Indiana Idylls

To quickly recap: We enjoyed a late-October weekend in St. Louis, accidentally arriving during the 8th inning of the Cardinals' World Series Winning Game. At the Ballpark Hilton. One block from the stadium. It was a night -- and very early morning -- to remember. We visited the zoo, Union Station, the Arch, the Botanical Gardens (to see the Chihuly exhibit), and I don't remember where else. Great city, good times. The furnace installation was completed on November 4th, and we've been toasty warm ever since. On November 15th, I hosted (with the immense help of three friends) 20 at the Ladies' Gourmet dinner. "Cranberries" were the theme ingredient. Everything was delicious. I was exhausted. The afternoon before leaving for St. Louis, I taped three half-hour shows for the Health Department, which I then had to scramble to assemble and deliver by November 17th. Of course, nothing ever goes smoothly over at the studio, so it took three times as long as planned ...

Saturday evening we had some friends over a pumpkin-carving party. Unfortunately, my digital camera battery wasn't charged for the big event, so I'm sorry to only be able to present our own two pumpkins to you. This was the first year I splurged on the little pumpkin-carving kit, and although the tools appeared blunt and flimsy, they held up well and carved beautifully -- in spite of my pumpkin's 2"-thick skin! Those narrow blades make a cinch of more complicated details, and I doubt we'll turn back to paring knives anytime soon. Paul's pumpkin was an unusual triangular shape that reminded him of a fish. I think his has a terrifically aquatic feel to it. I kept with the baby theme and tried to carve a little punkin in pumpkin utero, as it were.

Our first ultrasound was this morning -- a miracle of life and a wonder of technology. I've posted our take-home pictures online . What a cutie! We were quite pleasantly surprised by the image quality. It's strange to think February is still a long way off.... The doc was happy with all results, though he mentioned something about a "prominent" kidney and will schedule another ultrasound in six weeks. We're not worried (because we don't understand what that means!), but we hope it all sorts itself out in the meantime to keep the doc from worrying. I also found out that when they say I'll be having fetal non-stress tests, they mean I'll be having non-stress tests TWICE a week from week 32 (Christmastime) until the baby is born. Yikes! I hope they don't become "maternal stress tests".

It was just brought to my attention that you IE users assumed I was not in the profile picture to the right. I was there all along, IE just didn't know it. I was also told that my delightful double-border was not displaying properly. Both "errors" should be fixed now. If anything doesn't display properly, please let me know or -- better yet -- get Firefox ! Besides being web-standards compliant and more secure than IE, it's a darned cool, customizable browser. I'd be lost without the tabbed browsing ability, and I don't know how I'd get by without radial context menus, Adblock, and many more fabulously handy Extensions .

To recap, the house was built in 1967 with Electric Celing Cable (ECC) heat and, from educated guess, central air. There are four vents run to the first floor, which made the guy suspect the system had to have been installed at time of construction. The vents throughout the house (a total of 9 for 12 rooms and 2250 sq. ft.) are located on inside walls at ceiling level. The previous owners never turned the ECC on in their seven years in residence. Last fall, I tried to get someone to come and inspect the system, as it seemed like it could be a good back-up system for two people in a huge house. Upon inspection the other day, the electrician seemed to feel that most if not all of the ECC had long since been disconnected. At some point along the way, the owners were persuaded to simply install a gas furnace in the attic, and heat and cool with forced air. Even with only a rudimentary understanding of thermodynamics, the notion of creating hot air in the attic and blowing said air down two...

Wow. The Ladies' Gourmet Dinner was a bunch of fun. What a feast! The way it works is that four people sign up to "host" each month, and prepare a meal amongst themselves to serve the group. They also provide all the recipes for the meal for the members to take home. The meals generally follow this formula: Appetizers, Beverages, Soup, Bread, Salad, Meat, Vegetable, and Dessert. I and two other friends signed up for next month, November 15th. There's still an open space, but the group's fearless leader will be calling those members who were unable to attend last night and get them signed up for any openings. In December, there's a Cookie Exchange. The whole meal was fantastic, but I wanted to share two super, simple appetizers that were a big hit. OK, and the punch recipe. Everyone needs a good punch recipe. Fruit Salsa and Cinnamon Chips Fruit Salsa 8oz. raspberries 1 lb. strawberries 6 oz. blueberries 2 T. white sugar 1 T. brown sugar 3 T. fruit preserves,...

