Super Observant

I got up in time for my 6am run this morning, had a good workout with the big dog, then came back home. It wasn't until I was trying to knock some of the extra sand off my shoes that I noticed the tread didn't match and realized I'd been wearing two completely different shoes.

Yeah, they're not even the same brand.

I can't say this is the first time that's happened, but the last time I remember actually leaving the house like that was about 35 years ago. Whatever. It was dark this morning and I was still half-asleep. And they're nearly the same color. Maybe that's why they make running shoes in such obnoxious colors.

Yesterday I was wondering about my treadmill delivery. Late in the day I got email saying it would be delivered between 9 and noon. Then I got a robocall at nearly 9pm saying they were going to deliver it between 3 and 6pm. Today I looked at the "track your shipment" page, and it had a truck marker that stayed at the warehouse thirty miles away for the entire day, even after the package was delivered.

The truck showed up at 2:20, and the driver flipped the 180# box through my front door, ignoring the "fragile" and "this end up" signs.

Everything seems to have made it safely, though, and I spent the entire evening putting it together. The instructions say you need to have two people, but really all you need is one stubborn person who doesn't mind holding up fifty pounds with their forehead while inserting and tightening bolts.

I used all the pieces, so I think everything is right, but I haven't turned it on yet -- tomorrow is soon enough!

Rain Non-Runner

I was planning on going for a run this morning, but when I woke up at 4am to let the very whiny dog outside (either because he wanted to go hunt persimmons or because the previously slaughtered persimmons had made their way through him; I couldn't tell), it had started raining before I got back to sleep. I took that as a sign and slept in until nearly seven.

I'm also using the rain as an excuse to not walk the dogs this evening. Spending 3-4 hours driving during the day makes me really tired and I don't want to leave the house. That probably makes me a bad pet owner, but the dogs aren't too excited about walking when it's raining either. We're just going to agree that the day is over.

In other news, I am shocked -- shocked, I tell you! -- that the company that was supposed to call me today after 4pm to schedule a time for the (rescheduled) delivery tomorrow did not in fact call me today. The online link says that they are planning to deliver it between 9am and noon, but I'm taking that with a few mountains of salt.

I've eaten things you people wouldn't believe. Black figs up higher than my shoulder on our sidewalk. I ate cat poop glittering in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate. All those meals will be lost in time, like persimmons in the rain. Time to whine.

Expectations

I've about 85% through the most recent book I'm reading. If I remember correctly, I chose it off of an "editor's picks" list. It's a procedural murder mystery, and though it's listed as the author's debut*, there are another five in the series already. I took that to mean that there would be continuity in the main characters, which is what I was looking for -- continuity, good relationships, and character growth throughout the series are my ultimate goal.

(*Debut can mean different things -- a friend of mine who has self-pubbed multiple novels just sold a trilogy to a major publishing house for gobs of money and this is being listed as her "debut". Anyhow, she totally deserves it and I can't wait for it to come out.)

So now I'm almost finished with this mystery, and we're getting into "if only I'd known then what I know now" territory on the part of the narrator and I'm pretty sure one of the main characters is going to die. (Also, I figured out what was going on about halfway through the book, because the psychological stuff was a little heavy-handed.) I'm debating whether I want to finish the book now. I'll probably end up skimming it just to make sure I'm not assuming the wrong things, but it's a bit disappointing.

There's not anything wrong with this book, but my expectations were not in line with the reality, which makes the ultimate experience a disappointment. Did I miss something in the blurb? Was there a marketing failure? The business of publishing is all about getting the right books in front of the right audience. This time it failed.

I know the books I'm looking for are out there. I just have to find them!

The little dog has no expectations and is thus not disappointed. Much.

Time For Random Pictures

We've hit the halfway point in this month of Holidailies and I've got nothing tonight, so I'm just going to go through my photo roll and post some random stuff.

A neighborhood that communicates is a neighborhood that has signs all over the trees.

If you walk in the alleys enough, you find interesting signs:

"Up to 16,000 Chinese men worked on California railroads in the 1860s." And yet maybe two non-white people were in my grade school history books. It's almost like the writing was a little skewed.

Late night walks sometimes produce some odd things:

"I'm sure you're wondering why I called you here tonight..."

This one just deserves to be on every blog post:

This bed is almost good enough for him:

He's got the whole "Princess and the Pea" vibe happening here.

The big dog gets his stitches out tomorrow and with any luck I won't have to run around in the rain at agility. That's enough to look forward to.

Dominosteine

For me, baking is a lot like home repair. I see the thing I want to make/do, I go buy all the parts, and then I get home and realize that there is no way in hell I have the ability to do this. There's no hope for my house, but at least with baking I can either eat the evidence or throw it away. And baking is cheaper than DIY.

