Category: Daily Life

I went to a dinner party last night with a bunch of friends and rather than just buy a bottle of wine, I figured I’d make and bring some brownies. I have a great scratch recipe and once I’d mixed them up, I just started adding extra ingredients and didn’t stop until I ran out of ideas.

They were awesome! I think I ate four of them, which is a LOT for me. Here’s the recipe in case you want to try them yourself.

Fully Loaded Brownies

1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup coconut flakes
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup mini marshmallows

Blend melted butter, sugar and vanilla. Add eggs, beat well with spoon. Combine flour, cocoa, baking power and salt; gradually add to egg mixture. Stir in nuts, coconut, chocolate chips and marshmallows. Bake in a greased 9" square pan at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 30 minutes or until center seems firm. Let cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Today it’s been three weeks since I last had caffeine. I didn’t think I could live without coffee, but apparently I was wrong. I’ve discovered that decaffeinated coffee is just plain icky, but that I like herbal tea. I had to find a coffee alternative quickly because my social life wouldn’t be the same without coffee shops.

I’ve turned my back on caffeine before, but never for as legitimate a reason as I have this time around. My acid reflux had gotten well-nigh unbearable and the doctors were all pretty unhelpful about it. I admit I was thinking to myself early on, "Yes, I could follow their evil food restriction guidelines, but I shouldn’t have to!"

Well, I did have to if I wanted any relief from stomach, chest and throat pain.

When it comes to breakfast, I tend to eat as though I stepped out of a 1950s speculative documentary about THE FUTURE! "Each day, Jane unwraps a nutrition bar that provides her with 180 calories and 10 grams of protein."

I was starting to get the idea that having the same flavor of Luna bar for breakfast every single day might not be doing my stomach any favors. I’ve now switched to a daily bowl of vanilla yogurt topped with fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and some granola. It’s a lot more satisfying than a peanut butter flavored bar and probably has more nutrition to boot.

I’m on yet another acid reflux medication called Aciphex (pronounced
"ace-if-ex" by the doctor, even though you and I both know that it’s
spelled "ass-if-ex") and it seems to have helped a lot. Maybe if I keep the spicy, fatty foods to a minimum I can eventually stop taking it altogether.

At first, having to give up foods and beverages I like made me feel like a petulant toddler. Now that it’s actually helping me, though, I’m a lot more sanguine about the whole thing. It’s amazing what you’ll trade for freedom from pain.

Ahhh, how I enjoyed my four-day weekend. Here are a few of the things I learned (or was reminded of) over the last several days:

I sure love naps. In fact, I took a nap every day this weekend and I’m not talking about little catnaps. No, I mean good, solid two- or three-hour deep sleeps. No wonder I’m always so exhausted at the end of every workday.

It’s very freeing to have a blank calendar. My husband and I didn’t plan anything this weekend except recording and a trip to the cemetery where his mother and stepfather are buried. It was nice to just hang out at home for several days. That’s why we travel well together – we’re both content to sit back and see what happens.

Catnip is the perfect icebreaker for any cat party.

I’m ready to get back to work. As nice as it was to have the time off, I’m all set to get back to the office and get some things done.

How was your weekend?

I’ve reached the halfway point in my four-day weekend and so far I’m enjoying it very much. Friday wasn’t quite the work-free day I had hoped for, but yesterday was perfect.

Friday morning started out nicely with coffee (well, chamomile tea – I’m still off caffeine) and conversation. There was much discussion of the "Lost" season finale, which is endlessly fascinating to anyone who watches and deadly boring for anyone who doesn’t. Sorry, Bruno.

After that, I went to get an overdue oil change. From the previous workday’s outcome, I knew I was going to need to do some work, but I was counting on taking care of it via the high-speed Internet access in the car dealer’s waiting room. Uh, not so much. Their crappy network cable with the tab broken off had finally stopped working.

As soon as my car was ready, I had no choice but to drive a half-hour back to the office and get my project done there. I got it all wrapped up in about an hour and rejoined my husband so we could take my car in for installation of my early birthday gift: new stereo speakers. They sound awesome and we’ve been driving around playing our favorite songs at high volume ever since.

In the early evening I picked up my niece to spend the night at our house. My husband had a gig, so my niece and I had dinner out (Fazoli’s. Her choice. Ick.), made chocolate chip cookies (again) and watched cartoons until I got so tired that I made us both go to bed.

In the morning I had the idea to go to the City Market, have breakfast at Succotash and shop for fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, everyone else in the metropolitan area had the same idea. We tried three separate parking lots but could never get a spot, so we finally gave up and had McDonald’s. Sigh.

Once my niece went home, I went to breakfast again with my husband, took a long nap and recorded several vocal tracks for one of our songs.

We finished out the evening by going to a bar to meet up with Dee of Voices in My Mind, along with Caroline and NSP. I couldn’t find them right away, so after a couple of false starts approaching tables full of women and asking "Are you the bloggers?" I decided to just go ahead and order dinner. It turned out that they were sitting right beside us, so we had a little time to chat before the first band started and between bands.