Aha! Hotel reservations have been made! Baby G does much to inspire a carpe diem attitude, so after much idle talk and an on-again-off-again-on-again-off-again business trip, I'm proud to announce that we will be going to St. Louis, and we will see the Chihuly exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Gardens . It's a trip we've only discussed since last February. I like to play Hotwire roulette for these little excursions. This time around, we got a great deal on the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark , which could be especially interesting depending on how tonight's game goes. (I did have the foresight to check that any necessary World Series games next weekend will be played in Detroit.) The last time we stayed at a Hilton, it was at O'Hare on AirCanada's dime. We most fondly remember the $5 bottled water laid out so invitingly on the dresser. Besides the Botanical Gardens, we hope to visit the zoo (free admission!?) and the St. Louis arch, and generally enjoy the ...

(plus $2.95/bag S&H) I've never heard of Dale and Thomas Popcorn , but we saw a TV commercial the other night claiming they were sending out free popcorn this month. Trick or treat? Sure enough -- they're GIVING one (or two!) of four flavors away during the month of October, for no more than $2.95 S&H per bag. Not a bad deal. Happy crunching!

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/10/13/ny.snow.ap/index.html

Alright. To be perfectly honest, the snowflakes don't keep falling, and they certainly haven't fallen on my head, which has remained safely and warmly ensconced indoors all morning (still trying to reclaim my horizontal office surfaces). The frosty white flakes (or "little white Italian fairies", if you prefer) have indubitably fallen, however, and they did fall on Paul's head as he biked home from campus earlier this afternoon. On the plus side, it's finally frigid enough to consider baking on a regular basis. After I finish my cup of Postum , I think I'll kick off the chilly season with a loaf of Rosemary Raisin Bread. Heh heh -- I kicked off the "chili season" last Friday, when Paul and I made 24 qts. of chili, three batches of corn bread, and three apple cobblers for the Friday Night Dinner at the Newman Center. Although we were prepared for the 30+ students we were told to anticipate, there were only 18 diners, including Fr. John, Paul, a...

Monday night -- finally -- Paul felt the baby move! Baby G had been playing hard-to-get, but just before falling asleep that night the little one nuzzled into my left hip (a favorite resting spot) and Paul was in easy reach. Hooray! I had been very eager to share what I can of the somersaulting experience. The activity down there increases daily, so I'm sure future opportunities will more easily present themselves. In fact, they caught up with each other again yesterday.

I had a fabulous birthday. Perfect fall weather, sun shining, leaves changing, cider and donuts... what more can a girl ask for? We went for a walk in the woods. I made pasta arrabiata just the way I like it for dinner that night. Saturday, the 23rd, we headed down to Indy to "really celebrate". Paul wanted to get me a rocking chair for my birthday and I was feeling a desperate need for pants that fit, so we went to the big city to shop around and check out Babies R Us. On a tip from my mother-in-law, that we would want something that rocks both upstairs and downstairs, we started our search at the store where we bought our dining room set. They had a very nice glider in the same cherry wood with upholstered seat and back that I found very comfortable, and which we ultimately ended up buying. For lunch, we drove across town to find El Morocco restaurant only to discover that they are closed for lunch on Saturdays. The Russian deli next door was more of a grocery store than a...

I gassed up the car yesterday for $20.99. I can't remember the last time that happened. (Gas is hovering around $2.29 in town right now, having dropped steadily over the past 10 days or so.) Ironically, I can remember the last time I filled 'er up for $10. Gas was a mere $.99 per gallon around the time of our spring break trip to Florida seven years ago. I think we arrived back home to discover gas had "spiked" to $1.08. Then I proceeded to catch my hair in the window when it started to rain. I hope this has nothing to do with falling gas prices. It was scarier than it sounds, because I only realized the problem after I couldn't turn my head to the right, tethered to the window the way I was.

Do not, under ANY circumstances, add lemon juice to packaged brownie mix. I happen to think that lemon ZEST adds a nice fresh-tasting subtle something to gooey, fudgy brownies (thanks Mel and Dave for introducing me to the unusual flavor combo). Lemon JUICE on the other hand -- and yes, I should have known better -- just makes the brownies sour and also wreaks havoc with their texture. Maybe the real lesson is: Don't get creative with your baked goods when you're tired. The worst part is that we served these brownies to company. *sigh* The whole truth is, this company was a Chinese student Paul often discusses Chinese food with, and we had she and her roommate over for dinner because they had offered to share some of the dumplings they had made. It was sort of a last-minute arrangement, and I was exhausted Sunday when I threw together tacos and these pariah-brownies. It turns out they had never had tacos or brownies before. I'm not sure I take solace from their ignorance of...

