What can one say about the four game sweep that hasn't already been said? Nothing. It was, as has already been reported, exciting, fun, dramatic, satisfying and awesome. And more.
On watching the last two games: not having broadcast TV and not getting enough of a baseball fix via the radio, I walked over to the closest local bar to watch games 3 and 4. What fun! Saturday night was surprisingly not crowded, but the two guys I sat next to were interesting and fun to chat with. The Manhattans were delicious and were only $4 each, a bargain! Good game, fun and not expensive. Last night was a little busier, at least in the early innings. By the last innings it was really hopping, and lots of fist bumps, lots of high fives, lots of baseball talk. Even if you didn't love the Giants, you had to love good baseball, and we got that. At the end of the game there was a lot of screaming, a lot of hugging strangers and lots of shots bought by everyone...... I enjoyed two glasses of wine during the game and two shots of Jack in the three minutes after the game and ducked out of there before I could get in serious trouble.
There are few things more enjoyable than watching the World Series in a bar with strangers. With your friends there is always the subtext of what's going on with each other and the concentration just isn't there. In the bar, with the express purpose of Watching The Game, there is no personal chat except during commercials and that is usually baseball related. Bottom line, you don't have to talk if you don't want to and no one cares. But you can talk a little and learn tidbits about the team or the game and it's nice. And celebrating a victory with people who mean nothing to you except that they are very big team fans is, honestly, a thrill.
Go Giants! What a ride!
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One of the side benefits to working at a bed and breakfast inn is that you always have a place to do your laundry. One of the side benefits to having no such job and no laundry facilities at your home is that you get to go to the Laundromat!
I fully understand that many people have an aversion to laundromats. When you mention that you are planning an outing to the local washeteria many people get a disgusted look on their face because they have not had pleasant experiences at the washing/drying place. Some people get a sad look on their face because they feel sorry for you; your life has been reduced to this dismal state and it's much too sad to contemplate. Many people get the disgusted look AND the sad look, at the same time.
However, I like the Laundromat. It's very efficient, you can wash and dry every thing you own in an hour, it has one purpose and doesn't have airs of pretense and sometimes you meet interesting characters. The laundering facility near my Santa Rosa home is just a couple of blocks away, so rather convenient. Today I did three loads of wash and was out in just over an hour.
There are sometimes (well, often) people in the laundromat who are not doing laundry, but are just hanging out there with their phones. I assume these are people without homes, but maybe they are simply people who have no dirty clothes and need a place to transact some lucrative side business and what better place than a laundromat! There are often people doing laundry and conversing with their invisible friends at the same time. Sometimes they yell loudly at these invisible friends, sometimes they swear at the I.F. and sometimes they take a swing at their I.F. All while getting their clothes clean. It's like a little theater show, albeit with no plot or scene changes.
This particular place has many machines so I have never had to wait around for a washer or a dryer. Smash clothes into the washing machine, be sure to bring a book, read for 27 minutes while the clothes wash, then pop them into dryers, read a little more, then start pulling out clothes as they dry. Honestly, in an hour you get entertainment and clean clothes. Too bad it isn't free..... that's the only down side, it costs a couple of bucks for each washing machine and almost a dollar for 15 minutes of drying time. But still, it breaks up the day, is amusing at times and has function.
The photo below is exactly what the dryers look like at my local spot. Two rows of dryers...... no waiting!
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Ate at a local restaurant last weekend with Steve and had a great time and a very good meal. The Spinster Sisters has been around for a short time but just moved into a new spot and it's a good place for a restaurant. Street parking, sort of a residential neighborhood on the edge of some commercial businesses as well. Good reviews. We got there early, a bit before 6:00, place was pretty empty.
The menu is mostly small plates with a couple of "big" plates as well. We split four small plates and had a good bottle of wine from Chile (under $30) and everything was good. Our four choices were a country duck terrine, lamb sausages (merguez), grilled calamari and pork belly. Each came with a salad or some kind of accouterments.
Duck terrine: country style, so it was chunky, not smooth like a pate. With cornichons and a seeded mustard and grilled bread. Very good, nice duck taste, the bread and the pickles and mustard were perfect.
Lamb sausages: they were good and there was a little curry yogurt sauce that was fine but they were served on a bed of red quinoa. To be clear, I like quinoa, I eat it often but I don't want it when I go out to eat. It's a health food, in my mind, not something to eat when you want yummy-ness.
