Earlier this week, our realtor passed on news from another realtor that when she was showing our condo, they had noticed that the glass in the back patio door was smashed out. This was surprising news to us, since it had certainly been intact when we moved.
We figured there was just something dumb that had happened, like a golfer took a shot directly at the door. It was going to be all annoying to get the insurance figured out, and get a door installed, yada yada yada. But our realtor called this morning with the full story…
Some days after we moved out, a major storm rolled through the midwest. It was the cause of things such as massive power outages around Chicago neighborhoods. Apparently, a golfer was on the 18th hole (behind our condo) when the storm broke. He needed to seek shelter, so he threw a flowerpot through our back door and stayed in there for a while.
When I first heard the story, I was ready to drive up to Indiana and throw a flowerpot at him. I’ve now calmed down enough to admit he must have been pretty scared by the storm to think smashing a window was a good idea, and to realize he was responsible enough to get in touch and make up for the damage he caused. (Yes, he is paying for replacing everything. Except maybe the flowerpot. Didn’t ask about that. I also don’t know what damage the glass and flying flowerpot might have done to our hardwood floors.)
Lillian was only very mildly disappointed when Reuven was revealed to be a brother instead of a sister. In the last month, though, she’s been talking a lot about “her sister”, which is very much the same as the typical Imaginary Friend that a pre-schooler might create.
However, this morning Lillian decided to personify her sister. Therefore, our CD rack is now an Altschul offspring. (It kicked a golf ball down the stairs this morning, too.)
Lillian helped bake the challah for tonight. Due to the wonderous thing of beauty that is a bread machine, this is really just a process of (1) measuring ingredients (2) dumping them in and (3) braiding the dough after it is mixed, kneaded, and risen.
We still need to work on egg breaking. In addition to a few shell shards that needed to be fished out, there was this:
Oh well, to make bread you need to break some eggs. If it’s an egg bread, that is.
I’ve been salting the tops of some of my loaves recently, instead of using poppy or sesame seeds; it tastes like a big fat eggy pretzel. Mmmmm..
Walking to a connection in the Philadelphia airport, I saw a display of photographs on the wall. Basically, it was pictures she had taken of her sculptures.
The unusual part: the sculpture material was cake and icing.
Typically, a thought of cake decorating brings to mind elegant swirls and flowers and precision placement of patterns and decoration. Think of wedding cakes (ours would not be a good example, Daleks are definitely unusual). But her cakes — these were birthday cakes like your kids would make, tons of color, tons of icing, and clearly valuing enthusiasm and joy over precision and elegance. I imagined giving Lillian access to unlimited icing color choices and setting her loose… these would be the cakes she produced.
I’ve never been a huge art fan, because I don’t tend to “get it.” This, though, is my taste.
I also like some of the discussion of her motivations found on her web site:
… the industry of do- it- yourself divas is still going strong in television, magazines and books. It’s a fantasy world where entertaining, cooking and decorating unite…. one needs to have a beautiful home, decorated seasonally, in order to entertain friends with gourmet meals and elaborately concocted desserts.
I totally get this!!! I just want a house that is mostly clean, because that’s all guests really need to be concerned with; the decorating should be what we feel comfortable sitting on and looking at. We are stuck living here year-round, guests are here for a meal or a few days. If they are interested in where I live more than in who I am, then I doubt they are the sort of people I really want coming over to my house. The house will reflect my identity, not the other way around.
Facebook didn’t have an option for “Married” when I first signed up, just “In a Relationship”. Since then, they’ve realized some of their users might be older and boring, I suppose, so I can now add my spouse.
But only if he’s willing to admit to my existence…
How, you might ask, could software be rude? We’re talking about something required to remotely access work email from my home computer, so it’s not cursing at me or anything. But it is insisting that I uninstall other software before it installs — pretty rude, in the world of software. Before PC-cillin anti-virus trial would install, it made me uninstall AVG (the free and quite good anti-virus software I use) and Spybot Search & Destroy (an anti-malware program, also free of charge). AVG it might have been able to claim it was incompatible with (only one virus software can check email at a time or something), but Spybot as well — that’s just jealousy and nastiness, preventing me from using free software that does the same job as their expensive product.
The only reason I’m trying this crap is because I can’t check my work email on my home computer without using an “approved” anti-virus software. Luckily I only have to put up with it a short while, assuming the work laptop gets rebuilt in a reasonable time frame…
They also require Internet Explorer to access their secure site. I really don’t like IT sometimes.
EDIT, 2 hours later: ARE THEY FRIGGING KIDDING? IT DOESN’T EVEN WORK. NYARGH…
EDIT, another hour later: great, the ONLY option that I haven’t tried yet is Norton, and they don’t have a free trial. ANGRY!