This is the recipe I was aiming for: https://www.quick-german-recipes.com/dominosteine.html. I've never seen or tasted them before, but I like marzipan. Also, I bought the bottle of rum for these things last week, so come hell or highwater, I was making them.

I prepped by watching a couple episodes of Claire Saffitz of the Bon Appétit test kitchen in the "Gourmet makes..." series. (They're on YouTube. Everyone is entertaining except for that one really obnoxious guy who is exactly like all the guys that would stand around interrupting and talking about random shit in school while you were trying to get work done and then copy all your answers at the end.) Anyhow, mostly what I learned is that Claire is willing to redo things multiple times until she gets it right. That's not really how I work. For me if it doesn't come out right the first time... I shrug and move on.

I ran into my first problem when it called for an 14x17" pan, which I don't have and the grocery store didn't have. I compromised by using two slightly smaller pans for the lebkuchen, but of course that meant the thickness wasn't quite the same.

Whatever. Cake is cake. Except when you then need to cut it in half horizontally.

I cut the first pan in half more or less horizontally. Mostly it was less. Much much less. The cake wasn't very even. I'd assumed it would level out a bit in the oven. That did not happen. The second pan of lebkuchen I just cut in half and folded back on itself. Was it twice as thick as the other pan? Yes. Did I care? Not really.

If anyone ever tells you to roll out 4 oz marzipan until it's thin enough to cover two pans of lebkuchen, laugh in their face and make them go away. Still, I eventually got the marzipan more or less evenly distributed. A little apricot jam later, everything was assembled and I was ready to dip the squares in chocolate.

The good news is that google will tell you how to make a double boiler. The bad news is that unless there is some secret way to do this, dipping cookie squares in hot chocolate involves burning your fingers a bunch. Then I ran out of chocolate and just poured the rest over the remaining squares.

I am ready to admit that I am not prepared to be on the Great British Bake Off at this point, though I am really good at finishing things quickly.

The more or less correct ones:

And the non-camera-ready remainder:

It still looks better than every home repair project I've ever tried, though, so at least there's that.

Wet Junk in the Trunk

On Tuesday we had agility in the rain, so I was expecting my car to smell of wet dog on Wednesday, but it wasn't too bad.

Then I didn't use my car until this morning, and when I opened the door there was a powerful musty odor. I thought maybe it was the wet dog scent left in the back seat and it would dissipate after a bit of air circulation, but it didn't go away. Then I started wondering if I'd missed a bag of groceries in the trunk the week before, but I was pretty sure I would have noticed that when I put them away.

It turned out to be my dogs' collapsible crates. Only one dog can run the course at a time during agility, so the other dogs in the class stay in their crates and rest. Or, in the big dog's case when I'm working with the little dog, stay in their crates and bark their fool heads off like an idiot. The crates have nylon sides and pack down nicely. I keep them in the trunk because the only thing I use them for is agility.

Note to self: if the crates get wet, you need to take them out, open them up, and let them dry. I really hope they dry out in the garage. And that my car stops smelling.

Unrelated collection of little kids' shoes I saw a few months ago during a walk downtown.

Mighty Persimmon Hunter

The last persimmon of the season

I can't remember if I've mentioned this here before, but my dogs love persimmons. I didn't even know my neighbors had a persimmon tree until a couple of months ago when I looked up and there it was, a gigantic tree that actually crossed over the fence into my back yard, with a bazillion persimmons on it. I'm guessing the tree was not planted in the last year, so you are right to wonder how I missed a giant tree just fifteen feet from my house for eighteen years, but there you have it. I'm just an amazingly observant person. (Also, it might have been blocked by the oleander bush that I had severely trimmed last year. So I only really missed seeing it for a year. That's better, right?)

Anyhow, my neighbor brought over a bag and I tried a couple of slices on the dogs and they both loved it. There aren't many things they both like. The little dog tends to like vegetables (carrot, zucchini, broccoli, red pepper) and the big dog is a fan of fruit -- he still rushes outside every morning to see if any figs have fallen overnight, and fig season ended months ago.

Caught the two millisecond down-stay!

I mentioned to my neighbor that if the dogs could climb trees, my neighbors wouldn't have to worry about giving away the rest of their persimmons, so she asked if she should just chuck any of the damaged ones over the fence. Not really thinking about it, I said "sure, of course!"

It took about a day for the big dog to realize there were persimmons hiding in the ivy. Now he begs to go outside so he can go look. He spent hours out there in the rain today. I'm not sure how many he found today, but he definitely ate a few yesterday, which became clear when his high fiber voluminous poop came out bright orange on our walk. That freaked me out a little until I realized what was going on.

The photo shoot nearly came to a disastrous end (for the persimmon) at this point.

Anyhow, I'm calling it "enrichment". Maybe I should plant a tree of my own.