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Nov. 3rd, 2009 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanI keep meaning to return to cataloging ordinary, everyday things, but they go on slipping by, day by day.
So, then. I just survived a hectic (for me) but very pleasant weekend.
On Friday, Eric and I went, courtesy of a set of discount tickets for first-time attenders of Orchestra Hall kindly drawn to our attention by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mrissa, to hear Beethoven's Sixth Symphony performed as part of their "Inside the Classics" series. The first hour, in which Sarah Hicks, the conductor, and the host, a violist whose name I have momentarily misplaced, discussed the structure of symphonies generally, the structure of Beethoven's, and the way the Sixth differed or did not differ from the others, was very amusing and enlightening. The second hour, when the orchestra simply played the symphony, was gorgeous. I am a musical idiot, but I loved it. We had dinner at The Local beforehand and then, because we had misremembered the time the concert started and had an hour in hand, wandered north to the Barnes and Noble and had a grand time browsing the science fiction, poetry, and religion departments.
We had a leisurely morning and early afternoon, and at around four headed over to the Minn-Stf Hallowe'en party.dreamshark was still looking for a snake to complete her costume but was very imposing anyway, as were Richard and Thorin. Eric fell at once into a game of Corsari. I had a nice chat with daedala, which I felt obliged to cut short when dd_b and lydy after all. It was just as well that I was there, however, because I suddenly remembered that the filling for chocolate tofu pie, which I had promised to bring to dinner at my mother's on Sunday, needs to chill overnight, so my plan of making it the next afternoon was flawed.
I dumped the silken tofu into the blender and started the chocolate chips melting in a double boiler, stopping frequently to check whether anybody was coming up the walk. I got a couple of groups of very small children with older siblings or young parents, it was hard to tell. Some were so bundled up that no costume was visible, but there were a Spiderman, a couple of princesses or possibly fairies, and a ghost.
When I checked the tofu for smoothness, I saw brown flakes atop it, and realized that I had never properly washed the blender after the last time I made this pie; I must have rinsed it and made sure to get the gunk out of the blades, but not finished up washing. I sighed, dumped the tofu, scrubbed the entire blender viciously, and dumped in the reserve tofu that was available because I can never persuade myself that a pie only needs one box of tofu rather than two. Around this time I texted Eric to let him know I'd be late getting back to the party, and he offered to come and keep me company. In the interim I got some groups of youngish teenagers with lovely face paint and very elaborate costumes, and also one clump of older teenagers in no costume, with pillowcases. I know a lot of people are impatient with them, but I always feel that they must need something, and all I have at the time is candy, so I give them big handfuls.
Eric arrived, and helped answer the door to several sets of trick-or-treaters, including another group of little ones with a fairy who said definitely, "I want the BLUE!" I gave her several Mounds bars, hoping she knew what was in there. He then retired to make a phone call and check for jobs on the computer, and I put the chocolate in with the tofu and went on blending.
The blender got so hot that I stopped to let it cool down. I was actually icing down the outside when I realized that, while the blender is the only tool we have that will puree tofu, the mixer would probably work fine to concatenate the tofu and chocolate. I scraped everything over, getting chocolate and tofu on myself in stripes, and finally tipped the filling into the baked crusts sometime after eight.
Eric and I walked back to the party. It was warmer than it had been earlier, and the moon and Jupiter were up. I had some nice brief chats withcowfan, who was dressed as a steampunk pirate; Linda who is, I think, NOLJ and had made a dryad costume out of a military surplus parachute in greens and browns; Erica, who is also, I think, NOLJ and who was much interested in the tofu chocolate pie recipe; minnehaha K; carbonel; and Sharon, about turtles.
On Sunday I took the bus and light rail downtown to pick up a prescription. I could have waited, but I figured that the weekend was hectic already, and if I went then, I wouldn't have to go on Tuesday. Monday was already spoken for, because my youngest brother was in town. That was why we were going to dinner at my mother's.
David had gone to Northfield in the new car, so the arrangement was that Eric would drive Lydy and me to my mom's in the Saturn. The Saturn had other ideas. Its battery was exceedingly dead, though all had been well when Eric and I used it on Tuesday. I called my mother, and she dispatched my other brother to collect us. David was there when we arrived, but there were ample appetizers and nobody complained. Dinner was very good -- salmon, roasted potatoes with rosemary, green beans cooked with tomatoes and garlic, and two salads, one with fruits, one with vegetables. The first pie was devoured. I left half the second for my mother and brothers and took the remainder home. It was extremely good to see Michael, the youngest. He lives in North Carolina, he and his wife are very busy, and they have three dogs, so visiting is a bit complicated. His wife finally made him just fly out to see us rather than trying to figure out how to bring all the dogs. They have done this before and will probably do it again, but I don't think they were altogether recovered from the previous attempt.
