Hmmmh, I thought what now? First, investigate the damage. Check on Oscar to see if the toxic fumes did not kill him. Oscar alive and well, good. At this point I had about an hour and a half left for dinner club preparation. I needed at least one rack to make a quiche so grabbed some small razor blades and started scraping off the plastic which had now hardened. I should have just left it at that. But did I? Noooooo. Determined to also clean up rack number 2 which contained a majority of the melted plastic, I grabbed a hammer and went outside to bang the bejesus out of the rack. So far, so good, seemed to actually work, But then that darn German fastidiousness kicked in and I was determined to get all of the plastic of the rack. This could have easily being accomplished by putting the rack flat on the ground and applying some more hammering action, however I decided to use he razor blades again, which proved no match whatsoever for the plastic that had now the consistency of concrete. You know what comes now, right? I cut myself very skillfully on at least three fingertips, ran around the house like a chicken with its head cut off bleeding all over the place, and trying to put on band aids. Let me tell you, that is not an easy feat when three of your digits bleed at the same time. Eventually, and just as I did manage to get myself bandaged up, it hit me that the next day I had an appointment at the US Immigration Service for fingerprinting. Good thing I am taking valium (I am not kidding here; the doctor prescribed it to get rid of my lower abdominal spasms). Actually the valium was probably what made me forget the darn plastic tray in the oven in the first place.
By the time the book group arrived, I at least had made salad and the quiche was ready to go into the oven, but I was a wee bit out of sorts and ordered my charming book group members around to help with whatever else needed to be done, and I am sure they gladly did so (no fun when the book club host is bleeding from her hands and close to a nervous breakdown). The book group evening ended up being a big success after all; we had some vary spirited discussions, some of which actually had to do with the book, so life was good.
Of course I spend all day Friday fretting about the appointment at the immigration services, but turns out the cuts were not that bad and a bit out of the way. I slapped antibiotic ointment on them just about every 30 minutes, and come early afternoon you would have had to look really hard to find them. In addition they had some pretty sophisticated equipment there, laser scanners and all (very CSI), and it all worked out well. Again, I have to say praises for the Boston-based application service center, and maybe there was a little good karma in there for me as well, but the place was practically deserted and I was in and out in 10 minutes, no kidding. So now I have to simply wait for the next step in the process, which will be the interview. Exciting indeed!
Last weekend I wrote to you from New Hampshire where we experienced winter at its most beautiful. (As opposed to this weekend, where it rained bucket after bucket, and of course a little flood appeared in my basement yet again). Saturday night our friends Susan and Brian stopped by and all of us congregated for a vicious game of Parcheesi. Now this was my first time playing this game, and I think the instructions on the inside of the cover were written in Hindi, since Rick’s translations did not all make sense, and the rules seem to change constantly, generally not in my favor. I did not trust any of my opponents who actually once let me move past my goal line, and probably made me do the whole loop twice. No wonder I never win at these games. Tssss!
Sunday morning, Rick and Denise headed off for some more cross-country skiing near the lovely Franconia Inn (http://www.franconiainn.com/) while Phoebe and I took a snow shoe walk around the neighborhood, stomping through some nice deep snow and having a nice and relaxing time. In the afternoon, the four of us headed off to Crawford Notch to do a little more snowshoeing, this time up to Ripley Falls. Heralded as one of New Hampshire’s tallest waterfalls (http://www.northeastwaterfalls.com/waterfall.php?num=336&p=0 ), it has been a destination of our little hiking group many a times, but never before had we gone there in winter. We almost missed the approach route, as it was completely blocked by a wall of snow, and only a few brave souls before us had attempted to go up there. It was such a wonderful snow shoe adventure – we did have some trail blazing to do, but eventually got to the partially frozen falls, and enjoyed this little slice of winter beauty. We did spent Sunday evening up in Franconia and sadly had to leave Monday morning to return to our respective work responsibilities.
I have made some attempts to make it to the gym more often this week, and ended up succeeding twice. In particular I would like to highlight Wednesday night where I did my first spinning class in 8 months and let me tell you I did walk a little funny heading out of the gym, sort of like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Good reminder that I definitely need to do this more often.
This weekend, on account of the crappy weather which did not allow for a lot of outdoor time, we did make it out for a wonderful hike to Crane Beach, which is a dynamite place. I love beaches in winter, with the waves crashing down, and the wind blowing the sand up in little mini-tornadoes. Crane Beach, located near Ipswich, Mass(http://www.thetrustees.org/pages/294_crane_beach.cfm) is part of the Trustees of the Reservations, whose mission it is to preserve beautiful spots of land such as this one. There is a five mile hike through the dunes near the beach, which is stunningly wonderful with its sandy-color dunes and sparse vegetation. Aside from the fact that we got caught in the pouring rain during the second half of the excursion (of course I was wearing jeans and looked like a wet poodle afterward), it was a lovely hike. A very delicious lunch was consumed at the Gloucester House (http://www.thegloucesterhouse.com/aboutme.htm) at the historic Seven Seas Wharf in, you guessed right, Gloucester.
Since the weather showed no signs of improvement, it was time to retreat to the couch afterward, and embark on the lofty goal of watching the entire seventh season of CSI (which I did manage to do successfully, even though I did have to watch a couple of episodes twice, since I kept nodding off (the valium is doing its job, apparently) and I could for the life of me not remember if I had seen them or not. Of course the darn last episode ends with one of the “To Be Continued” cliffhangers, which means, I have to figure out quickly if Season 8 is available on DVD. This stuff is like crack; I may have become a serious CSI junkie….
I needed to get out of the house a bit, so I joined Hannah, Holly and visiting New York-ite Meg for brunch at the oh-so-noisy, but oh-so-tasty East Coast Grill and Raw Bar (not to confuse with the East Side Bar and Grille, which is located a short walk from my house) for some very delectable brunch (NY Steak, with scrambled eggs, some kind of spicy peppers and hominy for yours truly) - http://eastcoastgrill.net/ , followed by a quick visit to Christina’s Spice and Specialty Shop – a fabulous place for a cookaholic like myself. I bought green bamboo rice from China, red quinoa, a brown rice from some obscure region of the Philippines, Vietnamese cinnamon, dried chives and curry leaves. Wonderful place this is, I could spend all my money on spices from distant countries, no matter if I would know what do with it.
Oh my goodness, it is horrendously late. I am blaming daylight savings time and the fact that I was sorting out paper work all day today to prepare for my taxes.
Gotta go to sleep now. Tomorrow night is another spinning class, and I do not want be caught slouched over the front of the bike drooling.
Hope this finds you all well.
PetJ
Oh,oh, and I must mention that my neighborhood finally has a decent Chinese place. Called Wisteria House, it actually relocated from Boston’s fancy Newbury Street, and has completely transformed the retail space that was previously inhabited by the worst Chinese restaurants known to mankind.
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