My apologies for the virtual summer break. Mostly, I was afraid I would let slip our good news too soon, but I think by now everyone should know that we're expecting in February. Keep track of our approximate progress with the neato ticker at the bottom. We had a terrific summer. Paul taught through the end of July, and then we were off on vacations. First, a quick rendezvous with Paul's family in Michigan, then he and I flew off to Nova Scotia as a sort of belated honeymoon -- or perhaps more realistically, a babymoon. There's not much to tell about the trip except that we had a terrific time living the life of leisure. We stayed at a B&B in Halifax (certainly the weak link of our stay), spent many hours on the city's boardwalk, ate much excellent ice cream -- the best in Canada, by popular vote, and day-tripped to a few notable tourist spots: Peggy's Cove, Lunenburg, and the Bay of Fundy. August seems like a blur. We returned at the tail end of that awful heat...

Hoosiers and homeowners for 366 days, now. Sometimes, it feels as if we just got here, and other times it feels like we've already been here too long. We still love it here, and would only wish that the people we wanted to share it with weren't so far away. We celebrated yesterday by shopping in Indy. We discovered a Vietnamese restaurant and enjoyed a magnificent lunch there before stopping at all of our favorite retailers -- and some new ones. Paul had been looking for a kneeling chair and found one at a store we'd never heard of before, Relax the Back. (I think they should be called Ergonomics-R-Us.) Last week, we made our own Bubble Tea for the first time, so we needed to replenish our bubble-tea supplies at Asia Mart -- and stock up on mochi and as many strange Asian candies as Paul could fit in the cart. For dinner, we wound up back in Broad Ripple sampling Bazbeaux pizza. They're no Emmas in Kenmore Square, Boston, but they had some crazy gourmet fixings. I don...

Paul and I got to fly in 70-year-old Stearman biplanes with the Red Baron Pizza Squadron last Thursday! They were in town for Summer Heat, Muncie's big summer festival and air show, and the Red Barons were giving media rides. Roger was stuck working his day job in another county, so he offered Paul and I the opportunity of a lifetime! In truth, I was a bit apprehensive about flying in a "little plane" -- not to mention a little plane belonging to a squadron known for their aerial aerobatics! As the pilots introduced themselves, Travis nonchalantly asked if we were up for some "loops and rolls" today. We must have appeared hesitant because he quickly added that the ride is gentler than a roller coaster. Hey -- if you're going to fly with the Red Barons, you might as well fly with the Red Barons. After all, we were assured that they hadn't lost anyone that day. The ride was extraordinary and exhilarating. The Stearman has an open cockpit, but the seats ...

On May 13, Paul and I participated in a glass-working workshop through Minnetrista Cultural Center here in Muncie. How often do you get an opportunity like that? We had a terrific time. Back in December, we had attended their Luminaria Walk -- a sort of holiday open house -- where the Ball family mansions were open and decorated for the holidays, admission to the museum was free, and there was a craft show and some artists demonstrating their craft. Among these, we were fascinated by the glass workers. There were several women making glass beads, and Steve Sizelove was selling some of his intricate glass vessels and demonstrating blown glass, as I recall. He was very personable; we probably stood there chatting with him for 30 minutes. In the course of conversation, we learned that he occasionally taught workshops through Minnetrista, so when we saw it advertised in the paper we were sure to sign up. We were bussed up to Ft. Wayne, where there's a very small commercial glass s...

Sorry, everyone -- you'd think that with all the soggy weather we've had (I think we were up to 10 days of recorded rain in a row until the wet spell broke on Friday) I'd have spent more time in front of the computer. I haven't been feeling very chatty recently, I guess, or even much like sitting at my messy desk. I'll try to catch everyone up in the next few posts. May 9 and 10 Paul judged his science fair in Indianapolis and I explored the city some. I had a great time. I was hoping to see some practice runs at the Speedway, but I spent they sunny afternoon Tuesday checking out Broad Ripple neighborhood, a locale one of Muncie's businessmen referred to in our latest show on downtown development, and it turns out they don't race in the rain which threatened all day Wednesday. Anyway, so when we got into town, Paul went right to his judging duties, not to return until 11pm. I checked in at the hotel, caught a bus, and headed up to Broad Ripple, an area of se...

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... it's just a bird, actually. Dad has been pondering a different sort of wildlife: How do woodpeckers do what they do without their brains rattling around in their skulls?  Ranger Rick's answer might surprise and astound you. Did I mention the baby bunnies are out? It's hard to figure out how many there are, although I believe I saw at least two running around and about the deck one morning. Since then, I most often see one bunny at a time -- occasionally with momma -- and this bunny has a white stripe down its forehead, like a thoroughbred would. Maybe we should start calling it White Lightning and enter it in the races. (Of course, "this" bunny could be "these" bunnies. There's no way of knowing unless they start venturing out in groups.) I'm not sure rabbits have raced since Bugs Bunny's stint at the greyhound track.