On Monday my mother and brothers collected me and we went to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. We grabbed a quick lunch in the cafeteria and then went down to the wildflower garden, which is the only place there that has only native plants. It was a pretty day, all gold and red and orange and blue, but very windy and cold. My brothers were having fun alternately pretending to be shocked that there were so many weeds in the beds and that nobody had moved the leaves off the house, and extravagantly admiring the shrivelled autumnal remnants of spring wildflowers. "Oh, great time of year for that bloodroot!" was a typical remark. As we were coming back out of the woods, a man in the Arboretum uniform asked if we had seen the blooming witch hazel. We went along to where he had directed us, and sure enough, there were five or six shrubs, some bare and some with yellow leaves, but all covered with thready yellow flowers.
After that we tried to take the bog trail, but the boardwalk was closed for repair. My mother chose to return to the visitor center at this point, but I went on with my brothers on the loop trail that provides access to the boardwalk. When we came to the other end of the boardwalk, also fenced off, Matt just ducked around the fence, and we followed him. The boardwalk was first firm but mossy, then rather tippy, and finally missing altogether. Matt had hoped to see some pitcher plants, since they stay red well into fall, but we couldn't find any. We came back out and continued on the loop until we reached a set of informational boards that we had seen before. We thought we must have missed the trail back up to the more formal gardens. The map was not very helpful. We floundered through the woods and ended up on a piece of Three Mile Drive. We ranged back and forth over the same stretch of it several times, trying to figure out which direction was the shortest way back to the visitor center. The map was conspicuously not to scale. It was warmer now and there were a lot of glorious orange and red oaks, but I had stupidly not brought any water and was beginning to feel a little light-headed. Finally a red Arboretum truck drove by and Michael flagged it down. It turned out that we were very close to the visitor center. Once we were headed in the right direction, the road rose up so that we could see most of the path we'd been on, and we realized that there were two identical sets of informational boards. We had one more moment of mild alarm when Mike spotted a figure in a blue coat and white cap heading down the beginning of the loop trail and thought it was my mother coming to find us. He took off running to intercept her, but returned to report that it was not she. She would have called one of our cellphones rather than haring off into the wild, but I decided not to say so.
We saw no birds or animals in the bog or woods. They were eerily empty. The Canada geese were bundled up in the pond below the iris beds, and we heard chickadees in the wildflower garden, but that was all.
I bought a metal water bottle in the gift shop and filled it up at a water fountain, and don't seem to have taken any harm from the adventure.
Pamela
So, then. I just survived a hectic (for me) but very pleasant weekend.
On Friday, Eric and I went, courtesy of a set of discount tickets for first-time attenders of Orchestra Hall kindly drawn to our attention by
mrissa, to hear Beethoven's Sixth Symphony performed as part of their "Inside the Classics" series. The first hour, in which Sarah Hicks, the conductor, and the host, a violist whose name I have momentarily misplaced, discussed the structure of symphonies generally, the structure of Beethoven's, and the way the Sixth differed or did not differ from the others, was very amusing and enlightening. The second hour, when the orchestra simply played the symphony, was gorgeous. I am a musical idiot, but I loved it. We had dinner at The Local beforehand and then, because we had misremembered the time the concert started and had an hour in hand, wandered north to the Barnes and Noble and had a grand time browsing the science fiction, poetry, and religion departments.We had a leisurely morning and early afternoon, and at around four headed over to the Minn-Stf Hallowe'en party.
dreamshark was still looking for a snake to complete her costume but was very imposing anyway, as were Richard and Thorin. Eric fell at once into a game of Corsari. I had a nice chat with daedala, which I felt obliged to cut short when dd_b and lydy after all. It was just as well that I was there, however, because I suddenly remembered that the filling for chocolate tofu pie, which I had promised to bring to dinner at my mother's on Sunday, needs to chill overnight, so my plan of making it the next afternoon was flawed.I dumped the silken tofu into the blender and started the chocolate chips melting in a double boiler, stopping frequently to check whether anybody was coming up the walk. I got a couple of groups of very small children with older siblings or young parents, it was hard to tell. Some were so bundled up that no costume was visible, but there were a Spiderman, a couple of princesses or possibly fairies, and a ghost.
When I checked the tofu for smoothness, I saw brown flakes atop it, and realized that I had never properly washed the blender after the last time I made this pie; I must have rinsed it and made sure to get the gunk out of the blades, but not finished up washing. I sighed, dumped the tofu, scrubbed the entire blender viciously, and dumped in the reserve tofu that was available because I can never persuade myself that a pie only needs one box of tofu rather than two. Around this time I texted Eric to let him know I'd be late getting back to the party, and he offered to come and keep me company. In the interim I got some groups of youngish teenagers with lovely face paint and very elaborate costumes, and also one clump of older teenagers in no costume, with pillowcases. I know a lot of people are impatient with them, but I always feel that they must need something, and all I have at the time is candy, so I give them big handfuls.
