22 posts tagged “january”
Ah, what a nice sunny day it is today! I frittered it in a lovely way: got caught up on BSG (wow), did tons of laundry, got a bunch of recycling out, and have been poking about looking at my travel plans.
It looks like I'll have about ten days in Scotland traveling solo. It should be really cool! But it leads me to really really think about what I want to do, where I want to go, and how structured I want to be. I know I'll be leaving from Belfast, probably on the 3rd of May, and have to be back in Dublin on the 13th (my flight is mid-morning on the 14th). I just spent a while concluding that a ferry back to Dublin is going to be a huge hassle, not worth it, so I'm going to probably fly back to Dublin from wherever. That much will definitely get locked in!
Leaving Belfast, I think I will take a ferry to Stranraer, which is about 2 hours south of Glasgow. If I leave Belfast early Sunday (a 7:25 am ferry), I'll get to Stranraer with an hour before the train to Glasgow, and will arrive in Glasgow just before 1pm (13:00 - I'm trying to get used to that time structure). That seems perfect, and is the best arrangement I could find so far.
From there, it's a bit of an open question. I can take a train from Glasgow north to Oban or Fort William, and from there maybe to Edinburgh. Edinburgh is a major hub, so I can then take the train to Dundee or Aberdeen or Inverness or, or, or...
I'm leaning more and more toward traveling ultra-light. I expect it'll be rainy and not terribly warm. I have a rain coat, and a couple of wool shirts and silk long johns. Do you think I can travel with 3 shirts, 2 pants, 2 warmer layers, a couple of shoes and a jacket or two? All I know is, I get stressed out by having too much crap with me. So, hm.
I have to start deciding soon: about a week from now I can start booking tickets and rooms at hostels, I think.
Of course the idea of traveling ultra-light opens the luggage question: wheels or backpack? what I own, or borrowed, or purchased? the handle broke off of my small rolling suitcase; I hope I can get it fixed but am not sure how to start working on it. I have a camping backpack I could use, but would prefer something more suitcase-like. I've looked at a few carry-on bags that convert to backpacks, but I would have to be VERY dedicated to the traveling light proposition.
hrm, hrm, hrm.
I feel a little silly about my headline.. after all, it's warm HERE compared to lots and lots of places. Still - I went to see my sister in Florida for a long weekend, and it was SO lovely. I was a bit worried about the travel because I still haven't really settled in post-Christmas, and was a bit sick to boot. But we had a super-fantastic time.
My favorite part was just sitting on the couch in the sun room looking out the windows. I felt like I was slipping into a Vacation Coma, a state I don't get into very often. I began hatching elaborate schemes to stay on the couch forever, including a walkie-talkie to use to call for more coffee.
I'm having an "I love the internet" moment. Check this out!
According to family legend, the ship sank in NY harbor; my great-great-grandmother and her kids survived, (as did almost all passengers) but without any of their belongings. They stayed in a hotel in NY and had to contact her husband (who'd preceded them to the United States, but I don't know when), and he had to send them money.
I'd love to read the ship's manifest to find out WHERE in Ireland my ancestors came from, but a) I can't find it yet and b) don't think the manifest will necessarily say anything more than Ireland.. which I already know.
Still. Cool!
My work computer. Thank goodness no one needed me while this was on! I'd have helped them, but I was a bit sniffly.
I moved here over two years ago, but I'm still getting oriented for lots of stuff. In the last place I lived, I often sold used cds when I felt like clearing out some space. I've been in need of another clearing-out for ages, and finally figured out that Rasputin's buys used cds. They pretty much lie on their site where they say they'll tell you the price offered for each cd, but it didn't matter.. I was ready to let each cd go, regardless of what price they were giving me. (To be fair, I didn't *ask* what they were offering for each cd.)
It was a little intimidating bringing my bag of wildly mixed cds to the hipster.. but I remember my library days at the circulation desk, and figure this guy has seen a little bit of everything. And, anyway, what do I care if he thinks my Monkees cd is a weird match with the Miriam Makeba??
So, I got 28 bucks. yay! I promptly gave $22 back to them, in trade for season 3 of the West Wing on dvd. One of my friends lent me seasons 1, 2, and 5... and to call me addicted might understate the case a little. Is it revealing too much if I say I wondered about selling plasma to get season 4? yes? hm.. scratch that, then.
Also, I bought a bicycle trainer from a friend, used it twice, and have moved it from room to room since. Since "room to room" means living room to bedroom to living room to bedroom in my one-bedroom apartment, I'm delighted to be selling it to one of my favorite bloggers. Hooray for clearing the decks!
