The Cure for Boredom is Curiosity.

I'm home!!!!! And a bit too sun-kissed. Although that was entirely my fault because I decided that since I was going to be on a plane or in the airport most of my last day in Hawai`i, I opted not to slather myself in sunscreen. Not a good decision, but at least I'm not in sunburn pain like my travel companions who complained on our last free day with "where's the sun? I'm not getting any color." Ha! They're burnt crispy.

Can I just say that I love Hawai`i! We hadn't landed and I was ready to move. I mean, housing prices there are similar to here and San Francisco so why not? I think that this my usurp my desire to live off the grid in Alaska.

I've got lots of pictures and lots of stuff to tell so I'll do that later after I return from physical therapy.

Ronette is in NYC and sent me an email with the subject line - OMG!!
I look at her link, I laugh and I hit reply.
Because she has set up her out of office reply I get back an email with the subject line now reading -
Out of Office - OMG!!

OK, maybe you had to be there. I just got a kick out of it.

Remember the crossed fingers that the faucet would be an easy fix?
I should have crossed them tighter.
I went to the hardware store and bought shorter nipples.
Before I turned off the water, I thought I would double-check to make sure I bought the right diameter.
They didn't fit!
At least that's what it seemed until I realized that I tested the fit with the wrong nut. *head desk*
So now that I figured that out, I'm going to go install the faucet and hope these nipples are short enough.

And to completely kill my day, when I picked Ronette up at the airport last night she tells me that the work party we have to go to is tonight. I'm really not looking forward to this because I have to cook. It's a Mediterranean theme and Ronette volunteered to bring dolmades aka stuffed grape leaves. Shoot, I should have just bought some pre-made jarred ones when I went to the grocery store this morning. As it is, I get to hand-roll about 25 billion grape leaves. Then she asks this morning for me to pick figs for everyone since I'm driving into the city. I'm really tempted to drive in, park the car in front of her office and take the BART back home. That would be really mean, so I'm going to fix the sink and start cooking.

Nothing really. It's a gray Saturday morning. It's breezy and cool, but not really cold enough to want to snuggle up under the covers. Ronette had to go to a wedding shower this afternoon. I was able to opt out of it although I'm sure that when she returns home she will tell me how everyone asked where I was. For the record, I did not whine or fuss about not wanting to go, I was off the hook before I knew about it. The shower is suppose to last from 1 - 5, which is a really long time for a wedding shower if you ask me. Apparently the agenda has everyone playing Sex Trivia for 1 1/2 hours. Hmmm, I'm not sure about that one.

The shower theme is 50's perfect wife. Ronette wanted to revolve around that theme and had decided that the gift would be a good cookbook and an apron with some other kitchen-y/cooking items. I threw in some other ideas that were vetoed - mixing bowls to hold all the stuff and actually making an apron from one of my grandma's old patterns. Since I still wasn't completely digging Ronette's ideas I went searching for Tricia's (the bride-to-be) gift registries. On one of her registries she asked for a cast iron skillet and The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook. I'm thinking that this is perfect because one of the things that we have in common with Tricia is North Carolina/southern cooking. And I believe that everyone must have a cast iron skillet. Plus, this would go great with an apron.

We went to Sur La Table this morning to buy all the gifts. If we couldn't find the Cast Iron Cookbook, then we were going to put in the extra copy of Mama Dip's Family Cookbook that we bought at Christmas. Would you believe that Sur La Table didn't have a single 12 inch pan? We could buy any other size but not the 12 inch. We ended up buying a 13 inch pan, found The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook, and added a silicone potholder. [If you have a cast iron pan (or other pans that the handles get hot) this thing is wonderful! I don't have to worry about catching a towel on fire, wearing a bulking oven mitt, or remembering to grab a cloth before I pick up the pan.] Then she started looking at aprons and the one she really liked was $40. There is a point where you have to stop spending on wedding gifts. Yep, I could have made one for less than $10. Probably could have made two. At least, she admitted that she should have had me make the apron when I offered. We ended up buying a reusable mesh bag (very handy in SF) to stuff everything into. It looked pretty neat when we had it all wrapped up.

So I get to be home alone for awhile. Ronette asked what was on my agenda today. She was looking at my spackling that needs to be re-painted. I announced that I was taking a long soak in the tub. And if the dry weather holds out for a few more hours, I'll weed some more before the rain comes. Painting can be for the rainy days that are around the corner or I guess today if my weather doesn't hold out.

If I never had to sand and stain another door again, I could be a happy girl. As it is, we still have to purchase three doors for the closets. On the brighter side, all but one of 5 doors are finished. I do need to bring the three in the garage inside, I just haven't motivated myself to do so.

I'm also on a cooking kick in my disaster of a kitchen. I put a slab of pork on the stove to simmer all day. It will become carnitas for dinner tonight. I'm also going to try my hand at making some corn tomalito. The closest explanation of it that I can think of is spoonbread. If you've ever eaten at Chevy's, it's the little dollop of corn stuff that they serve with fajitas. It's heavenly in the mouth. All the recipes that I've found so far basically read like making spoonbread. I'll try it and if all else fails I guess the dog gets a treat. I've also got a batch of yogurt going. Now if I could only get someone to wash all the dishes I'd be in business.

