“this’ll only take a few minutes” – translates roughly to “this is totally easy, based on either a id-10t error or a loose nut between the keyboard and the chair”

“the best choice is to rebuild it/start over” – translates to “i’ll take it back to the office if you want, but basically, you’re f$#ked, and i hope you backed your $hit up sometime in the past decade” and

“this’ll take 15 minutes, tops.” – which translates to “this is actually going to take all night, and possibly half of tomorrow, because no matter how close i get to fixing it, there will be one last corrupted file and/or one last missing driver and/or one final fatal error that will keep you from your lunch/dinner/bedtime.

to which i’ve told him that the best way to keep jobs in the first or second catagory is to avoid claiming they fit in the third under any and all circumstances.

a funny thing happened yesterday, though. he didn’t curse a thing. in fact, he didn’t even make any claim as to how long it was going to take to do anything. wordpress, though, did me in. wordpress told me that upgrading the software on my blog would “famously take five minutes.” yeah, well… no. not really.

oh, *downloading* the upgrade took way less than five minutes. heck, even installing it still had me way under. it was the actual act of upgrading that got screwed. that, it turns out, had the infamous 15-minute curse written all over it. i should have known.

so here i am, finally, almost 24 hours later, almost completely back to normal. and in fact, in many ways, a better than normal. because now that the stupid upgrade seems to be working, i got to make a few cool changes. like adding some new *clickables* over yonder <— (howdy, doubleclicktech and bake@350!! ) and i was finally able to turn commenting back on, because i was finally able to include an actual, workable spam filter. so!

so thanks for enduring the black out. i’ll try not to have another for another couple of years. or so. ;op

which is funny, really — sidenote — i used to shop kroger religiously. thought their produce was the bomb-diggity. and i used to hate heb, i guess because when i first came to texas, heb wasn’t heb, it was heb food pantry. which reminded me of aldi stores back in the midwest, which were stores where almost-dead groceries went to go be sold to poor folk for discounts. but i digress…

go get you some blackberries, and make some blackberry breakfast bars. they are absolutely wondrous. and you don’t even have to eat them just for breakfast. grab one whenever you’re just plain hungry. and now, i do something completely unbitchy; i share my recipe:

2 cups fresh blackberries (two of the little plastic packs)
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup quick cooking rolled oats (or regular oats)
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
½ cup margarine or butter melted

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a mixing bowl stir together flour, oats, brown sugar, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, and baking soda. Stir in melted margarine or butter till thoroughly combined. Set aside 1 cup of the oat mixture for topping. Press remaining oat mixture into an ungreased 9×9x2-inch pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

For filling, in a medium saucepan combine berries, sugar, water, lemon juice and ½ teaspoon cinnamon. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, for about 8 minutes or till slightly thickened, stirring frequently. Remove from heat.

Carefully spread filling on top of baked crust. Sprinkle with reserved oat mixture. Lightly press oat mixture into filling. Bake in the 350-degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes more or till topping is set. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Cut into bars.

you’ve got to try these!! now, go!!!

over

and over

and OVER again

whenever he rolls down the street. Why? Because we live on a dead end street – so he rolls down, turns around, rolls back… then goes to the next street over, also a treat, because it’s a cul-de-sac. and he’s got the damn music so loud that i’m pretty certain he’s attempting to get the attention of children from here to austin with that thing.

he’s heartlessly cruel to those of us that have no intention of purchasing his wares. he rolls on through whenever the temperature peaks out over 60. sometimes 58. which means he tortures us with this eight-point-five second rendition of “turkey in the straw” at least once per week every month of the year, and sometimes up to three times a day come summer. he’s already been by five or six times in the past ten days.

which begs the question: does he just hang on to all that ice cream and sell it when he sells it? or does he get new stuff when the stuff from this winter doesn’t sell to sell in the spring?

now, just because i was taught to share, and because whenever he rolls by, one of many variations of said tune gets stuck in my head (the murphy’s oil soap jingle, chain hang low, ears hang low), i thought i’d share the little ditty with you. so you can sing along too:

don’t worry, kids. one day, sooner than you can even imagine, you’ll cross a bridge. you might not even realize it’s happened. i didn’t. but someday, you’ll understand that party is not necessarily a verb. and you’ll discover you can get by just fine without consuming clover-tinted beer.

and then you’ll be satisfied with having breakfast at an irish pub instead. and curling up with a glass of wine to watch the 10 o’clock news before calling it a night.

now that… that is happiness. yep. your very own pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow.

