Ever since we moved into the new office, we have been having a problem with gnats. One of my coworkers looked them up and they appear to be fungus gnats, the sort of tiny little bug that isn’t harmless to humans, but nests in plant soil and dead leaves, and is just generally annoying. As part of the whole ‘greening the office’ thing my company has been doing, we drastically increased the number of plants we’ve got, so we figure either one of them was infected, or else there were some eggs in one of the bags of potting soil we used to set all those new plants up.

At the peak of infestation I had to keep a little cover on my coffee cup because otherwise I would consistently find at least one or two dead gnats floating in it every time I turned around. They like warmth and damp, which means that they seem to have great affection for trying to fly up our noses. As I said, they’re harmless, but they are incredibly annoying.

The problem with these sorts of bugs is that, short of getting rid of the plants, there is no quick way to take care of the problem. One of my coworkers got some spray for the plants themselves, and some water treatment, but that only worked for a little bit before they started coming back. So, short of the drastic measure of taking every single plant outside, removing every bit of existing potting soil, and then repotting them in sterile dirt, we decided to try a few other options. One of those options is to cover the top of each pot in a thick layer of sand, because gnats need organic material in which to lay their eggs, so this limits their options significantly. And the other option, taking by one of my coworkers, was to set off some bug bombs on Friday, in the hopes that they would take care of all the existing adults, and then the sand would take care of any future ones setting up camp.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Most of us have used those bug foggers in the past, and they’re easy to set up. My boss was the last one out on Friday, so he agreed to be the one to set them off.

Here’s the problem. When we have all used these before, it’s been at home. And one big difference between home and office is that most homes do not come equipped with an automatic sprinkler system. Do you know what the difference is between a cloud of bug spray and a cloud of smoke? Not if you are an automatic sprinkler system, you don’t!

Oh, but it gets better. Once the automatic sprinkler system sensor was triggered, that triggered the building’s fire alarm. And when the building’s fire alarm goes off, all the elevators shut down, and the fire doors shut automatically. People can still exit through the stairs, but those stairs are locked from the inside, so the only way out is through the ground floor; getting back up to our office becomes impossible. Oh, and did I forget to mention that the fire alarm *also* triggers an automatic call to the local fire department?

Luckily the firefighters who came were very understanding (apparently this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened). As was the building manager, who came over to figure out what was going on. Even more luckily, the sprinkler system didn’t actually turn on over just a little smoke (or else we’d have had a lot more worries than just a few gnats.

And in the meantime, there were significantly fewer gnats in the air today at the office. I lugged one fifty pound bag of sand in last week and covered about one third of the plants, and this week I’ll lug in two more bags to take care of all the rest of the pots, while another coworker is treating the soil, and there’s a fresh bottle of the incecticidal soap ready in the kitchen. So it’s possible that we’ve finally started to turn the tide on these gnats. But just in case this all doesn’t work, next time we’ll have to come up with something a bit less…exciting…than bug bombs to treat them.

Well. That whole ‘post daily’ thing didn’t last very long this month, now did it. Oh well.

We went to another anti-Prop 8 rally yesterday, taking part in the national protest. The crowd gathering in Sacramento this time was about half the size of the one last Saturday, but that was only to be expected, since there were crowds gathering all over the state, across the country, and even internationally as well. I didn’t get any pictures this time, mainly because there weren’t any higher vantages where I’d be able to get shots of the crowd, but the papers say there were around 1500 people there with us. This time they had a few people from various area churches come to speak, which I thought was a nice touch, since there’s been this perception that all Christians are against gay marriage, and that is so definitely not the case.

There hasn’t been much in the way of cooking lately; mainly we’re working our way through a bunch of leftovers in the freezer (that sweet potato gnocchi has made it through quite a few lunches). As for that corned beef I mentioned in the last post? Shudder. I know corned beef is supposed to be salty, but this one was just over the top. We both couldn’t finish our first servings, even with all the added veggies to cut the intensity, and we ended up throwing all the rest of it away, because there just wasn’t any way to salvage it, nor were we even interested. I suspect the problem, however, was not in the actual package of corned beef itself, but in the fact that ever since my dad’s six-way bypass, I’ve been finding all sorts of ways to cut the salt in our diets, just because Americans tend to eat far too much of it in general. So our tastebuds just aren’t able to handle anything quite that heavily salted anymore. Heh – there are worse food tragedies to suffer, I suppose.