Calamari: delicious. Tender and juicy, served with a Thai-styled slaw, some peanuts on top. Sometimes grilled calamari is tough or tasteless. This was neither, and the crispy salad was the perfect foil for the softness of the calamari.
Pork belly: what can I say about pork belly? It is pretty much wrong on all levels except those that count: Taste! Lusciousness! Texture! There were four generous strips of belly, served on top of something that was good but I can't remember what it was. The pork belly was so good it erased my memory of anything else on the plate. It had been roasted or baked until tender and succulent and then somehow fried or sauteed until the outside was crispy, like cracklins, with the inside still soft. I am drooling just thinking about it right now. Perfect. If the restaurant was within walking distance of where I live, I would be putting on my shoes right now to get some of that pork belly. It is the stuff dreams are made of. Well, if you like to dream about pork, that is.
So, to recap: the only thing we didn't finish was the red quinoa. Every other dish was licked clean. An order of four plates was the perfect amount. The wine was delicious, the service was stellar the the entire bill, including the wine, was under $75 with tax. We tipped generously. A very good meal for under $75, including a bottle of wine? How crazy is that?
Their website directs you to Facebook, which I think is a detriment. Also, when we left the restaurant around 7:00, it was packed and it was noisy. They have a bar which would be great for me (!) to sit at when I go by myself later this coming week and indulge in my pork belly fixation.
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It's been a couple of weeks since I posted anything here, not that too many people check in on a regular basis. First, I was gone for a week and therefore did not have access to my computer, nor did I want to touch any computer during that time. I spend way too much time on it these days.
Then when I returned home I foolishly tried to download something that would have given me access to the major league baseball playoffs. A friend recommended it so I thought "why not?" Why not, indeed! I forgot that my laptop is old, cranky, stubborn and does not like new things. "I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I am" could be the motto of this computer. It doesn't even like me to play new kinds of solitaire! Freezes up like a guilty man in front of the judge. Nothing, nada. That's what happened this past week. Nothing, wouldn't load up anything. I could reboot but it just sat there, cursor blinking, defying me, laughing at my feeble attempt to watch a baseball game. At one point I had it in my hands, raised over my head, about to throw it across the room. Sanity prevailed for an instant, I put it down and just walked away. For a week I walked to the library and used their computer or I checked for jobs through my kindle.
Finally, yesterday, a day of rest, the Lord's day to many, I stealthily sneaked up on it, gently turned it on and waited. After about five minutes it loaded Windows. Very, very slowly. But I was able to eventually uninstall some programs that it had tried to load and can now actually use it. It's old and laptops don't last forever. I think, once I get a new job, it will be replaced.
Moving on: Zucchini. This year has been a rather abundant year for zucchini. Not only do friends give me zukes, but the community garden has some out for the taking and we have three huge plants here in my little backyard. Zucchini is like the chicken of the the vegetable world. You can do almost anything to it and it's happy. Steam, bake, broil, grill, saute. With other tasty things or on it's own, it is always serviceable and sometimes down-right delicious. For most of the summer my go-to zuke prep was thinly sliced, tossed into a hot frying pan in which I had just toasted some chopped almonds in olive oil, thirty seconds or less it was done. Salt and pepper, quite tasty. I sometimes sliced it lengthwise and grilled it. I made zucchini bread, sliced it and froze it; now I can take out a piece and toast at will.
But my best preparation was this weekend: zucchini fritters. Fritters are always great but these were so good I ate the entire batch for dinner. If you do it correctly, there is not much oil that gets absorbed, they are actually pretty good for you since they are mostly vegetables and you can sprinkle some finely grated Parmesan cheese on top or top with a dollop of sour cream. I didn't have sour cream but I stirred a little lemon juice and a little Sambal Oelek (chile paste) into some non-fat greek yogurt , used it as a dipping sauce and it was perfect. The recipe is here: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2011/08/zucchini-fritters/ and I didn't change anything except the scallions. I didn't have any so substituted a generous tablespoon of finely diced onion. It was perfect. Two thumbs up, I guarantee you will love them.