Yen from Ocean's 11

for my loyal followers (all, what, eight of you?) that have been wondering just that, let me tell you:

• i added a new talent to my list of things i can do and get paid doing. no, nothing dirty, you gutter-dweller. i’ve become a web designer. Wo0t!
• i became increasinly obsessed with my new job, which, since i am after all, autonomous now, means i’m working like a dog for a complete bitch of a boss.
• i finally filed my taxes. don’t know what the f$^k took me so long, seeing as how i’m getting a hefty, healthy refund.
• i filed my mom’s taxes. or at least, i’ve gotten the job about 90% done. the remaining 10% of the job is 1% printing and mailing them and 9% explaining to her what the hell i did.
• i put on fifteen pounds. okay, not really. not just in six weeks. but sometimes i feel like that’s all it took. really though, it took a bit over 28 months, and i have to tell you, the self-loathing is palatable.
• i dined in several more restaurants for free (which probably has something to do with that 15 pounds. i’m just sayin’) due to either shitty service or shitty food or both.
• i stumbled upon a wine that could possibly make a wine-drinker out of me yet. aided and abetted by boyfriend’s declaration that hey, they say a glass of red wine a day is good for you.
• i picked up three more weekly hours of television that is in my “must see” list, bringing the total up to 14 1/2. thank god they don’t all run at the same time during the night, during the week, and in most cases even, during the year. keeps me down to a much more manageable 3 to 4 hours a week. but for you studio execs paying attention, take note: i am in the coveted 28-34 age group, a woman and firmly in the middle class. here’s the list of what must be seen…

          – grey’s anatomy                  - burn notice

          – private practice                 - white collar

          -  the deep end                    - in plain site

          – lie to me                           - psych 

          – house                              - mythbusters

          – the good wife                  - dirty jobs

          – life unexpected               - real time w/bill maher

          – and for some variety, a 30-minute show… tosh.0

• i went in for my yearly perm… only about four months later than usual. ahhhh…. bouncy curls once more.
• i discovered twhirl by seesmic, and wondered wtf i was waiting for, not having a real-time twitter feed on my desktop.
• i started a spreadsheet (a spreadsheet!) of new songs i wanna download find.
• i had a pointless email exchange with some higher-ups at hp, in which i attempted to get myself a new pc. for free. still might. i’m trying to kill this one. just kidding!!! damn p.o.s. will most likely implode any day now, just like it did the first three times. motherboard just goes kablooie. lesson here, kidlets – don’t buy an hp. dude, get a dell.

and so it goes… i got a lot of shit done. put some more irons in the fire. and thought every single day, “i really gotta blog.”

i did, i swear!!

so, forgive me? good. i’ll try not to let it lapse again. seriously.

bee-you-tee-full!

note the golden crust, the perfectly rounded top, the mouth-watering aroma filling the house… well, okay, you’ll have to just take my word for it on that last one.

but trust me. mouth-watering.

when we arrived about 5:30-ish, the place was relatively slow. there was a large party in the private dining room, but it would appear they’d been there a while and their meal was underway. the rest of the joint was perhaps at 2/3 to 3/4 capacity, and no waiting. so we got our table and the first thing i notice is that based on the pricing, this is certainly not an “everyday eatery” as their tagline advertises. because i don’t know about you, but i certainly can’t afford sixteen dollars a plate for dinner everyday. and if part of that cost comes from them serving water without ice in wine glasses out of wine bottles, well then, i say get us some sturdy water glasses, a couple of plastic pitchers and let us see a reduction back to reality, hmm?

in an effort to stay at a reasonable total, i opted for the special that was advertised on the sandwich board at the entrance; spaghetti and meatballs, $7.99. bf ordered lasagne. i asked our server, susan, about the special because i wanted to know what came with it. “tell me about the special” i said. “we don’t have one that i’m aware of” she replies. “ehm, spaghetti or something, up on the board?” bf inquires. “oh, let me check with the manager” she says… and disappears. for five minutes. when she returns she explains that was the lunch special, but okay, they can do that for me.