Yuck! Now I've reminded myself that I need to do laundry. RTL goes to Seattle tomorrow and then leaves on Friday to go see her dad. Clean clothes would be nice.

OK, this post is boring, so I'll get back to what I need to do.

I would really like to bop RTL over the head.
I keep getting "could you do this?" emails and phone calls.
I'm tired of being on the phone and I still haven't gotten anyone at Cat's Cradle to answer the freakin' phone.
Maybe I should just bop myself over the head.

Australia was awesome! I didn't want to come home. Probably a combination of not wanting to be on an airplane for 14 hours and not getting to see enough of Australia. I think I'm still combatting jet lag. Can't seem to sleep enough, but sleeping at the wrong times continues throwing off the schedule.

( Oh the places you'll go! )

Friday we left for our early morning flight. I didn't want to go home at all. If it weren't for the damn flies, I could live in Australia. It's very much like San Francisco I think. With the taste of relaxing travel and a couple of nasty emails, RTL is now perusing the job ads. All that is another story. I'm ready to go back to Australia and see more than just Sydney. I just found a deal for travel to Australia from LAX and three flights within Australia for less than $1000. When's the next best time to go?

I left the airport at 10:15 last night with RTL in tow. This is after circling the San Francisco airport for about 20 minutes. SFO needs a 30 minute Park & Call like Oakland has. SFO's other problem is the amount of construction that they are doing in the arrival area, it makes sliding in and out of the pick-up lanes almost impossible. Thank goodness that RTL went through customs in NY and didn't have to do it here.

The dog and the cat were ecstastic to see her. Dexter made loops around the house before deciding it was time to go to bed.

We started pulling stuff out of her suitcase so I could throw something in the washer for work on Monday and to get my goodies. No chocolate. *sigh* But I do have two beautiful rounds of plain Gouda and four little rounds of herbs-added Gouda. I might be having a grilled Gouda sandwich for lunch. Cheese and chocolate. Throw in a bottle of red wine & a loaf of bread and we've got a picnic. She also brought me back six bags of tulip bulbs, two each of three kinds. One is regular old tulips but they are blue and the other ones are fancy schmancy. I'll probably be out in the yard planting them later this week.

Now I have two weeks worth of work clothes to wash. I started the washer at 7:30 this morning. Glad I finished all my other errands over the weekend. I have the camera back so now I can start taking pictures of some my projects. Yay! I hear the Gouda calling my name. I'm going to go munch some.

That's right, RTL is in Germany. She's been eating hamburgers in Hamburg. (hee hee) She just called and I'm having a fabulous time laughing at her. I wish I could share the voice she did as she told me about telling the group the Kennedy "I'm a doughnut" story. I'll be laughing at that voice for days.

The really funny goof was going into the wrong bathroom because she couldn't figure out which was the men's room and which was the ladies. She went to wash her hands and there was a man washing his hands. So she hid out in the stall until he left. When she walked out of the bathroom, the receptionist saw her and starting laughing. In the telling of the story, this is the point where I was about to die laughing, so I asked "you know enough German, why couldn't you figure it out by breaking the word down?" The answer "because Vicky said it was the 4th door on the left and I went into the 4th door on the left". Somehow I don't think that she should trust the people that she works with too much.

They are off to Amsterdam tomorrow. It sounds like they have a lot of free time while they are there. Ed, who grew up there, is going to show them around and take them through the Hague. I'm kind of jealous about that. Going to the Aalsmeer Flower Market too and Vicky has convinced RTL to go to the Anne Frank house again.

And another thing.
She says: My suitcase weighs a ton and I haven't bought anything for you yet.
Me: I just want flower bulbs, cheese and chocolate. What have you put in it to make it weigh so much?
Her: I have a ton of shoes.
Me: It's not my fault you took seven pairs of shoes.
Her: I bought more shoes.
Me: I knew you bought two pairs in Spain, that shouldn't be enough to make much of a difference.
Her: I bought more.
Me: How many pair of shoes have you bought? (afraid now because she bought 9 pairs in Brazil)
Her: seven
Me: Why the fuck did you buy 7 pairs of shoes?
Her: I didn't really buy 7 pairs, but telling you I did was worth it. (laughs at me)
Me: You're evil.
Her: I am the source.

So she has already bought 3 pairs of shoes (+7) and she has her eye on 2 more pairs. I'm going to have to build a wing onto the house for the shoe fetish. And I'm really afraid to see how many shoes she ends up bringing back .

I know I said that I was ok doing this project for RTL, but somebody please give me a fucking break. I think I may be one step from stringing her up by her toes. It took two weeks to get a file that was due 2 days before I was ever officially "on" the project. Now I keep getting back the file because she needs more stuff done to it. Which is fine, but she's stressed out because she needs to give it to the client and I can't work miracles. Part of this project is matching two databases. Should be easy with a v-lookup. Oh, no. So many people have worked on this file that company names don't match because of an "inc" vs "co".

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!