Finally, jobs. I have been applying like crazy, but of course no response, except for a response from Whole Foods Market. They advertised for a deli person, which I can do. I applied on-line, got a call the next day. Their side of the conversation went something like this: "The shifts are from 6:00 am to 2:00 pm or 2:00 to 10:00 pm. But you have to be available to work either shift on any given day. Your schedule will change every week. You will get two days off but they will not be consecutive days and they will not be on the weekend, and those days off will also change every week. Are you interested?" My response: "So sometimes I will work from 2:00 to 10:00 and then be back the next day to work the 6:00 shift in the morning?" Them: "Yes, that happens about half the time." Plus I would have to work whatever holidays they are open.
Now, this is for the grand sum of $11.35 per hour before taxes are taken out! Which is certainly more money that I will get from unemployment but it is definitely not enough to pay rent and health insurance. Needless to say, I declined. For one thing, it is simply not enough money. For the other, what would I do with little Cooper? I could probably arrange care for early morning or the evening, at around $50 a day (which wouldn't leave me a lot of take-home pay) but not for a varying shift! Or I could turn him back into the Humane Society, as many people are forced to do. Or I could just say no. I picked door number three and said no.
That's my Monday morning report. Back to the job search, and with the retarded speed of my computer, it's going to be a long, slow slog. Ah well, I certainly have enough time on my hands!
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These are both instant downloads if you do the Amazon thing or have a Roku player, the small english muffin sized purple amazing device.
"Take Me Home" A true indie movie, no stars but several of the players are related, obviously made on a budget but truly made well. Two out-of-sorts people taking a long road trip, get kind of connected, sort of share a little of their lives, almost like each other at the end. Yes, it sounds vague. It is in the beginning, isn't in the end but I don't want to give too much away. The guy drives a renegade cab, the woman gets into it and wants to go from NYC to California. All that time in a cab, well you can predict what happens. Except it doesn't. It's charming (which I usually steer away from) and nice and the script is good and the actors are quite fine. It seems like it could happen, the dialogue is real and it made me tear up (not hard right now) and also made me laugh out loud and smile several times. It's not long so put it on your instant queue, make some popcorn on a quiet night and check it out. It carries you along for the ride and in the end you will be glad you paid the fare.
"Rare Birds" This has been on my queue for a while because it stars William Hurt, whom I always like. This is such a quiet role that it seems odd to say he "stars" in it. Whatever. (Made about ten years ago, it also has Molly Parker, one of the key actors in "Deadwood." ) The story isn't important (well, the set up of the story seems important at the moment but it just serves to drive the plot) but the characters drive the movie. Slow at times (but it's supposed to be that way) and worth the wait. Again, nothing great happens except the characters unfold nicely. A small tale of duplicitous actions but not in a mean way. Honor wins out, sort of. Check it out. Hurt is, as always, lovely to watch, his face registers so much in such small ways.
That's it for today, folks.
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Don't worry, I'm not going to belabor this issue but I do have to occasionally acknowledge it. I need to recognize a few facts about this unemployment go-round:
- Even though the economy is supposedly "on the rise" that will have little effect on my getting a job.
- The odds of my getting a decent (or even an indecent) job at the age of 62 are very slim.
- The amount of unemployment compensation I will get will be very small this time.
- I am very worried and afraid.
OK, those are my salient points. If I was the same person I was three years ago, almost to the day, that I was layed off from the oyster company, I would be spouting the party line: "something will turn up, I always land on my feet, I am not too worried, there are still jobs out there." And on and on. However, since previously I only found a job after being on the dole for two years because a friend broke her leg, I doubt that scenario is going to repeat itself this time around.
But for now all I can do is look for work, apply for jobs that I am either over or under qualified for, be willing to work for less than $15 an hour and hope for some benefits. In the meantime, which could be years, I take my cup of coffee out into the garden and watch the bees on the tall, blue-flowered salvia do their work and feel the warmth of the sun on my legs. Cooper and I take longer walks every morning and I drink less whiskey every night. (Not talking about my wine consumption, however!) I am reading a lot of books, obviously, and have a slew of them on my request list at the library. This weekend I am flying to Texas to see my beautiful daughter, a trip planned weeks ago, and I am looking forward to that. My life at this moment is on a sort of "one day at a time" calendar.
Sad and cranky and depressed, they are lurking around the corner and show up unannounced and uninvited at the most unusual times. So do tears. I am accepting them as characters in this current production. Too bad it's my life that is the script.
Cooper is laying in the sun right now. The day, so far, is lovely. We'll leave it at that.
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