oh, well, thank you. i’m so glad the cost of the exact same meal didn’t have to increase because the sauce has been marinating for the last six hours… more on that in a bit.

so we place our order and off she goes to wherever it is servers disappear to for ten-minute intervals, and just about the time we’re out of water and bread and ready to sop someone and ask for refills, she magically arrives and offers both. ah, good, i think. maybe it won’t be so bad.

somewhere in the course of this first 30 minutes of being there another couple is seated at the table next to us. and shortly after we got our bread and water, our server returned with our meals. which she graciously served to the people at the next table. she asked them if everything looked alright, to which they looked over their servings a bit quizzically… while bf and i sat there thinking aloud it was not only weird that they got their food before us but they also coincidentally ordered the same dishes. about this time, susan turns on her heel (she had walked a few steps away) and stops the couple from actually diving into our meals to apologize to them and say it wasn’t their food, it was ours. after which she took the dishes off their table and turned to us to serve us.

now, you’d think she’d say something like, “i’m sorry, i accidentally gave your meals to that couple, would you like these, or if you prefer i could get fresh dishes for you.” but no. what she said instead was, “my, well, i promise you they didn’t even touch your meals, here you are,” and put the plates in front of us. and then walked away. ugh. trying to think positively (because i do so so rarely) i told bf that i was pretty sure they hadn’t actually touched our food, so let’s just eat. and that’s when we discovered that the food was apparently no better than the service. the lasagne was so spicy that bf almost immediately began to sweat. my meatballs (all two of them) were barely sauced and nearly pink on the inside. and flavorless. and the sauce in the spaghetti was spicy, too. like not a good spicy. like i need more water over here spicy. pronto!

so we stopped eating. and started waiting. and waiting. and just about the time we were ready to trip the next server that whisked by a-la-bud-light style and ask for the manager, susan magically appeared again to ask how everything was. so we told her. in no uncertain terms. that we didn’t care for either of our meals, to which she offered an alternative, but seeing as how all but the (one) alfredo dish has the same sauce, we politely declined. she offered to go talk to the manager for us. we said great. and then began waiting again. for about five minutes. when she returned, she said the meals had been taken off our ticket, and as an added gesture, we were to be given dessert. so i once again thought, you know, maybe there could be a glimmer of hope.

but no. because it was fully another 12 minutes later, just about the time we were ready to scratch a note of abandonment on the fabric tablecloth that the manager herself finally appeared to deliver our desserts. what on earth took the ample staff so long to get to ready-made desserts from the display cooler in the front, back to the kitchen onto the larger plates and then back to our table i’ll never know. but by the time she did, i had dug around in my now cold spaghetti and discovered the intact bay leaf that had been in the sauce. so i took the opportunity to comment to the manager that, as a cook, i know the dangers of leaving the leaves in the sauce (which include choking, esophagus scratches and cuts and even… death). now, remember i said something earlier about the marinating time of sauce? well, we then went on to tell her of the spicy experience with the sauce, and this is the story we got (i shit you not):

“oh, yes, well, we had several complaints about the sauce being too spicy yesterday, too, but we thought that we’d used up that batch of sauce today (hence the spaghetti lunch special, i surmise) and you know, of course, the later it gets, the longer the sauce marinates so it just gets spicier… and i guess when we dumped the little bit of sauce from yesterday into today’s batch to kind of even out the spiciness it didn’t really work, heheheheh… so anyway, we’re sorry about that.”

which made me feel so much better. to know that i was eating yesterday’s leftovers. that had apparently been “marinating” all damn day today. and that was supposedly acceptable.

needless to say, i was not impressed. not with our server. not with the manager. and certainly not with la trattoria. which, by the way, sounds like italian for “the trots.”

ugh.

and i do.

it takes a bit of patience, but my beautiful pumpkin pie had the most adorable maple leaves around it this year. the autumny glisten? achieved with some cinnamon-sugar mix and a bit of egg white. the golden crust? cut the edge off an empty pie pan and invert it over the top of the pie as it bakes. the tantelizing flavor of the pumpkin? never, ever, use pumpkin pie spice. always mix your cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger yourself.

