December 2006 – sunsetchaser

that time of year

By now the guests have departed, the boyfriend is doing the dishes, and other than the cat who thinks he could write a better blog entry than I (as evidenced by his insistence on walking on the keyboard), I have peace for the first time since six o’clock this morning.

Though a long one, this was a good Christmas, full of family and food. We started at my parents’ house, opening presents and eating the breakfast I spent yesterday prepping, then moved to my grandmother’s house just a couple of miles down the road, where we opened presents with the extended family, laughed, and spent a few minutes remembering the cousin who passed away earlier this year. Since those few minutes in which we pulled rubber ducks from a stocking dedicated to her, my thoughts have returned to her and her immediate family many times. This is the kind of thing I wish I could write about, or at least wonder if it would be appropriate to write about, but know that I don’t have the words.

After the presents were unwrapped, Fred and I headed back down to New Freedom to get ready for dinner with Fred’s son and his girlfriend. I made the recipe posted in the last entry, but overcooked the meat in the interest of Fred’s tastes. Never again will I cater to his poorly developed tastebuds. The sauce was excellent, but the meat was a shadow of what I believe it could have been.

Dessert, however, was good, and if you have a cooking bone in your body I highly recommend making this Winter-Spiced Molten Chocolate Cake with Rum-Ginger Ice Cream just as soon as you can.

I have come to believe that anyone who can follow a recipe can at least pass her(or him)self off as a good cook. This is the kind of cook I am. I very rarely develop new dishes, but damn am I good at following directions. You’re welcome to come to dinner anytime between now and when classes start again. I’m always looking for an excuse to make something extravagant. Just please don’t ask about the rubber duck sitting in the living room unless you like your food extra salty.

for the sake of posting

Diego’s right — I’ve got no excuse for not blogging right now. Except that I don’t particularly have anything to say. I haven’t left the house since Sunday afternoon, when we went to Ruby Tuesday for an exceptionally mediocre lunch. Since then, I’ve mostly been doing laundry, putzing around on my computer, and watching TV. Not much blogging material there.

Most of my putzing has involved using iPhoto and iDVD, both of which I like a lot, though I wish they were a little more powerful/flexible. I suppose it’s all about the balance between power and ease-of-use, and I likewise suppose it’s no surprise that the Mac software falls on the ease-of-use end of things. So not much there for me to talk about.

Other putzing has involved looking for something to make for Christmas dinner for Fred, his son, and his son’s girlfriend. Being responsible for a Christmas meal has me feeling very grown up. Not quite sure how this has happened. Anyway, I’m leaning toward Epicurious.com’s Beef Tenderloin with Roasted Shallots, Bacon, and Port, but with regular steaks instead of the whole roast since there will only be four of us eating.

More difficult than picking a recipe, though, is not feeling guilty while trying to pick a recipe when the front page of CNN.com is this:

new houses

I wanted to write this post, titled “New Houses,” right after it was confirmed that the Democrats would be controlling both the House and the Senate. It was perfect timing, you see, because the same week I began inhabiting a new house in a little town called New Freedom. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the clever connections I could make. But I didn’t write the post, and now all three new houses are old news, especially for those of you who also read Fred’s blog.

Instead of blogging, I spent most of November freaking out about my senior project, which I finally handed in (and presented) at the end of the month. McDaniel English majors usually write a 25-30 page critical paper, but last year I told my advisor I had no interest in writing such a paper and asked if I could do a creative project instead. After completing some negotiations with the department and a professor had agreed to oversee the project, I began writing a collection of poetry and a self-reflective essay to accompany the collection.

I’m glad I was able to do design a project that interested in me. But, I think it’ll be a while before I write another poem. Maybe I’ll recover over winter break. I hope so.

My last class ended at 4:30 this Thursday, I’ve got a final on Tuesday, and then a take-home final due on Thursday. Break is so close I can almost taste it.

I promise I’ll blog more frequently from mid-December through mid-January. Sorry this one is so boring. I don’t have time for anything more interesting right now, but I started receiving threats, so I figured I better post something.