This afternoon we headed off to Vacaville – me for the monthly knitting group at the bakery, and Richard to camp out at Borders and work on his novel. Now that I’ve finished my niece’s new Christmas stocking (which took all of about 10 hours, total, to knit; significantly less than I was expecting), I am back to working solely on a stranded colorwork sweater for myself. I have to admit, as much as I am usually *not* a fan of stranded colorwork, working on first this sweater and then on the stocking, has gotten me really in the mood to find more of the same type. It’s actually kind of fun, in a mind-numbing sort of way.

On the way home from Vacaville, we swung by my parents’ house and picked up two big grocery sacks full of pomegranates. My mom’s friend has a pomegranate tree and apparently they do not eat the fruit and were looking for someone on which to foist them; luckily my mom knew I would jump at the chance to get my hands on free pomegranates, because no matter how fiddly and frustrating it is to make, there is no stopping my compulsion to try making pomegranate jelly again, year after year after year.

Things I have been cooking in the last few weeks:

• Corned beef. Last time we were at Costco we saw they had corned beef on sale, and grabbed a package. Yesterday we finally took it out of the freezer to thaw, and this morning I set it up in the crockpot. It was the perfect excuse to use up the two remaining potatoes that were starting to grow eyes (I cut those out) and the remaining carrots and celery in the fridge that were moving well past their prime (cooked, they’ll be just fine).
• Scones. Oodles and oodles of scones. A few weeks ago I was in such a mood to bake, and my little sister and I had been chatting about scone recipes online, so I spent an entire weekend afternoon in the kitchen, baking scones. I made five different recipes, one batch (8 scones per batch) – gingerbread, coffee cinnamon walnut, almond, peanut butter chocolate chip, and pumpkin. I finally stopped only because I was running dangerously low on flour. Luckily, scones freeze well, but nevertheless, we spent several weeks eating scones for breakfast every morning (and sometimes also for dinner if we were feeling particularly lazy). I did a more abbreviated version of scone-fest earlier this week, making a batch of plain cinnamon scones and one of gingerbread scones.
• Apple butter. See earlier entry on that subject. I had originally thought this might be good for gift-giving, but I suspect, considering how much Richard loves this stuff, that we will be keeping the entire batch all for ourselves (either that, or I’m going to have to go get a bunch more apples and make another batch).
• Sweet potato gnocchi. I found a recipe online (actually, that’s how I find *all* my recipes these days), and so last time we were at the farmer’s market we picked up a pair of sweet potatoes. This weekend I finally got around to cooking them up and making a double-batch of the gnocchi. They are delicious – just a hint of spice and a hint of sweet – but they are not remotely pretty to look at (think pale, misshapen critter turds). Luckily they also freeze well, which is why lunch today was a little container of gnocchi, spaghetti sauce, and a quartet of the vegetarian meatballs from Trader Joe’s.
• Dried apples. The remaining apples from the box we got up in Apple Hill started turning pretty quickly. So this weekend I did a lot of peeling, coring, and slicing apples and filling the dehydrator trays; 24 hours later, they’d all be done and I repeated the process, until there were no more apples left in the box. Richard likes dried apples, but not as much as I do, so I’m looking forward to being able to bring a little container of apples with me each day for lunch for the next few weeks. Hmm. Maybe getting another giant box of apples for apple butter and for drying would be a good idea after all…

It’s NaBloPoMo time again!

When you live with pets, you learn to distinguish between noises which should be investigated immediately, and noises which can probably wait for a bit longer to check out. This is usually determined by the amount of panic and skitterage that follows immediately after the noise.

This morning, sitting at our respective computers, we heard a dull crash from downstairs. The three cats in the computer room at the time raised their heads and looked around, wide-eyed, but did not feel the need to actually stir themselves from our laps in order to check it out. That right there suggested it wasn’t likely to be anything critical like, say, someone trying to break in.

But when you live with pets, eventually all loud crashing noises have to be investigated. So I extricated myself from beneath a pile of warm cats and headed downstairs to take a look.

Near as we can figure, some cat tried, and failed, to climb the largest cat tree downstairs. We have our suspicions that the torties were involved, because Checkers was lurking balefully at the top of the tree, and Rosie was nowhere to be seen. The crash came about because the large food bowl is directly at the base of the tree, and it had been filled just yesterday.

In case you were wondering, a large bowl of cat kibble can cover a surprisingly vast expanse of floor. Sigh.

