Thursday, January 26, 2006

Public Service Announcements

A mouse was found dead in the apartment of daN Miller and Lindsay B. LeClair on the fateful night that the Christmas Tree also was found deceased. The mouse died at the unwilling hands of the tenants, who owned a humane trap for the purposes of being able to release it after captivation. Investigations show that the mouse died of dehydration after eating too much peanut butter.

After several months of the frustrations of uneven heat in their apartment, daN Miller discovered how to turn the vents on and off in the individual rooms.

Last Wednesday, Lindsay B. LeClair completed the last five of at least fifteen fillings, ending her annual dental venture until it kicks in again at the beginning of March. Yes, it's been that long since she started having fillings done. She is very pleased, though her mouth still hurts and she is having follow-up appointments. Updates to follow.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

I Just Spent A Hundred Dollars at Whole Foods. But I'm OK with that.

Usually on the weekends, i go hunting around for the cheapest places to get x, y, and z. And i always end up spending a hundred dollars by the end of it, and i've spent at least 2 hours in the car. Today, i simply went to the Whole Foods on River Street in Cambridge, and stayed there until i had everything. And you know what? It wasn't any more expensive than when i try to find everything at the cheapest price. Because they have bulk things there too! And there's parking. Oh, i love parking. And i only spent half an hour in the car roundtrip, including waiting for the car to warm up. It wasn't ALL groceries, either -- i needed things like some beaded string to dangle my reading glasses around my neck, some body lotion i'll be able to bring to Kripalu with me, all sorts of veggies for a soup i'm going to make today, on top of the normal grocery expenses (which for me average about $30 a week). And i got a few pound of walnuts and almonds (the thing i'd usually go to Trader Joe's for because i thought they were cheaper), too. So i felt sheepish when i saw the total bill, and then realized that's what i'd normally spend between three places anyway. So, it's alright. I'm home two hours earlier than i would have been, and now i have the time to take a walk in daylight! YAY!

Thursday, January 19, 2006



My Life is Beer

In my continued efforts to find the deliciously devine chocolate stout that i had at the Cambridge Common a bit before Christmas, i came across this site:
http://www.mylifeisbeer.com
It's not the most aesthetically pleasing site i've ever been to, but it's well worth a trip. You can search for beers by brewery and region. My favorite button is the "see random beer!" option. He's got photographs of the bottles for every beer!

And don't miss the non-beer category, which is where i found this HYSTERICAL picture of a moose crossing warning sign. This Canadian town felt compelled not just to warn people of meese, but to illustrate what would happen should your car be hit by a moose. It would look at you funny and total your car.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

In Loving Memory

I must announce with a heavy heart that our beloved Christmas tree has past. This evening, the night of January 18 in the year two-thousand and six, a Christmas tree who lived its last months in the household of Ms. Lindsay B. LeClair and Mr. Daniel B. Miller (ne Daniel J. Miller) reached its timely end. The tree's last words were, "I am happy to have spent Christmas in a home where Christmas was well-kept. And perhaps a bit too long." The couple knew the tree had past when it was no longer taking fluids. The tree may be seen on the curb in front of the house, and visiting hours are from 11:00 p.m. until 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning when the trash collector arrives.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Happiness!

It worked! It worked! Erm, let me back up. Last post, i talked about how sad i was because my Bellman Stovetop Cappuccino machine wasn't making steam. I contacted the lovely people at www.fantes.com, who sell Bellmans as well as many other fine kitchen goods, to ask them their advice. A nice lady got back to me this morning (how's that for quick service!?) telling me to try sinking it in boiling water, and then taking a long needle and plugging it up the steam hole. And it worked! I'm so thrilled! It's making steam again! Yay! My weekend mornings are saved :)

Friday, January 13, 2006

Sadness

i know a broken coffee pot isn't usually something to be upset about. But it could be if it's an $80 stovetop cappuccino maker that won't make steam come out of the steam wand. In fact, it makes me VERY sad because the 1970 La Pavoni Europicollo Chrome Lever-Pull Espresso Machine doesn't make very good steam to begin with.

I tried cleaning it, and that didn't help. And i certainly don't have the right tools to take it apart. So i'm sad.

On top of that, daN is off to Portland for the night and tomorrow to get his computer fixed with his brother. I guess i have to take what time i have to myself, even if this isn't the time i wanted it. Make lemonaide, right? At any rate, it's good practice for when i'll be at Kripalu for 9 days.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Iyengar

For all those of you who are tired of reading about me being excited about yoga, "too bad" to you on today's post.