When one grows up in a town where even the pizza joints have a house version of "greens" (that's a fresh, bitter green, like escarole or swiss chard, sauteed with the likes of cherry peppers, garlic, breadcrumbs, and/or Proscuitto/bacon); where "chicken riggies" is on every menu (that's a tomato-based meat sauce with cherry peppers and diced chicken over rigatoni); where eggplant parmesan is baked into a casserole, like lasagna, and served at every wedding, graduation, and funeral, one comes to believe that these dishes are universally prepared. When dining out, Paul and I normally observe a household rule of thumb: Don't go out for Italian. I refuse to pay someone $10 apiece for $1 worth of macaroni and $1.89 worth of tomato sauce that I can make better than they can. Despite this, I was seduced by a radio advertisement for Johnny Carinos' Country Italian restaurant. They're running a $19.99 dinner for two special, where you can choose two entre...

It's the fourth dreary morning in a row in the great Hoosier state. A little rain is good (even better, if I ever get my herbs and radishes in the ground!), but I'd appreciate Mother Nature breaking it up a little bit. It's hard to spring out of bed when it's gray and dismal out. Last Monday I did go back out after dinner and unearthed the last of the herb garden stumps. That root ball was so heavy with clay, we let it dry out a bit and I enlisted Paul's help in hauling it to the curb Wednesday evening. A call to the sanitation department left some doubt as to whether or not the city would collect my growing pile of yard waste, but Thursday morning the big truck with the big grabby arm picked all my branches, bags, and shrubbery carcasses up in one mechanical handful. Hooray! Paul mowed the lawn, and the front yard was presentable once again. While I was out there Monday, I was tended to our bicycles when our neighbor, Ashley, came home from school. I waved and she ...

This building is the library at St. Francis University in Fort Wayne. When we got to campus, we were following some signage for something like "Bonner Hall/Library". I figured this was an admissions building, but walked in to discover a circulation desk. When I asked the boy behind the counter (a disinterested philosophy major, judging from his study materials) where the rare books were, he said, "The dining room." When asked where the dining room was, he gestured backwards with his head. The architecural details were incredible! The dining room had a gorgeous pink marble fireplace and those windowed turrets actually had curved panes of glass. I should have taken pictures inside. Ft. Wayne was much nicer than we expected it to be -- many of the buildings in and around downtown were simply beautiful.

I was down and out most of last week with the aforementioned cold. I am making my comeback in fits and starts, but I'm feeling pretty well today. Delight: Saturday we biked down to Christy Woods, a 17 acre property located on the southwest corner of the Ball State University campus, for a spring wildflower walk. We saw Trout Lilies, Spring Beauties, Showy Trillium, May Apples, Poison Ivy, and a bunch of others that I'll never remember or recognize. Yesterday we had the opportunity to show off our new-found botanical knowledge when we visited a friend's fabulous home and property up near Albany, IN. (Indiana does keep us feeling at home in that respect -- there are many cities here that we're familiar with because of their NY counterparts: Albany, Dunkirk, and Syracuse, just to name a few!) Delight: We headed up to Ft. Wayne via Route 1, a scenic country road through towns with bad names and lots of farmland. Along the way, there was a highway sign announcing "Histo...

What a week we've had! Tapped as RCIA sponsors back in the fall, we attended a beautiful Easter Vigil Mass and are happy to report that all 7 of our catechumens/candidates are now full-fledged Catholics. We even went back for Easter Sunday morning Mass, since Paul had the opportunity to play piano and our "sponsee" and his family had also planned to attend. We learned Saturday night that another woman we know -- both as a recent retiree from Paul's department and co-chair of the RCIA group -- and her husband were planning Easter alone, so they graciously accepted a last-minute invitation to join us for dinner, and Paul and I managed to quickly whip the house into shape AND throw together a rather presentable meal, considering we hadn't given much thought to side dishes when we planned on just the two of us. The ham was delicious, although it took MUCH longer to heat up than our recipe led us to believe. Also unexpectedly, the ham ended up trapped between the oven...

