So far so good

It’s been a fairly quiet year thus far, to which I have to say: whew. I’ve spent a lot of time, and even more mental energy on work stuff, but hopefully that will settle into more of a routine soon. Stuff around the house has kinda stalled, as I’m just about at the point where regular upkeep on the parts I’ve gotten cleaned up and organized takes all the time I’ve wanted to devote, so I haven’t been doing much about continuing to make it the way I want it – whatever that is. Or perhaps that has more to do with the fact that basically every next step is hard, either mentally (go through all those miscellaneous papers in my office) or physically (move some heavy furniture).

On the other hand, I have managed to have a few dates (!) with a couple different women, and it’s been nice to get out. And I got together last week with S&K for dinner at the Slanted Door (about which: Wow! – I feel like I should write a review for Yelp, because half the people on there clearly don’t get it), and we finally exchanged xmas presents. I gave KR a sampler pack of gluten-free baking mixes from Made by Mona, since she was so recently diagnosed with celiac (?) disease, and those folks seem to be well regarded. I hope they turn out well. For SD I got a pair of Carcassone-related t-shirts courtesy of meeplepeople.com, which has a lot of fun stuff. SD is always hard to buy for, since he has enough discretionary income that if he wants it he tends to have it, so one has to find the thing he’s never heard of but would want if he had. But from them, from them, oh! They got me a copy of the Bouchon cookbook by Thomas Keller, which is really the best thing. Keller is an absolute maniac, of course, but this food is at least theoretically approachable, compared to say the French Laundry Cookbook. What’s interesting is that his whole purpose is to *perfect* all the dishses, not just make them. So the technique is amazingly precise and, ok, let’s be frank, anal. But just reading it (cover to cover, and slowly – I just got into the main dishes) I am learning a lot. So I’m digging it. Especially since I got a copy for AF for her birthday a couple years ago, but from Amazon, so I had never even actually seen the inside.

Oh yeah, and I wrote a new tune at the piano last week, and completely reworked an old one, which went from frankly sentimental and rather trite to something quite bittersweet, and much more interesting. This was a pleasant surprise, as I’ve been otherwise unable to get any real practicing done this year. Although that perhaps has something to do with my new netflix subscription. Before the trial period was over, I had almost 200 items in my queue. I think they are going to be good for me.