Last week, Q pointed me in the direction of the Art and Soul yoga studio. I may have mentioned that i finally called the owner. As a result, tonight, i spent my evening with Annie Hoffman, owner of the Art and Soul art and yoga studio. At 6:30, we met at the 1369 in Central Square to have tea and talk. We talked about me, mostly -- why i want to become a yoga teacher, where i am at in my life, where i'm coming from, etc. She told me some of her experiences in becoming an Iyengar teacher, etc. She's excited about me going to Kripalu, and later on in the evening, she introduced me as a yoga teacher! Yay! Anyway, tonight was my first formal experience with Iyengar yoga, and i loved doing it. That was a lot of fun. I can totally see the Iyengar influence in Barbara's teachings (my Kripalu instructor) -- it's a precise yoga, paying more attention to alignment -- and it's less hippy-dippy-everything's-perfect than classic Kripalu is. I can see myself benefiting from some studying of the two. Anyway, it was a lovely way to spend the evening, the class flew by, as yoga-ing always does for me, and now it's freakin' 11:00. Bastards.

In non-yoga related news, i think i have successfully fought off IT -- the cold that everyone has. I've had days where i felt worse than others, but today was officially my second full day off painkillers! Thank you, practices in deep breathing and lymphatic massage! (Oops, that's yoga-related. Sorry.)

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Brevity is a Virtue

As i sit here on this Sunday morning while our guests are sleeping, i type on my laptop at the dining room table (as they are sleeping in the living room where my desk resides) and i caught by the quiet beauty of the snow falling outside. I am drinking some delicious unsweetened chai, trying to get the stuff in my sinuses running again (i might want to try Patty's netipot sometime today), and i am in yoga clothes for when my stomach thinks that it can do yoga (i recently ate). Patty and Drew are here this weekend, which has been good and hard, but in a good way. The hard part is trying to find an apartment for her, which would be a lot easier if she weren't relocating. We all know how hard it is to find an apartment when you don't actually LIVE in the place. Anyone looking for a roommate somewhere near the T or a good busline?

At any rate, about returning to work this week, it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be, which is saying a lot coming from someone who had been in Maine for 9 or 10 days.

About yoga, i called a studio called Art and Soul where they do primarily Iyengar yoga, and i will be having tea and talking with the owner of the studio about "my options" for becoming a yoga teacher in a studio. I'd rather be in a studio environment, at least from the get-go, so that i can continue learning more challenges from teachers more experienced than myself. I'll then be going to one of her classes for free so i can experience some Iyengar yoga for myself. She's being really accommodating about the whole thing, and i'm quite looking forward to it. I got into the Kripalu Center and got the time off, but there's more to becoming a yoga teacher than that. I'm working on step two.

Otherwise, i want to enjoy walking in the snow today and looking at things, so i'm wondering where we should do that. I hope it's warmer today than yesterday.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Home Again

Did i use the word "whirlwind" at any point in my last post? If not, i should have. If so, i should have used it more. This vacation has been a real whirlwind. But in a good way.

We packed in a lot into the last 10 days or so. I continued to do yoga everyday, no matter what the time constraints were, because i am convinced that is what prevented me from going mad. It's physical activity AND time to myself when done in solitude, and that combined with my new Ipod Shuffle from Kathy really helped me keep a level of sanity and self-knowledge. That's important to keep doing when you're on vacation. It's so tempting to get bowled over by "the flow."

Crashing at the Bogs' house was one of the best things we could have done. We might have gotten a tad stir-crazy by the end of it, but that will happen anywhere. It was so important to have a homebase -- to have a room where we had our suitcases, a consistent bed to sleep in, the same refridgerator and bathroom to use. Q was also there, and some other people popped in for New Year's. We went in to Rockland a couple of times to check into the Second Read, to see Narnia with Mark and Stef (which i really enjoyed! It was extremely faithful to the book. People might say it hits you over the head with Christian Dogma, but it doesn't do that any more than the book does, which isn't all that much to begin with.) We ALSO finally got to see the new property that my Mum and her fiancee purchased -- it was a good long cold walk in the woods of North Union with gorgeous views, and the real fun of walking on frozen leaves. They bounce under you as you walk!

On New Year's, we spent the evening doing exactly what i think we all needed -- hunkered down and played games until the ball dropped. Mark and Stef were there, as were Razz and Abbi (YAY!), and we ate crudite and cheese and spinach puffs and drank even more mulled wine as we played Apples to Apples, then a rousing game of Twister (hopefully pictures are soon to follow -- people will be delighted by the girl-on-girl action shots), and Balderdash. We were having so much fun we almost forgot to turn the TV to watch the ball drop! Then some of the crazier of us bundled up and went for a New Year's walk. A cold New Year's walk. I had a blast. It was a great way to end our Holiday in Maine.

daN and i came back last night, stopping at Applebee's in Westbrook to visit Lee & Alan. We got home around 8:30. We launched immediately into unpacking and heavy domestication, which has been ongoing this morning as well. It started with putting away gifts and has resulted in a mass cleansing of my files and desk drawers. Whew! I have recycled so much paper this morning i could probably make a whole new ream and a half of pretty paper out of it if i knew how.

The vacation was wonderful and much-needed. And there's nothing like sleeping and waking up in your own bed to finish it off.