Eric arrived, and helped answer the door to several sets of trick-or-treaters, including another group of little ones with a fairy who said definitely, "I want the BLUE!" I gave her several Mounds bars, hoping she knew what was in there. He then retired to make a phone call and check for jobs on the computer, and I put the chocolate in with the tofu and went on blending.
The blender got so hot that I stopped to let it cool down. I was actually icing down the outside when I realized that, while the blender is the only tool we have that will puree tofu, the mixer would probably work fine to concatenate the tofu and chocolate. I scraped everything over, getting chocolate and tofu on myself in stripes, and finally tipped the filling into the baked crusts sometime after eight.
Eric and I walked back to the party. It was warmer than it had been earlier, and the moon and Jupiter were up. I had some nice brief chats with
cowfan, who was dressed as a steampunk pirate; Linda who is, I think, NOLJ and had made a dryad costume out of a military surplus parachute in greens and browns; Erica, who is also, I think, NOLJ and who was much interested in the tofu chocolate pie recipe; minnehaha K; carbonel; and Sharon, about turtles.On Sunday I took the bus and light rail downtown to pick up a prescription. I could have waited, but I figured that the weekend was hectic already, and if I went then, I wouldn't have to go on Tuesday. Monday was already spoken for, because my youngest brother was in town. That was why we were going to dinner at my mother's.
David had gone to Northfield in the new car, so the arrangement was that Eric would drive Lydy and me to my mom's in the Saturn. The Saturn had other ideas. Its battery was exceedingly dead, though all had been well when Eric and I used it on Tuesday. I called my mother, and she dispatched my other brother to collect us. David was there when we arrived, but there were ample appetizers and nobody complained. Dinner was very good -- salmon, roasted potatoes with rosemary, green beans cooked with tomatoes and garlic, and two salads, one with fruits, one with vegetables. The first pie was devoured. I left half the second for my mother and brothers and took the remainder home. It was extremely good to see Michael, the youngest. He lives in North Carolina, he and his wife are very busy, and they have three dogs, so visiting is a bit complicated. His wife finally made him just fly out to see us rather than trying to figure out how to bring all the dogs. They have done this before and will probably do it again, but I don't think they were altogether recovered from the previous attempt.
On Monday my mother and brothers collected me and we went to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. We grabbed a quick lunch in the cafeteria and then went down to the wildflower garden, which is the only place there that has only native plants. It was a pretty day, all gold and red and orange and blue, but very windy and cold. My brothers were having fun alternately pretending to be shocked that there were so many weeds in the beds and that nobody had moved the leaves off the house, and extravagantly admiring the shrivelled autumnal remnants of spring wildflowers. "Oh, great time of year for that bloodroot!" was a typical remark. As we were coming back out of the woods, a man in the Arboretum uniform asked if we had seen the blooming witch hazel. We went along to where he had directed us, and sure enough, there were five or six shrubs, some bare and some with yellow leaves, but all covered with thready yellow flowers.
After that we tried to take the bog trail, but the boardwalk was closed for repair. My mother chose to return to the visitor center at this point, but I went on with my brothers on the loop trail that provides access to the boardwalk. When we came to the other end of the boardwalk, also fenced off, Matt just ducked around the fence, and we followed him. The boardwalk was first firm but mossy, then rather tippy, and finally missing altogether. Matt had hoped to see some pitcher plants, since they stay red well into fall, but we couldn't find any. We came back out and continued on the loop until we reached a set of informational boards that we had seen before. We thought we must have missed the trail back up to the more formal gardens. The map was not very helpful. We floundered through the woods and ended up on a piece of Three Mile Drive. We ranged back and forth over the same stretch of it several times, trying to figure out which direction was the shortest way back to the visitor center. The map was conspicuously not to scale. It was warmer now and there were a lot of glorious orange and red oaks, but I had stupidly not brought any water and was beginning to feel a little light-headed. Finally a red Arboretum truck drove by and Michael flagged it down. It turned out that we were very close to the visitor center. Once we were headed in the right direction, the road rose up so that we could see most of the path we'd been on, and we realized that there were two identical sets of informational boards. We had one more moment of mild alarm when Mike spotted a figure in a blue coat and white cap heading down the beginning of the loop trail and thought it was my mother coming to find us. He took off running to intercept her, but returned to report that it was not she. She would have called one of our cellphones rather than haring off into the wild, but I decided not to say so.
We saw no birds or animals in the bog or woods. They were eerily empty. The Canada geese were bundled up in the pond below the iris beds, and we heard chickadees in the wildflower garden, but that was all.
I bought a metal water bottle in the gift shop and filled it up at a water fountain, and don't seem to have taken any harm from the adventure.
Pamela
