Things that make me sigh

1. The tiny new stove that was put in my apt has a tiny oven that is too small for most of my bakeware.

2. If you are going to try to compensate for a tiny oven, reusing foil takeout containers does not work so well.

3. Pizza pans are worse. If you are going to use one, bake for less time and pay close attention to what oven rack position you use.

4. That trick where you put your hardened brown sugar and a separate bowl of water into a microwave together. Only kinda works. But well enough.

5. Creaming butter and hardened brown sugar together by hand in a bowl with a fork will take time.

6. If UPS is delivering the bike that you won on Ebay, for which you paid a pretty penny, despite the fact that you are home and have a working doorbell, UPS is likely to leave your new bike next to the garbage cans outside your apartment building without ever ringing your functioning doorbell. The same functioning doorbell that the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Census taker and the Postal worker have all managed to find and use.

7. When you remove the ball bearings from the hub of your wheel, you should count the number and make sure to put them where they will not roll away from you. A paper towel on the floor is not a good option.

8. Best to throw away condiments when they pass their sell by/best by/use by date. They will scare your guests.

9. Old bikes are not standard. They need, love, patience, degreaser, a regreasing, and the right tools.

These will elicit "good grief" sighs.

10. Sitting by the lake at night holding hands with someone you like, looking out at the water, the ducks, the trees, the skyline lit up by the light pollution while not talking, with your bikes beside you.

This will elicit a happy sigh.

Oh, this old thing?

Twice in recent weeks, I've given someone a compliment about one thing and had them assume that the compliment made was for something else.

They go on at length about the thing that they wanted to be complimented on. The thing that they are especially proud of that surely must be noticed by all the world.

In these cases, far be it from me to correct them and go on at length about what to them is merely an element of the backdrop.

The internet was invented to transmit pictures of cats

see more Lolcats and funny pictures


In my role as Last Adopter - a couple of months ago I was at a BBQ at which a cat came up from the basement of the apt building through a tiny tiny hole. Everyone at the party referred to the kitty as "Basement Cat." I, naively, thought it was just generic name given to this particular cat. I did not realize that it was an entire lolcats tag and subgenre. There was no one to correct me until I watched a video from Next HOPE. What can I say, Last Adopter. I like this particular one very much.

Bike Envy

The bike manufacturing world hates short people.

For that I curse them like a loud drunk sailor.

The Gel for Everything

I bought a tube of aloe vera gel today. I figured it might be good for those situations in which the skin needs something cooling, soothing and calming.

On reading the tube, it advises use for Sunburn, dryness, irritated skin, minor burns, itching, chafing, insect bites, on blemishes, as a shaving gel (shaving?) and a hair styling gel.

Hair styling.

Hair styling.

Hmmm, maybe I can use it to fix the squeak in my door hinge, to polish my boots, as an air freshener and as a nutritional supplement to cakes and puddings.

It's a universe of possibility.

Ewwwww

Watching "Machine Girl." Oh man, soooooo gross.