It’s NaBloPoMo time again!

It is a hard life, here in our house, if you are a cat. Especially a cat of extremely advanced age (he turned 18 this September) and well-developed vocal chords.

The sunbeams are never large enough.

The pillows sometimes refuse to cooperate (hint; cats are supposed to sit *on* the pillow).

Blanket nests refuse to stay in place.

Really. It’s so hard, being a cat.

It’s NaBloPoMo time again!

We didn’t really have all that much planned for the day. We each needed to do some laundry, and I had to go buy cat litter, and we needed to swing by the grocery store. I was pondering doing another big baking fest, restocking the freezer with scones, and Richard had a write-in he was thinking of attending, but really, we could have just as easily lounged around all day in our pajamas, doing nothing productive whatsoever.

And then my parents called, to let us know that there was going to be a rally at the state capitol to protest the writing of discrimination into the California state constitution, and I knew I needed to be there.

When we got there at 12:30, there was no parking to be found anywhere near the capitol building at all, and the crowds were getting thick. By the time the thing started at 1pm, there were people everywhere.

News reports say there were about 3000 people gathered there this afternoon. Young people and old people. Gay and lesbian people, and straight people. Single and married, some with their kids. People of every color and culture, standing shoulder to shoulder with each other, waving signs and cheering and chanting and singing. And right there to one side, my parents stood, proudly holding the banner from their church, and carrying their No on 8 signs, displaying to the entire gathering that not all Christians agree with discrimination. It was touching how many people stopped to give my mom hugs, thanking them for being there.

There is passion and hope here. There is love here. If my marriage – which is based solely on love and into which no child shall ever be born (by our choice) – can be considered valid, how can the marriage between ANY two unrelated consenting adults not also be just as valid and true? Marriage is NOT a religious institution, no matter how much some churches might want to claim that it is. It was created primarily as a means to transfer ownership of property (and I will also remind people that back when it was first instituted, *women* were considered property); the church only got involved later. In a state where two people can be married simply by signing some papers; a contract that DOES NOT REQUIRE any mention of a god or goddess nor any involvement of any type of religion whatsoever; in a country where separation of church and state means that we all have the right to NOT have someone else’s religion foisted upon us, I would really like to get one legitimate reason why this type of marriage can be considered wrong.

It’s NaBloPoMo time again!

This morning I got up an extra half hour early , because tonight is the monthly First Friday craft night, at which time I have to pass thing off to its rightful owner, and I could not possibly procrastinate any longer. I sat down and wove in the ends (there were a lot of ends) and then I pulled out my blocking pads and my pins and I soaked it and then pinned it out with a whole heck of a lot of pins (a LOT of pins). I shut it into the newly renovated green room to keep it away from feline ‘assistance’ (they like very much to ‘assist’ me in blocking, mainly by methodically removing the pins with their teeth) and left it in there all day to dry.

And when I came home, I had this:

It’s the Icelandic Lace Shawl, which I made as a shop sample for a friend. It’s a pretty straight forward pattern, except that you really have to pay attention because you do a lot of color changing and different stitch patterns. Plus I think there were something like 1100 stitches required for that crocheted loop bind-off, and by the time I was done with that I was about ready to stab something (or possibly somebody) with the crochet hook. We will not even discuss the pinning of all of those little loops, either. But it turned out quite nice, and the crocheted loop bind off was worth it, no matter how many things I might have been muttering under my breath about it while in process.

It’s NaBloPoMo time again!

Take a whole pile of apples (about 5 or 6 pounds), recently purchased from Apple Hill, which have reached the state of ripeness where a person who will only eat their apples if rock hard and not the slightest bit squishy or grainy, can no longer eat them (um, that would be me, and why yes, I *do* have Fruit Issues, thanks for asking).

Using a handy dandy peeler / corer / slicer, peel, core, and slice them. Or at least use it until it is so covered in slimy apple goo that the peeler part no longer works, at which point you will have to peel the remainder of the apples by hand. (Mm. Slimy apple goo!)

Smash them all into the crockpot with a bunch of sugar and some cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg, cover, and cook all day on medium to low. Then run them through a food processor or a blender, or smash them up with a potato masher if you feel the need to release some aggression, and return the whole mess to the crockpot to simmer for a day or so. This time leave the lid off, so the liquid will evaporate. Give it a stir every now and then, and take deep breaths, because the kitchen should now smell like apple pie.

