Drowsy, no Chaperone

Had a painful night last night, my elbow would not stop hurting. Finally took 2 nighttime Tylenol, which didn't do much for the pain but made me stay drowsy when I finally hauled myself out of bed at 10. Part of the delay is just as I was trying to get up, Kaan, jumped on the bed and parked himself against me.

My plan was to sleep till 10, anyway, due to not enough sleep Thursday night.

After my usual Saturday routine, I hunted for and finally found the crock pot (it was at the back of the cabinet under the kitchen sink, behind the paper bag collection) decided it was too small and instead found the giant wok-like pan I'd bought for this kind of project. Its flat bottom is anodized aluminum, the right size for a large burner, and it curves out to a much wider circular bowl. Non-stick surface, very solid, great for not burning things.

Into that went three cans of coconut milk (the white kind), three cans of water. Heated on 5 (out of 10) for 15 minutes, then stirred in 1 Tbsp Thai yellow curry paste. A taste test said "what curry paste?" so I added another dose. Better, but still a bit mild. Better mild than too strong, I figured.

Added the chicken drumsticks, covered the pan, and gave it half an hour to come up to a simmering boil. Added baby corn, bamboo shoots and water chestnuts, because those don't overcook. Turned the heat to 3, another half hour it was at a boil (much to my surprise), added the straw mushrooms and green peas and turned the heat down to 1.5.

Let that simmer for an hour, which was just a wee bit too long, but the drumsticks were holding together, so I caught it in time. Sort of. Could not spear them with a fork, they were too tender, so I used a slotted spoon to put them into my official potluck food containers (they fit perfectly). Next I used a wok strainer to scoop out the small stuff, and distributed it fairly evenly between the two containers.

What with the added water and chicken fat, the curry sauce was way too thin, and there was way too much of it, so I boiled it down. Added a dash of fish sauce and a little dark brown sugar suggested by Nancie McDermott's recipe book, Quick and Easy Thai. And I also added another Tbsp of curry paste, since this was going on top of and not inside the chicken.


That took about 2 hours, but after 1.5 it was time to pick up a package at UPS, so I turned off the stove and did that. Then I decided to try out a new massage place I saw in The Metro, punched it into the GPS and discovered the address was the parking lot of the Santa Clara American Legion post. :-(

Not to be discouraged, I went to the one I've been using, not too far from home, and Jessica made my right shoulder feel much better.

Heading home, passed Fry's, remembered I needed to buy some canned air, so I cut off an obnoxious SUV which had been pacing me as I tried to slow down to change lanes behind him.

Canned air was on special, 3-fer, so I got a a pack of that, and also a pack of microfiber cloths. Looked for but did not find backup software. Decided not to spend $700 on an 8TB backup drive. Or settle for the small package of inkjet internet shipping labels (they only had the large economy size in laserjet ).

Home, emptied the console storage bin of 8 CDs, which are waiting to be shelved where they belong. I had been listening to the London cast recording of Matilda which is what was in the Amazon locker yesterday. I am disappointed in the music. One tune is memorable on first play, two more might be after listening a few more times, and there is a monologue near the end which is a non-ingenue actress' wet dream. It is not listed on the track list, they have buried it after several seconds of silence after the final song, not in its own track. ( Read more... )

From the album, which includes a lot of dialog, it is clear this is one of those shows which will be spectacular as a production, as long as they find a super-strong set of children, because it's all about kids in an exclusive private school.

The reason for my interest is I was in a production of The Wizard of Oz in 1986, Dorothy was played by a very talented girl named Lesli Margherita, who is now starring in the Broadway production.
This is her then:
( Read more... )

This is her now:( Read more... )

Finished the coconut milk curry reduction in between flipping between the very wet Oregon Ducks and Stanford games (Stanford playing WSU in Seattle for some strange reason), and miffed because none of the channels I get was showing my 17th-ranked Huskies. I had to rely on my Baltimore sister's FB updates for that. Also peeked at the Mariners-A's game, which showed the April Fools broadcast, Mariners leading in the 6th by a hefty margin.

Poured the curry sauce into each of the containers on top of all the other ingredients and let it seep in. Back into the fridge, and after it was clear that Oregon and Stanford were blowing out the competition, I fired up the PC and made card stock tents naming the dish and its ingredients.