But a little birdy I follow tells me that the H-Town-ChowDown had a similar experience.

So just in case you weren’t convinced when I told you the other day that it’s probably not the best pizza you’ll ever have – you don’t have to take my word for it. Look around, you’ll see.

so we went last night, and here’s what happened… brace yourself.

first, we went downstairs and were seated immediately, which was fabulous, considering we’d arrived at 7:30, the peak of dinner time. Our server, Jackie, a cute little thing, brought us the menus and wine list. She asked if we’d been in before and gave us her spiel about how great it was, the reverse osmosis filtering of the water to make it authentic like in The Bronx. we requested water and i, after reviewing my choices, asked if they had a sangria. blankly, she looks over the wine list herself and says no. well, gee, thanks. so she asks what kind of wines i do like, i say zinfandels. a quick glance at the list confirms that no, they don’t have any real choices there, either. so i agree to try a coppola shiraz blend and off she goes to get it. when she returned a few minutes later, i tasted it and was completely put off. there was no way i was going to be able to consume it. she takes it away (no charge, thankfully) and upon returning offers me… pepsi? no, i say. so we stick with water…only to realize later that she could have, but didn’t, offer me something else from the bar. which was of course pretty well stocked.

meanwhile, we’ve been reviewing the relatively limited menu and have discovered it lacks green peppers as a topping selection. so we ask jackie, ‘do you have green peppers?’ she says, well, yeah, on one of the pizzas, called a ehm… well, its got beef and onions and green peppers and it tastes sort of like a philly cheese steak… but no, we don’t have peppers on any other pizzas.’ so i say to her, ’so you have specialty pizzas that aren’t on the menu?’ and she says no, just the one, but they don’t have the little stand up cards yet that have the specials on them yet, they’ll be in next week. so i say, okay, so do you have any other specials tonight? and she says no, just the one.

and did she tell us this when we arrived? no. and did she offer to let us have green peppers, which they must have for the “special” pizza, on our pizza? no. but she does ask if we need more time to decide. which we didn’t really, but it got her to go away again, which was good. cause she was getting on my last damn nerve. when she came back a few minutes later, pen and pad in hand, boyfriend says, “okay, we’ll have a large with italian sausage, roasted red peppers and garlic” at which point she takes the pen away from the pad, looks at him incredulously and says, “a large? for just you two?? are you planning on taking some of it home?”

i raise an eyebrow. boyfriend pauses, opens his mouth then closes it. pauses again and then says, “no, we’re going to eat the whole thing,” his voice acidically dripping with sarcasm. she replies, “you’re joking, right?” and we both make our best effort to laugh this off. despite the fact that she really is at this point being downright rude. so he says, “yeah.” to which she now replies, “okay, so that was pepperoni and what, again?” which was the last straw. i said “no.” boyfriend says, “no. it was… you know, can we get another server?”

so she takes our menus away, walks away, and eventually here came the manager on duty. we explain to ronald these past few minutes of exchanges, he apologizes profusely and takes our order himself to put in. he then sent jessica over from the bar to take care of us the rest of the night. she was attentive, polite, conversational. ronald came back around to ensure we were taken care of properly and asked us to save room for dessert as he was providing it.

so as for the pizza, yes, it’s very different than you’re used to. i can’t say that i’ve found my winner in my quest for the perfect pizza, but it was good. despite the limeted amount of available toppings, those that we had were flavorful. it was a thin crust that didn’t turn to mush. and incidentally, a large was enough for us to each eat a quarter and take the rest home, as we planned to do anyway. later, ronald had jackie bring our cheesecake to us for whatever reason; perhaps jessica was drawing beers at the bar or whatnot. she did so by sliding it onto the table as she passed by, barely pausing. no apology. no thank you. not a word.

at the end of the experience, we thanked ronald, telling him he had an interesting last name (as he had introduced himself as “ronald manageronduty” – he talked fast). we thanked jessica for very good service and tipped her well. and, alas, we asked her to give jackie some pointers on how to be a better server.

puhleez.

so go to grimaldi’s. experience it for yourself. you might like it. we did. you might love it. you just might want to ask that you’re not seated in jackie’s section.

i’m just sayin’.