After a day or so, when it looks thick enough, drag a half dozen or so jars out of the pantry, sterilize them, rummage through the kitchen to figure out where your husband might possibly have hidde…I mean, ‘put away’ your canning funnel (heh), then commence to pour the extremely hot apple butter into jars, while carefully avoiding also pouring it onto the counter, the stove, or your fingers.

Seal, dump the jars into the boiling water left over from the jar-sterilization process, let them bubble around for about ten minutes, and then remove them and let them sit on the counter until you hear the deliciously satisfying ‘Pop’ that lets you know that the lid has properly sealed.

Pour remainder into a bowl and slather it on anything you can think of. Cheese blintzes for dinner, smothered in apple butter? Sure! Why not!

Makes about seven pint jars. Delicious!

It’s NaBloPoMo time again!

I had a hard time sleeping last night. When I finally went to bed only about 30% of the votes had been tallied in California, but Proposition 8 – the one that *removes* the rights of gays and lesbians to marry by amending the constitution – looked like it was going to pass. As the night went on, the margin between yes and no kept on shrinking, but it wasn’t looking good. The first thing I did this morning upon rising from bed was immediately check in on the state results website and ugh. Just..ugh.

I decided that I needed to distract myself because obsessively refreshing the vote tally page wasn’t going to make the final count come up any faster. And there is that huge box of apples we bought from Apple Hill this past weekend, waiting to be dealt with. So I went into the kitchen and I pulled out my handy corer/peeler/slicer contraption and I filled the crockpot to the brim with apples, and then stirred in some sugar and some cinnamon and a little bit of cloves and nutmeg, and smashed it all down with a spoon just enough to let me put the lid on, and I left it there to cook all day while I headed off to work. And on the way in to work, listening to NPR, I teared up again, listening to parts of Obama’s speech from last night, and my coworkers and I walked around all day alternately grinning giddily at each other about Obama’s landslide victory, or muttering choice swear words about the setback to civil rights.

I understand that there are good and decent people on both sides of this issue, even though it might be easier to believe otherwise. And I also know that the people who supported this proposition believe with great certainty that they did the right thing, even though it is nearly impossible for me to even comprehend how they can think so, because my version of gods and of what ‘separation of church and state’ means differs so radically from theirs.

But here is the thing. Even though this is not what we wanted and hoped for, I still believe that eventually, reason and tolerance will prevail. The margin between passing and failing this time around is tiny, which is a huge improvement from ten years ago when the state passed a similar (although non-constitutionally amending) ballot measure by far more overwhelming odds. And as someone online pointed out, our brand new President-elect Obama (excuse me if I squee when I say that) was born to parents who would not have been allowed to marry in 22 states at that time, and these days, the general public looks at interracial marriage and wonders why anyone made such a huge fuss over such a non-issue. I have to believe that at some point in the future, people will look at the whole issue of gay marriage and feel exactly the same way.

It’s NaBloPoMo time again!

I have been watching the polls. Richard has been obsessively checking fivethirtyeight.com for weeks now. And as of about 2pm today I have been obsessively refreshing Google News, waiting for news – any news at all – on the election. As soon as I got home I immediately sat down in front of the computer and then watched the little numbers refresh, while alongside my browser my Twitter feed pinged regularly with updates from various news sources. Obama takes Ohio. Obama takes New Mexico. Obama takes yet another battleground state and turns it from red to blue.

Richard and I decided to take advantage of some of the election freebie offers going on in the area, so we headed off to the Ben & Jerry’s in Davis for a free scoop, and then swung through Starbucks on the way home for some free coffee. Back home, we settled in on couches in the living room to watch the Colbert / Stewart live election coverage, which we’d been taping while we were out. Before we started, I checked Google News one more time. 207 to 135. We forwarded through the commercials. Obama takes Iowa. Obama might take Virginia? And then Stewart dropped the bombshell. CNN called it. Obama is the new President. He won!

There was a little bit of screaming in our house at that news, and there was a little bit of crying (but the happy kind). Email and Twitter started going crazy. We both dove for our respective phones. I couldn’t stop bawling. Holy crap, he won! He actually won!

I feel as if, with this awesome news, the entire world can now breathe a collective sigh of well-deserved relief. I am positively giddy over the knowledge that I can finally be *proud* of my own President. Every country loses its way now and then. America lost her way eight years ago. Thank all the gods and goddesses that she has finally found it again.

It’s NaBloPoMo time again!