Cooking with rhubarb

I am finishing the last of this.

It's darn good, relatively easy to make, and the only thing I didn't have in the house was eggs! Yes, there was rhubarb sitting in the fridge. I highly recommend making it and if you can't get rhubarb, any tart and fruity sauce would do.

The things I waste brain power thinking about...

I have a great dining room set that my grandfather didn't need when he downsized from a house to an apartment. With the sideboard and two china cabinets he and my grandmother had, they barely had room in their dining room for the table, and I fondly remember how fun it was to file in to our seats in a particular order at the holidays. There was no getting up until the end of them meal really because the room would have to empty out to let the person in the back corner out. Luckily there is lots of space in my apartment for the table.

I was moving the chairs to sweep and noticed again that only one of the six chairs has arm rests. Then I thought what an interesting study of society furniture can be. You only need one chair with arms for the man of the house, right? Keep in mind the table is probably 50 years old, so that would have made sense at the time. I suppose if you had a triangle-shaped table, it would also make sense - the one person at the base gets arm rests and along the sides you just let your arms hang at your sides. My table is a rectangle though. No space-related reason not to have a chair with arm rests on both ends except that the wife has to get up a lot during dinner to make sure the meal is served properly. I bet you could base a dissertation on the societal impact on furniture design.

My moot dilemma

I just got "official" notice that my imminent high school reunion is going to be Thanksgiving weekend. I had thought of that before but was unable to find any indication that someone was going plan it. Now someone has taken on the task. My parents still live in the town in which my high school is, so it should be a no-brainer that I could go and catch up with a bunch of people with whom I have lost touch.

The moot dilemma is that my brother is relocating to the opposite coast, so my parents told him they would come out for Thanksgiving and buy my plane ticket too. If I hadn't already bought the plane ticket to go, I would have had a really hard time deciding what to do Thanksgiving weekend. Looks like I will be heading westward and have to put in an extra effort when I am in my hometown to get back in touch with high school classmates who still live there. On the bright side, I will be able to see my brother almost every other month even though we are on opposite coasts. Plus I have a friend who moved out in the same area almost a year ago, so I will be able to see her too!

First post, part B

My first post probably should not be titled "ashamed". I suppose my confession was a good place to start but there are less shameful things with which to start. I am still trying to decide whether to have some theme or to have a vague online outlet; whether to tell all I know or those I know who have blogs that I am officially joining the blogging ranks; etc.

Until I have some aha! moment or blatant inspiration, my guess is this will be rather random...

Ashamed

I have a confession.

I have only read the Sorcerer's Stone. I read it in one night when I was doing field work in the middle of nowhere one summer in college. I enjoyed it and my family has read the others, but I never did. It's okay that I know how it all ends now, of course. Maybe I'll get them for my children some day - one every Christmas so that the books stay age-appropriate and I will read it before Santa leaves it in their stocking. :)