The opening band, which was billed as the headliner but apparently screwed themselves with the play order, had two band members we knew: our bass-player-for-a-millisecond Sanjeev (now going by "Steve" again) and a guitarist that my husband had met before.

We stayed until about midnight, then went home and watched this year’s VH-1 Rock Honors show until I started falling asleep.

Today’s plans: breakfast, recording, lunch, recording, dinner, recording and maybe a movie. We’re getting this CD done, damn it! 🙂

Last night I watched Tuesday night’s series finale of "Veronica Mars" and the season finale of "Lost."

"Veronica Mars" just made me sad. It was clearly meant as a season finale, but then the show got cancelled, so that meant that none of the loose ends will ever be tied up. Sigh.

"Lost" was freakin’ awesome. I actually felt as though I understood things better once I’d worked them through my subconscious as I slept. How many shows engage your imagination to that extent, I ask you?

So apparently the island is at the locus of numerous parallel universes. Once you’re there, it’s highly unlikely that you’d be able to go back to your own universe (and Jack’s flash-forwards suggest a scenario in which they did get "rescued," only to end up in the wrong reality), which is why Ben is so adamant that everyone stay put. I assume that Jacob is caught somewhere between universes and I have an inkling that more than one universe’s Richard is in play.

Do I understand any of what I’ve just said? Not so much, although I have decades of science fiction reading under my belt to help me grasp the basic ideas. There’s still a lot to figure out, but there are several more seasons left for that. My show-meter was tipping toward "Heroes" for most of the season, but I think "Lost" is back at the top again now. If you’re a "Lost" watcher, what did you think?

* * * *

Cat update: Xena’s antibiotics seem to be working. She’s been hanging out with us (she likes to pretend to suckle on my fluffy robe, which is cute and sad at the same time), and I think she’s about a day or two away from giving in and playing with Velvet.

This is my last workday of the week and I’m going in early to make sure I get everything finished before I leave. Have a lovely Thursday!

As long as I’m sitting around waiting for my husband to wake up, I figured I’d do a post that covers everything I’ve done since my last post. This is how I plan on inching my way back to daily posts. Think it’ll work?

On Friday night, my husband and I dropped by our neighborhood animal shelter and I later came back and spent a couple of hours playing with all their cats. It turns out that one of the cats there is an Internet celebrity: Adolph, who is featured on the Cats That Look Like Hitler site.

I told them I was looking for another young cat to play with Xena. They had a number of cats that were around a year old and, of course, quite a few older ones. Fully half of the cats they had were black and I could envision the new cat and Xena racing around our house like evil twins.

My two favorites were an 11-month-old named Cleo and one named Velvet that they estimated to be about 4-5 years old. I would have ruled out Velvet due to her age, but she was pulling out all the stops to sell herself to us. The shelter people told me that she’s always game to chase and play with one of their yearlings, so that sounded promising, too.

Both cats that I liked were black, of course.

I talked it over with my husband and we’ve decided to bring Velvet into our household as a "bridge cat" between young Xena and old Velcro. We’ll go get her after breakfast today.

On Saturday, my husband and I performed at an outdoor festival with a classic rock band. As I was getting dressed, I was just about to put makeup over an ugly mole-removal scar I have on my upper right arm when it occurred to me that it would look a lot cooler to cover it up with a temporary tattoo. It really *did* look pretty cool (even though it wasn’t a specific design I would have chosen) and now my 40th-birthday-tattoo idea has started resurfacing. Maybe.

The crowd was largely indifferent, but it was a nice day and I enjoyed the outdoor time. The smatterings of applause were welcome, but the $125 apiece that my husband and I made was even more welcome!

After the gig, I went to visit my sister and we headed off to a toy store to get 250 pounds of sand for the new sandbox she had just bought for my niece and nephew. As she pulled her husband’s monster SUV out of the driveway, we heard an ugly scraping sound. I hopped out and looked underneath to see what she’d run over. "Tricycle!" I reported.

My nephew’s little red Radio Flyer trike was lodged underneath the vehicle and would NOT come loose. My sister and I both lay on the concrete of the driveway yanking it to and fro while my nephew babbled from his carseat in the car. After what must have been 20 minutes of removing bolts, folding up the tricycle and wiggling it in all directions, we finally managed to pull it free. Amazingly, it sustained almost no damage except for some scrapes to the plastic seat and rubber grips, a smudge of grease here and there, and two severed tassles.

We completed our errand and returned to my sister’s house for a lovely dinner of chicken parmesan, followed by glasses of Layer Cake Shiraz on her gazebo next to a toasty fire.

Today I was supposed to go work for my dad for a while, but he called and cancelled. Apparently he had a big day yesterday and won lots of money betting on the Preakness, so he wanted to give himself a day off. And why not?

I doubt anyone’s still reading at this point, so I’ll wrap this up, get dressed and make a loaf of banana bread. In fact, that’ll be tomorrow’s post: my great-aunt’s classic banana bread recipe. Enjoy your Sunday!

Today my company is having a cookie bake-off competition, so naturally I had to make two different kinds. I had a meeting until almost 8:30 last night, after which I went to the grocery store for baking ingredients. I didn’t get started with my first batch of cookies until about 9:15.

