Just had to leave the office and go home to check in on everyone after I got the alarming message that our kitchen had exploded. Sita had lit the oven to make toast for her and Pat. The flame had gone out and the kitchen smelled of gas. She tried to light it again, only to have it explode, shunting the cupboards to the side of it about 4 inches, blowing open the doors and firing all the hobs/rings all over the kitchen. Obviously just the wrong combination of butane and air… Sita got off with a ringing in her ears and a sudden crowd of neighbours and Avon ladies advising her to eat bread to get over the shock… Blimey. Quite a morning. Anyroad, it looks like the stove´s alright and after putting things back in their place Sita seems OK too, and luckily she´s got the ever-reliable Pat for company. Looks like it´ll be The Waffle Factory on Avenida Mexico for breakfast though… The photo is of my little desk in me office, there’s a couple more photos on Flickr of the view of the plaza and the bar where Sita and I met, and where we took Pat last night before a meal of Ropa Vieja in the Cuban restaurant, La Bodeguita del Medio.
In other news, we’ve decided on Mazamitla for this weekend’s getaway, 90 minutes drive south of Guad on the other side of Chapala. Pictures will be forthcoming. Whether you like it or not 🙂
Seems like everyone’s gone or is going to the beach. Anyroad, not complaining, I’ve had my fair share of holidays of late. Still waiting for various projects to materialise. Next week should be busy if the people who’ve said they’ve stuff for me to do give me stuff…
So today I played a lot of Scrabble, getting back in the 1000s again. There’s a shake-up of the SOWPODS (UK/international -USA version) allowed words in a month or so so that’s going to throw me off for a bit if they mess with my 2-letter words. I’d like to put in a request for “Zot”, Sita assures me it’s the sound anteaters make and it must have been an oversight when they wrote the dictionary.
Also got inspired by a comment on this flowery photo saying that they look like Trollz so I did meself a photoshopped hybrid monstery thing:
And also I started buggering around with the e-commerce plugin for wordpress. Seems alright, i’m having some issues with permalinks and .htaccess, but nothing insurmountable. They hard part is thinking of products. Vaguely considering some framed photography with frames from Tonala. Very, very much in progress here don’t be surprised to see an illegible mess… And if things stay quiet this week, then I’ll be rejigging this blog page yet again, cos I can’t get it to display right in (accursed, plagues be upon it) IE 6.
Other stuff… Spanish phrase of the week, courtesy of the taxi driver from the airport: Una lluvia mojapendejos. A type of rain that only idiots* would get wet in. Ie. short and sweet.
* insert regional slang of choice here. Twunt for example…
I was looking around friends’ blogs for inspiration today (cos I promised to post more often even if I’ve nothing much to write about) and I remembered Flash had recently unearthed the Things you love beginning with… meme. Way back in 2006 I got W. This time (via Skype chat)…
[8:37:38 AM] Gwyn says: Oy, Flash! Give us a letter for that meme. You gave me a W last time and I need some inspiration. (thanks 🙂 ) [8:37:59 AM] Flash says: you want a different letter? [8:38:05 AM] Gwyn says: yep [8:38:11 AM] Flash says: *thinks* [8:38:17 AM] Flash says: P [8:38:20 AM] Gwyn says: yay! [8:38:20 AM] Flash says: ok? [8:38:21 AM] Gwyn says: thanks [8:38:24 AM] Flash says: np!
10 things I love beginning with P:
Parents, Phoning home
If it weren’t for skype, cheap international phone calls and the internet I wouldn’t be living so far away from home. Hi Mum & Dad!
Mum and Dad dans les Antibes... récemment. Photo by Jill Lisk I think.
Photography (+Picasa)
Here’s one from the other day. It looks like an apple, but is actually an acorn.
Fell
Chose focal black and white in Picasa’s options menu, waved my magic mouse and uploaded it to Flickr. Photography is one of the most rewarding hobbies I have, not just taking photos but admiring and being inspired by other people’s too. Also it brings you little moments to treasure like Atticus finally overtaking “Dead Horse” in the LA Times and being the 2nd Best Animal at time of writing… I promise I only voted once. The votes have nothing to do with the judges so here’s hoping he gets printed in the LA Times paper edition this Sunday…
Potatoes
I could live on these exclusively for months. Like I did through most of university. I reckon the antiscience hicks have it all wrong and that spuds, rather than bananas, are the real “Atheist’s nightmare“…
Planting stuff in the jardin.
I won’t call it growing veggies just yet. That would be premature. I enjoyed the actual planting, even if the resulting rows of slug-eaten greenery is not (and may never be) fit for human consumption. The herbs’re doing grand though and the dandelions are thriving.
Peep Show
The facebook group has it about right: “If you don’t like Peep Show, you’re probably not worth knowing.” Harsh, but fair.
Pratchett, Terry
and his lovely discworld series. I started reading them when I was 13 or so and have read them all in order ever since. They’re enjoying a bit of a renaissance at the minute round here as Powells Books has a fair few used copies on sale. I’m still patiently waiting for Making Money to come out in paperback Stateside.
Pasties & al Pastor, Tacos
I’m going to have to get back to Mexico soon if only to gorge on Tacos al Pastor again.
Pasties are also missed, though we had the Chilean version round a colleague of Sarita’s house the other day, empanadas. Lighter pastry, an olive, egg and raisins got added to the recipe when it travelled south. Wikipedia has some handy pasty facts… “It is said that a good pasty should be strong enough to endure being dropped down a mine shaft.”
PCs
Yeah, they crash occasionally. Yeah, some of my drivers stopped working with Vista. Yeah, Microsoft… But when PCs go wrong I can usually fix them, swapping out some part for another cheaply bought one, or messing with the registry. When your Mac goes wrong, it goes wrong. Usually in spectacular/ expensive fashion.
I got my first PC from Drsita’s dad, Martin when I started at UMass in August 2000. I’d probably still be trying to teach Spanish to spoilt teenagers now if it wasn’t for him.
Parks
Parks are good. They used to be for drinking cider and playing guitar in, now they’re for being dragged through by a 25lb + schipperke.
Pubs
Though it turns out it’s not the place, it’s the company. Still working on finding some Portland pub peeps.
Posters
I seem to be making lots of posters lately. Here’s today’s…
I was planning to do some kind of E-advent calendar- I only just realised it’s december, that means there’s already 2 chocolates waiting to be devoured- anyroad, it may still happen. In the meantime, I never got round to posting any Mexico photos from last year. I had planned to write a novel of some sort, but instead I took about a thousand photos and learnt how to use photoshop. I was a bit too enamoured with the photo border plug-ins, but have a look at a sample of pix from the trip here
Just had to leave the office and go home to check in on everyone after I got the alarming message that our kitchen had exploded. Sita had lit the oven to make toast for her and Pat. The flame had gone out and the kitchen smelled of gas. She tried to light it again, only to have it explode, shunting the cupboards to the side of it about 4 inches, blowing open the doors and firing all the hobs/rings all over the kitchen. Obviously just the wrong combination of butane and air… Sita got off with a ringing in her ears and a sudden crowd of neighbours and Avon ladies advising her to eat bread to get over the shock… Blimey. Quite a morning. Anyroad, it looks like the stove´s alright and after putting things back in their place Sita seems OK too, and luckily she´s got the ever-reliable Pat for company. Looks like it´ll be The Waffle Factory on Avenida Mexico for breakfast though… The photo is of my little desk in me office, there’s a couple more photos on Flickr of the view of the plaza and the bar where Sita and I met, and where we took Pat last night before a meal of Ropa Vieja in the Cuban restaurant, La Bodeguita del Medio.
