chessandlena.com

Here's a NYT writeup about Sriracha, a hot sauce that I learned about years ago and use for many many things... and Lena hates many many ways. Apparently it leaves a unique aroma on the breath that defeats Russians the same way garlic defeats a vampyre.

I haven't really said anything about the Stanley Cup finals on this blog this year. Not really from any superstition about last year or anything, just from sheer busyness. But, now that the moment's come and gone, no doubt most of the readers of this blog (Hi, Jim!) are familiar with the outcome.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to focus on here. You may not know this, but game 7 was the most-watched hockey game in 36 years. Yeah, hockey!

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary. Ooooh yeah. We celebrated yesterday by going down to Indy for dinner with Salah (it was his birthday, too) at La Jolla Cantina, then a little dancing at Vogue, both in Broadripple. We're celebrating today by having severe bloating in our abdomens, along with the constant feeling that we have to dump our guts. Thanks, dubiously-sanitary restaurant!

We've gotten down to business in the former kittenry, former junk room, pending guest room. The walls now bear a coat of white primer and a coat of barely-noticeably-bluish-off-white (or, as I like to call it, "white") paint; the molding is stripped from the base of the walls, and the disturbing crack in the concrete slab has two applications of sealing pseudo-concrete, with probably two more needed. After the sealant is done, it's a coat (maybe two) of de-odorizing primer for the floor, then on to laminate flooring.

Cut the back grass today, which was attaining lush-jungle-growth status. It's also cottonwood nuclear winter in our neighborhood, which means that at any given moment for the next week or so, you will see large puffy flakes of cottonwood puff all through the air. It collects on certain lawns and in wind-dead-ends. Looks kind of pretty in a grumbly, bet-this-shit-sticks-to-my-car kind of way.

Also went shopping to Meijer, where they finally had sparkling water 2 liters (interesting, btw, that the 2-liter bottle is about the only remnant of the metric system we see commonly in the US anymore...), so I picked up a bunch. A lady standing in front of the bottled water and reading all the labels on everything asked me about them, so we talked about trying to detox from aspartame, soda, etc.

Gotta go. Dinner's ready. Chicken and potatoes. Po-ta-toes? Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew...?

Woke up this morning and sloughed my way to starbucks and into work to catch up on things... we're way behind, and with summer vacations pending, we're going to stay behind for a while. Coded and tested for four hours, finished a few things.

Hit Meijer near work for some medium grocerage... the Lima Road Meijer has better produce than Kroger and than most other Meijerseses, plus they have sparkling water for 65 cents (good way to curb my diet soda habit)... although they were out today. Harrumph. The only thing I actually go to Kroger for here is Huy Fong Sambal Oelek sauce, which is the only place I've found in town that sells it. Other places (including Meijer) sell the Sriracha sauce, but only Kroger sells the "gold label." Anyway. Medium-to-light shopping on sunday afternoons such as this can take a while, navigating the bumper-buggies and the slowness of other customers. I confess, I become somewhat of an asshole with maneuvering when the store is crowded... well, we'll call it "polite but deliberate and determined." I got out about 1 1/2 hours later. Sheesh.

And home where Lena and I are tearing up the junk room. Joy. The story of why the junk room is the junk room is long and sordid, and probably has been recounted somewhere in prior iterations of this blog, but as I've been too lazy to port the data into this drupal system, I'll give a brief synopsis now:

We got these two jokers when Lena and some friends went down to the south of Indiana to visit caves, and brought back a very starved and very pregnant cat (Afina)... whom we took to the emergency vet that night and who next day gave birth to seven, yes, seven kittens. We decided to raise them and give them away, but because we already had Maya, and because there was a clear desire on the part of Fina and Maya to murder each other a lot, we had to keep them separate... so for two months, the mama cat and her seven kittens were confined to our guest room. we kept the two and found homes for the rest. But after that two months, the room was not fit for anything. Ick. Just Ick. Thus, it became very messy storage.

And we never seemed to have money or time or desire to fix it up again. Now, we at least have the desire. So up comes the stained carpet. That's today's project. That and gawking at the newly-revealed cracks in the slab beneath our house. Joy.

PS: here are a few pictures of events in the junk room when it was not yet the junk room, but still the kittenery:

For the last few days I've been catching glimpses of what looked like a fox in the park that abuts our backyard. I'd see it for half a second while it was running full tilt between trees, or just a glimpse of a coat as it slipped along our treeline. Well, this morning I finally saw it, a good five-second look, and I knew exactly what it is.

It's a fox.

Well, c'mon, what'd you expect?

He's about 3 1/2 feet long and runs pretty fast... faster than any dog I've seen running along the same stretch in the park, at least. I'd love to try to get a picture of him, but given that I've only actually seen him full-frontal once, I think I'm about as likely to get a pic of him as I am of a lightning bolt. Still, I'll keep the camera handy.

In other news, the Judy Memorial Avian Gastronomica is up, and getting customers (although I haven't seen them yet). I'll post the backstory on that later. And also, today is S-Day for Maya.

Stankopotamus.

...from my mom's funeral back east. Although there were some good parts to the ordeal, I'm still very sad, very drained, and very tired. It feels good to get back home and pet a purring cat.

My mother died today. Here's a picture of the last time she visited us. She was ready to be friends with everybody, and was immediately interested in what they were doing. Though she spent the last years of her life riddled with pain from rheumatoid arthritis and wrestling with various health problems, she worked up until last year as a full-time nurse on the night shift. She loved kids and paying them all kinds of attention... her grandkids especially. She loved animals of all kinds, but cats and birds especially. She was strong, kind, creative, forgiving, and gentle.

I feel emptier than I ever have before. And I know it's only going to get worse for a while. Bye, Mom.