My friend, The Cowboy, was passing through town and showed up to spend the night at our house around the time the first dozen cookies were coming out of the oven.

I chatted with him as I baked my white chocolate chip and cherry cookies (the Toll House recipe with Ghirardelli white chocolate chips and dried cherries), followed by a batch of Coconut Lime Bars. My husband wanted to watch "Lost" while the bar cookies were in the oven, so we took time out for that.

After the baking was finished, I stood around in the kitchen talking to The Cowboy until almost 2 a.m. I knew I’d be sorry in the morning, but we just kept branching from one conversation to the next.

This morning, well, I am pretty tired. But I have two lovely competition entries and I’m caught up with a friend I hadn’t seen since last year. That makes it all worthwhile.

The big news in town for the last several days has been the FBI raids of a chain of massage parlors that were involved in human trafficking and prostitution. The one that was featured on the front page of the paper the day the story broke? Yes, it was a half mile down the street from my house.

Ever since the place opened, I’d been telling my husband that there was no way it was a legitimate clinical massage business. The name sounded wrong, the cheesy neon "Open" sign didn’t feel right and the hours – open until 11 p.m. seven days a week – just didn’t make sense. All my experience with legitimate massage therapists, who tend to lean toward New Age-y decor and limited hours, told me that there was an unwelcome presence in the neighborhood.

The day my husband called to tell me about the article in the newspaper, all I could say was, "I KNEW IT!"

It’s nice to know I can still trust my gut feelings.

Hey, remember me? I don’t blame you if you don’t.

This has been a busy couple of weeks and not always in a good way.

Last week I went to the funeral of a 33-year-old woman (the sister of someone I know), who had been gunned down at a shopping mall by a random crazy person. Talk about a stark reminder to live every day to the fullest. I’m still trying to put my thoughts in order about the whole thing.

I have a new set of color-coordinated pink photos of my esophagus, thanks to an upper esophageal endoscopy I underwent on Wednesday. I’m on yet another acid reflux medication now and I went ahead and detoxed from caffeine as long as I was sleeping off the Demerol all day anyway. I haven’t had coffee or tea since Tuesday and so far I’m doing okay with it as long as there’s Tylenol available.

Our basement flooded again on Sunday and I just finished washing all of the sopping wet laundry that was in the baskets on the floor. The main part of our house smells musty and damp and I suspect that I’m one flood away from having to remove all of the flooring from the "finished" side of the basement.

So that’s the bummer stuff. On the positive side: it’s Friday, my stomach is feeling better, it’s not supposed to rain again for a few days, I’m signed up for a 2-hour restorative yoga seminar tonight, and I should have plenty of time to work on songs this weekend. Oh, and it’s sunny outside. Things are definitely looking up.

My husband and I went to a concert at a nightclub last night. The lineup was Conquest, Lacuna Coil, Shadows Fall and Stone Sour.

I should back up and mention that ever since I went out of town last weekend for a conference, I’ve had one shoulder spasming extremely painfully. I have a chiropractor appointment today, but that didn’t help me yesterday. I had my husband put some Flexall on my upper back and shoulder and I soldiered on.

We got to the show and I was not at all put out to be asked for I.D.

It was a sold out show and the first band was playing by the time we arrived. We made our way as close to the center of the floor as possible and noticed that a mosh pit had already formed, off to the right. Note to selves: stay away from the pit.

After the opening act, we moved back into the main part of the club to get beers and a little fresher air. We noticed a great, upper level area that seemed like the perfect place from which to watch the show. Naturally it was a VIP area and we lowly peons were not allowed in. Considering that I’m acquainted with one of the club’s owners, it made me mad at myself that I hadn’t just gotten in touch with him ahead of time.

I gave up trying to reach the main bar and just bought a $5 Miller Lite from an auxiliary bar near the door. Lacuna Coil – the band we were mainly there to see – was up next.

We managed to get back to the center of the floor, but we were fenced in by gigantic men, many of them 6’5" or taller. I guess we grow ’em big in the Midwest. Seriously, though, even on my tiptoes I could barely see the stage and my husband later said that he was in the same boat.

Lacuna Coil’s lead singer is apparently rather short as well, and I only got a bare handful of glimpses of her performance.

I was interested in seeing how a metal crowd would react to a female vocalist and, as far as I could determine, they reacted pretty much the same as they would to a male vocalist. I did hear one fan near me shout out an anatomically-questionable desire, but it sounded sincere, if that makes any sense.

The mosh pit remained a looming threat, particularly as crowd surfers tended to end up back on their feet not far from us. More than one pumped-up mosher shoved his way out of the pit in our direction, but fortunately no fights broke out.

There were still two bands left to go when Lacuna Coil finished their set, but my husband and I had had all the crowd and heat we could stand already. My shoulder was aching and so was my back. We left and were home watching "Heroes" before 9:30.

I know it sounds crazy that we’re actively working on a heavy metal album when we can’t even make our way through a few hours in a concert crowd. However, it’s a lot easier to perform eight or nine songs and then go sit down backstage than it is to stand in a sweaty crowd all evening. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.