.  We hammered out a fairly good deal (if you think paying almost as much as a house for a car that drops its value by half as soon as you drive off the lot a 'deal') - I wanted to be sure that they knew I was not a pushover, so I went armed:


Thank you, my Canadian gal-pal.

Saturday I picked up my red Impreza.  I have gotten the basics down, but there are many things that are still a mystery.  It has taken some getting used to - I feel as if I am riding two inches from the pavement and there are no mysterious and alarming noises.  Plus, it is only the second car in my long and inglorious car-ownership-past that has had an automatic transmission.  I am still grabbing madly for the shift.  It has been raining and drizzly and snowing and overcast, so I don't have pictures.  But, if you've seen one red Impreza, you've seen mine.  I really am trying to get excited about it, but I am still suffering the effects of sticker shock.  And I'm not the only one having a hard time getting used to the change.

Mom, there's a strange vehicle in the
driveway.  I'm going to growl and bark continually
until it goes away.

Heading into spring (please god) on an up note:

Now, excuse me while I go inhale some damp earth aroma.