The Spice of Life

I am a firm believer that basil is the spice of life, despite everyone else insisting that variety has that title.

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Pandora keeps telling me that I can add variety to a station, wondering if they might be permitted to show me how to do so. I already know the process, and am simply not interested. But it does cause me to wonder what strange combinations might be found by merging some of my stations.

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Byzantine Chant with Iron Maiden, perhaps? Or Journey with Beethoven? Merging my Coldplay station with my The Killers station would be fairly anticlimactic, I am sure. But some others might prove interesting.

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Perhaps when I am feeling more bored and adventurous. Possibly when unable to sleep some late night, tired of playing solitaire, I shall add some spice to my apparently drab stations.

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Blessings on your travels,

Emily.

Winter is Apple Pie Time

I have never associated apple pie with summertime, although many people seem to do so. Summertime is too hot for much cooking - heating up the oven does not make much sense when the air conditioner is trying its hardest to keep the house cool. Winter is when we bake. It has always made sense to me, even when I did not understand about utility bills.

My mother makes the best apple pie crust I have ever had. I make a fairly decent one, following her (incredibly simple) recipe, but she has the touch. Her crust recipe makes a little bit more than needed for the size of pie pans we have, and so part of her making an apple pie was always to also make a cinnamon pie. Cinnamon pie is essentially pie crust rolled out on a cookie sheet, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, and baked. It is delicious.

It is also very messy. One of the house rules was that cinnamon pie was to be eaten on the front porch. In the winter. I remember standing out front, all bundled up and shivering, eating cinnamon pie with my sister. Because it was worth the cold.

My mother made apple pie last week, and a cinnamon pie to go with it, of course.

I sat carefully at the table, leaning over my plate and biting ever so gently, and then thanked her for not making me stand outside.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily.

Five Things

One: Facebook tells me that today is Josh's birthday. My engagement calendar tells me that Wednesday the ninth is. I am not sure which to believe. My impulse is to believe my engagement calendar, because I have had friends who put down false dates for various reasons. Of course, I do not know why Josh would do that. I also do not know why I would have the wrong date written down. I am more likely to make a mistake about this than Josh is, though. Happy birthday, dear friend.

Two: I have seven school days left until the end of the semester. In that time, I have two days of classes (though only one left of research methods. and the people rejoiced.), two sessions of clinic, one session of APD diagnostics, two final exams, two final projects, and one final presentation. I feel much less overwhelmed than one might expect from that list. I actually feel that that is adequate time for everything and that all will be well at the end of this next week and a half. I certainly am looking forward to break, though.

Three: I am frustrated at my Dad and his constant refusal to try new or unfamiliar things, especially food. "Oh I love Thai food! But I do not like peanut sauce. Or coconut milk. Or curry." "Well, Mexican's all right when your mom makes it," (which means chicken burritos) "but I do not really like Mexican restaurant food." Gah. I love trying new foods and it makes me upset when he will not.

Four: It is freaking cold here, and I miss California. I am all for winter, and snow. But right now it is too cold and too dry to snow, so it is mostly just miserable and windy.

Five: A coworker wants to set me up with another coworker (whom I have met once). I am not sure how I feel about this.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily.