Monthly Archives: December 2010

In with the new

By the time we dropped off the old couch at it’s new home, the precipitation was turning icy.  We drove across town to pick up the new couch and slid down part of the road near our destination, somehow managing to keep the pickup on the road and avoid running into any parked cars.

We carefully covered the new couch under our giant tarp and loaded it in the truck bed.  We faced driving back up the hill we slid down.

Now, I must admit that both Matthew and I get a certain pleasure out of seeing peoples’ large four wheel drive vehicles that they thought were invincible in positions that prove them wrong.  Four wheel drive does not make everything better, and it does not mean that you can go out in any kind of road and weather condition and drive like you do on any given day.

That said, as we sat in the pickup, contemplating the icy ascent, we noticed a little switch on the dash — the control for the optional four wheel drive.  I’m not sure what would have happened if we hadn’t switched to 4WD, but with it, things were good.  We really only needed it to climb the hill.  After that, we switched back to 2WD and took a nice easy pace back home.

After a bit more fun negotiating a tight staircase with a large piece of furniture (this couch was actually much easier to move than the old one), we were in business!

Ironically, our “new” couch is older than the “old” couch.  However, it’s in great condition.  The new couch is long enough for Matthew to lie on it stretched out, and it’s more comfortable for sitting.  We need to center the picture above the couch (we may actually be printing a new picture for that spot), and it looks like it could use some pillows.

Couch upholstery close-up

Now that all the craziness of moving couches is over, I’m quite happy with the decision, especially when I’m cuddled up in a nest of blankets with a good book 🙂

Out with the old

We’ve talked about getting a new [to us] couch for awhile now, but we weren’t actively looking.  So imagine my surprise on a lazy Saturday morning two weeks ago when Matthew announced he’d found an estate sale couch while browsing Craigslist.

Rather annoyed at the interruption in my morning, I agreed to go check it out with him.  One thing led to another, and we left the estate sale down an eighty dollar cash deposit, with the promise of a new couch as soon as we could get a truck to transport it.  I realized on the way home that we really could not get the new couch until we found a home for our old couch — this proved more difficult than I would have expected.

Craigslist, ReUseIt St. Louis (formerly FreeCycle), Salvation Army . . . nothing was working.  No one wanted to buy it at $85, and no one wanted it for free.  In the meantime, we moved the old couch out of our apartment (no small feat with two people, a second-story apartment, and a relatively tight staircase) and into the backyard, anticipating a quick turnaround with the free listing.

When that did not come to pass, and with rain looming in the forecast, we moved the old couch back inside.  Unfortunately, it would not fit in the basement door, so we faced the unpleasant prospect of moving it all the way back up to our living room.  In the end, we brought it partway up the front staircase, where it stayed for almost a week, sitting on end, with just barely enough space for us to squeeze by and get out the front door.  Fun times!

As much as I hated the idea, I was beginning to see how perfectly decent, usable furniture could  just end up in the dump.

In the end, we lowered the price on Craigslist to $35, and made a sale, provided we could deliver, which we agreed to, since we would have a truck anyway to get the new couch.  All the stars for borrowing a pickup truck and arranging for drop-off of the old and pick-up of the new finally aligned last Wednesday night, the night we got freezing rain . . . .

Of recent bicycle escapades

A small snowfall that melted and then froze into a nice slippery layer, followed a few days later by freezing rain, made our streets rather bike unfriendly for a full week.  St. Louis makes no attempt to plow or salt anything other than the biggest roads, leaving many of the ideal cycling routes treacherous for bikers, pedestrians, and drivers alike.

Fortunately, things warmed up a bit toward the end of last week and into the weekend, and we were ready to roll (albeit with caution for those icy patches that remain where the sun don’t shine) on Saturday and Sunday.  I ran a few errands by bike on Saturday, followed with biking to church on Sunday.

Both rides were lovely, with the only treacherous spot being the icy patches in our alley.  On Sunday, I encountered the obligatory jerk driver on The Hill.  He was quite outraged that I delayed his trip by 30-60 seconds for a 1 1/2 block stretch where there was not enough room for him to pass me safely.

His tirade included the oh-so-helpful information that I was operating my bike illegally — that the law* said I could ride no more than two feet from parked cars — and HE KNEW because he raced bikes for 30 years.

Well, Mr. Jerk picked the wrong lady to quote “cycling law” to, but I really wasn’t able to get a word in edgewise.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t carrying my handy-dandy, ready-to-hand-out copy of Missouri Bicycle Statutes.  (I have copies, and I’ll be ready next time.)

Realizing that Mr. Jerk was not in a state to make this encounter remotely positive, I eventually biked away, with two thoughts in my head:

  1. “If he thought that riding within two feet of parked cars (i.e., squarely within the deadly “door zone”) was a safe cycling practice, it’s a bit of a wonder that he survived 30 years of cycling.”  His comment was not surprising, as I see plenty of the spandex-clad crowd riding in this unsafe position on a regular basis.
  2. “Small penis.”  Sometimes this is the only logical conclusion when one encounters an unreasonable male motorist who thinks he owns the road.  This thought, combined with some deep breathing, did much to help restore the equilibrium of my nice Sunday morning ride.

* I have no idea where he pulled this from (okay, maybe I could take a guess 😉 ), but this is NOT a law in Missouri, nor is it a law anywhere else as far as I know.  If you think about how far a car door would swing out if suddenly opened, two feet is clearly not enough space.  I try to ride 4-5 feet from parked cars — you want to be out of the path of the door if it were to suddenly swing wide open AND confident enough in that distance and your position that you won’t swerve out into traffic should a door in fact open.

Retrospective menu

I fell off the cooking wagon for a couple of weeks, but I got back in the swing of things last Thursday night with — hmm, now I can’t quite remember.  Ah, right, lentil sloppy joes.  And I roasted some broccoli and cauliflower for a side dish — delicious fresh out of the oven, but not so great as leftovers.

I opened a jar of our canned tomatoes for the sloppy joes.  I saved some of the tomatoes and used them to make County Vegetable Soup with Pasta on Friday night.  This recipe comes pretty close to what I made — the main difference is that my recipe calls for pesto as a garnish.  Also, I used whole wheat shells for the pasta, which I cooked separately and added to the bowls when serving to keep them from getting mushy.

I love sitting down to dinner and doing a tally of all the garden and local produce in the meal.  The soup was a great one for this: the leeks, carrots, zucchini, green beans, tomatoes, and basil for the pesto came from our garden, and the cabbage was locally grown (we didn’t have much luck growing cabbage this fall).  This is a wonderful soup — really hearty and flavorful — perfect for these frigid days.

On Saturday night, I found my cheesy side with a baked macaroni and cheese dish (recipe from 1000 Vegetarian Recipes, our go-to cookbook).  On the side, a serving of steamed, grated beets with butter and salt, as well as a small roasted beet salad.

I finished my cooking spree with Swiss Chard risotto on Sunday night.  Instead of arborio rice, I used oat groats.  Instead of the normal time-intensive risotto procedure of adding small amounts of broth at a time while stirring almost continuously for an hour, I added the liquid in two installments and simmered it with minimal stirring.  The oat groats produced a creamy, hearty risotto, which I paired with roasted root vegetables (garden potatoes and beets, plus local sweet potatoes).  Risotto recipe coming soon, once I get it out of my head and into the computer — which I hope occurs before I forget what I did 😉

Y not?

So, after hem hawing around for a couple of weeks, or more like a month, given the date on this post, I finally bit the bullet and [re]joined the Y yesterday.  This involved some serious bundling before the 3/4 mile trek from my apartment.  The conditions were about as blizzard-like as things can get with only an inch of snow — the wind was doing its best given the paltry amount of precipitation available.

Properly dressed, the walk wasn’t bad at all, and I probably spent less time outside than some people spent scraping their cars.

I made immediate use of my new membership with about an hour of weights, upper and lower body.  My goal is to hit the gym three days a week — Fridays, Sundays, and one weekday evening.

I returned home to lunch #2 (I ate a small snack, AKA lunch #1, before the gym), leftovers of a fabulous soup that I made on Friday night.  After a bit of a cooking hiatus, I’m back in the swing in the kitchen — more details to come, including a recipe or two.