January's category for the Book a Month Challenge was Time. We could choose books about time, or historical fiction, or, well, go read the challenge yourself.
I read Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin. I'd first read of it probably a year ago in Bookmarks Magazine, but my library didn't carry it for a long time (I have a running list of things to read, and I checked periodically). But, at last, they had it and I read it.
The book is set in medieval times, 1171 to be precise, and the title character, Adelia, is a rare creature - not only a woman doctor, but a specialist in death, dead bodies, and solving the cause of death. Some powers behind the scenes pull strings to have her sent from her home in enlightened Italy (where it is possible for a woman to become a doctor) to the insular, suspicious community of Canterbury, England. Canterbury has seen several children killed in a gruesome manner, and blame (and violence) has fallen on the small Jewish community, who have been sheltering in the town castle for a year when Adelia enters the scene. She is not in town long before more dead bodies show up, and she quickly swings to work, aided by her traveling companions and some locals whom she befriends.
The story was well-written and extremely entertaining. I read it in one day.
I ran numbers using this very handy calculator - actually, Sallie Mae is giving me another 12 years to pay off my school loans. That's just stupid.
Right now I'm only paying $125/month (she wanted $117 and I rounded up a smidge). My car will be paid off in two months - a year early, which is nice, but means I took 3 years to pay off a 6k loan.. when I put it that way, it feels dumb that I took that long - what a waste of money!
I've decided I'm going to bump up my monthly payment to Sallie to $225/month, which will cut 5 years off the life of the loan, and I won't feel it in the least. From a psychological perspective, it'll actually feel good, since "only" TWO months of payments will be required to cover the year's interest charges.
I just downloaded my tax forms from Sallie Mae. Even with my low interest rate, and the not-TOO-insane balance, nearly four whole payments per year are required to cover the annual interest that the loans accrue. No WONDER they're happy to let me pay for another ten years. This has got to change.
I'm still participating in my work lunch group - I feed myself and four friends a vegetarian lunch on Wednesday, and they bring in lunch the other days. It is BRILLIANT.
It's fun to peruse cookbooks and see what I feel like making. Tomorrow's lunch is Sopa Seca ("dry soup" in Spanish), and I got the recipe from:
Sopa Seca sounds fancy, but my friend took one look and said "That looks like spaghetti casserole!" so it's not pretentious at all. Basically you use the following ingredients:
Break the vermicelli in half and saute in some oil for about four minutes, then set in casserole dish.
Saute the onions, then add the garlic and cumin for about 30 seconds, then add the tomatoes, two diced chipotle peppers, the beans, and the broth. Bring to a boil.
Pour the HOT HOT HOT liquid over the noodles and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. Then sprinkle with cheese, let melt for a couple minutes in the oven, and enjoy.
I'm going to just post some wine stories as they occur to me.
Like many, I started off with the sweet stuff. The first bottle of wine I ever remember ordering was Beringer White Zinfandel, in fall 1993 or maybe spring 1994. I can pinpoint it so precisely because I'd fnished college in spring 1993, and gotten a job in Boston. I spent the whole summer doing a really wretched, two-hours-each-way commute, and in the fall moved into my first apartment ever with Jennifer, a friend from college (and two guys, both named John, found for us by our super-sketchy* landlord, Fred).
Jennifer and I were both from smallish-town Rhode Island, and were pretty excited to be living in the city. One day we decided to go have a drink at a Boston landmark, The Top of the Hub. It's at the top of the Prudential Tower, which is one of the main buildings in the skyline of Boston, and of course has amazing views. Unsurprisingly, it was quite busy when we arrived there after work one evening, and we were a bit intimidated by the scene. Instead of braving the bar, we asked for a table. Then we felt like we sort of had to/wanted to order food. We wound up getting a bottle of the white zin (pink and sweet), and some food. I don't recall how much it cost (I want to say the evening cost 60 bucks, but I don't know if that was total or each...), but it certainly was more than I'd ever paid for food before! It probably wasn't even that great, but it was a top-notch experience. I was 22 years old. Crazy!
*how sketchy was Landlord Fred? We found out about the apartment on some sheet of paper taped up somewhere in Harvard Square, and wound up meeting him on a corner there when we were visiting Boston with a couple of friends. He wouldn't let our friends come to the apartment with us. We walked to the apartment (about a mile from H Sq) and looked around, and by the time we got done seeing it, our friends were thisclose to calling the police to report that we'd been spirited away.