Caught up on FB, Twitter & LJ, and also took a look at mobile home park listings, and found 5 nearby which are for old farts.

Plans for tomorrow:

Put on my band uniform, glue in my teeth, grab my horn and participate in Ye Olde Town Band's last concert of the year.
Potluck dinner afterward.

Not-busy but full day

Stayed in bed till 9:30. Took my time Doing Stuff. At about 11:30 I remembered that I was going to uninstall/reinstall Norton's because it has been showing two taskbar icons, one with a green "good" indicator and another with a red "bad" indicator. Clicking on either of them showed all good.

I get Norton for free from Comcast, but I forgot that they have this craptastic deal where you have to install their "Constant Guard" software before you can download Norton's. CG databanks all and encrypts your passwords allegedly making it safer for you to use the nasty interwebs. I don't trust any online service with a list of my passwords, so I don't want CG.

The plan was to leave for the concert at noon, and if Comcast had offered Norton's direct, I would have been out of here 15 minutes before that. But I had to leave with CG still installed, shut down the machine, and finish later. Actually I had to remove CG and re-install it without the checked-by-default box which made Xfinicky my home page and search engine and adding a useless toolbar to all my browsers.

Got the two plastic containers of curried chicken and a couple of serving spoons out to the car, then came back for my horn. Got to my usual parking place on the street up the hill from the concert, brought the food & my horn down there, then went back for my music stand. When I put the food in the fridge, the nice lady in charge said it could be heated up at halftime, I said since it was in plastic containers it needed the microwave. I thought she was going to warm them up.

The concert went okay. My new mouthpiece is great for the high notes but not the low ones, and on the old horn the first valve doesn't stick, which is a plus. At halftime, Nora, one of our tuba players, led a show and tell for the kids where someone playing each instrument told a bit ab out its history and how it is played, and played a little tune. Starting with piccolo, going through flute, clarinet, three different flavors of sax, trumpet, French Horn, baritone, trombone, and finally tuba. And then the drummer handed the kids percussion instrument toys and led them in some random noise making fun.

After the concert, as I was nearing my car, a couple thanked me for the music and said they especially enjoyed the selection of music this time. It was very eclectic. Three musicals overtures, two American and one Spanish march, some ragtime, two or three American Standard vocal hits, and our usual patriotic medley. And Teddy Bear's Picnic, which was more of a challenge for me than it should have been, because I only had the first of the two pages.

Back to the community hall for the potluck, my stuff was still in the fridge. What nice lady had meant is I could come at halftime to start warming things up. They only have one microwave, it is small and under-powered, and after 10 minutes it had only warmed up the curry sauce, but I had to put it out there because almost everything else was out and people were already through the line. I shove the second container in, set it for 10 minutes, got some food for myself and then put out the second one.

Each container had about 8 drumsticks, and a LOT of Asian veggies. During clean-up, I poured the contents of the first one into the second one, there was only one drumstick left in there, but the second tub was full to the brim. To be continued...

Met Janice at Starbucks to catch up. She had been down in LA for an ALS walk, one of her best friends lost her husband to ALS last year. I updated her on my mobile home progress.

Home, changed out of my band uniform, put them in the hampers, put both my music stands and the newer baritone in the storage room. I think I'll have the old horn sent in for a tune-up. It's lighter and easier to play than the new one, but it has some compression leaks.

Prepared 5 freezer bags for the leftover chicken, but it turns out only 5 drumsticks were left, most of the container was curry sauce & veggies. That made two bags full, plus one of veggies only, and the rest I reheated in my real microwave and had for dinner. Yummy stuff!

Watched the Seahawks-Houston game on Tivo, and was disappointed at how poorly Seattle played in the 1st half, down 20-3. But they tied the game at the end of regulation, and both teams were sloppy during overtime, and just when it looked like Texas might score and win the game, the idiots at the network switched to the Oakland game, which was still 10 minutes from kickoff. Grrr.

I saw the final score on Facebook, Seattle won by a field goal. Would have liked to see that.

Plans for tomorrow:

Work
Maybe the Loan Arranger will call, maybe not.
BASFA?