We had a busy and enjoyable weekend. Friday night, we attended the Annual All-You-Can-Eat Fish and Tenderloin Fry at church. (Yes, tenderloins on a Lenten Friday, in deference to the mixed-faith couples at church and to encourage any students to attend. Everything was pretty tasty, but we miss the northern-style battered fry; we're apparently far enough south that everything is breaded and it's just not the same. Afterwards, we checked out the Dollar Theatre for the first time, finally getting to see "Narnia" on the big screen. We enjoyed the movie and found it to be rather faithful to the book, but we were reminded why we don't often go to the theatre. About halfway through the movie, there began a hubbub in the back (where we were seated), with theatre employees and this man coming in and out and speaking to each other in not-so-hushed voices. At the movie's climax, it became necessary for this group to turn on one of the lights and patrol the theatre. The b...

I had to take some pictures yesterday for a Web site I'm working on, and discovered the turkey pictures that have been languishing on the digital camera since I brined and baked my first-ever turkey in January. It was the tastiest turkey I've ever had, and one of the handsomest, too. Find Alton Brown's recipe here . The show transcript can answer any questions. [The Good Eats Fan Page is a great source for all info Alton Brown, including transcripts of his shows: MUCH more informative and coloful than any mere FoodTV recipe could be.] Now, we just need to get ourselves back to CNY when my Aunt and Uncle break out the turkey fryer, to see if peanut oil can rival the brine. (Can you brine and fry, or is that a turkey bomb waiting to happen?) In other news, there is a duck hanging out in the neighbor's yard, across the street to the south. There's a creek that runs about a block north of our house, where we occasionally see our fine feathered friends, but I do...

A salon haircut is one of the few feminine privileges I truly enjoy. I love getting my hair washed and cut and it's fun that the hairdresser takes the time I never will to style it. There's something about those magical elixirs that when wielded by a pro elicit results this amateur can only dream of actualizing. It looked really nice -- just a few inches shorter, but a light, breezy style. The downer was that I couldn't stand the fog of product fragrance that enveloped my head, noticeable with every motion. I had to wash it out, didn't blow-dry it, and now it just looks... normal. For dinner, I made cream of leek and potato soup, using tofu instead of cream. I found a loaf of Roasted Garlic bread on the day old rack at the grocery store -- delicious as crostini. I hope the vegetarian meal begins to make up for our splurge the night before: Paul got some good news at work and we celebrated my devouring 7/8 of a wheel of baked brie. My mother called last night and encoura...

We only wish it hadn't begun at the exact moment we were getting ready for bed. No tornadoes, just some extraordinary thudner and lightning. One of the neighbors must have lost a spooked dog, because we heard someone calling out for something/someone. I would NOT have wanted to be wandering around in that rain -- or maybe hail. Whatever it was, it sounded like big, hard drops of wet. The precipitation was actually hitting our bedroom window, so it had to have been raining more or less horizontally. We've got a wind advisory until 7pm today, winds gusting up to 45mph. There seem to be a lot of wind advisories out here. That, and Fog Alerts, with much greater frequency than either of us is used to. If it's not snow, it's got to be something, I imagine. I found this link about Delaware County's tornado history . You'll have to scroll down just a screen or two to get to the Delaware County listing. (All the weather stats I looked at seemed to only go through 1995....

I took a three-hour nap this afternoon (no fooling) to make up for my restless sleep last night. It put a big hole in the day, but I'm feeling much better now and I'll be better prepared to lose another hour of sleep tonight. Tomorrow will be the first ever observation of Eastern Daylight Savings Time in Indiana. They've been warning residents of the imminent clock-setting for roughly three weeks on the radio -- and I only listen to the radio while I'm driving around town. Although we'll miss the convenience of Central Time's TV schedule, we're glad we won't have to play "What time is it in Indiana?" with our families for another summer. Come to think of it, we don't have cable anymore, anyway, so the TV schedule will hardly affect us. It seemed the local broadcast channels were on "Indiana time" last year. The day didn't go quite as planned. We had been invited to our yoga instructor's home for an afternoon of "jammi...

One of the disadvantages of moving away from friends and family is that it becomes somewhat difficult and time-consuming to keep in touch with everyone. Obvious, I know, but the source of some consternation for me. I laid awake in bed last night thinking of all the people I haven't emailed and how much has happened here that I feel obligated to inform my friends about -- home repairs, new discoveries, funny stories. Usually, I reach a point in late correspondence that I feel the need to write a very long email -- in instances of extreme guilt, actual snal mail -- to show that I do think about that person and to fill them in on the goings-on in my own life. (What are friends for, anyway, if not to take some interest in the day-to-day activities?) This usually only has the effect of further delaying correspondence, as evidenced by the three-letter waiting list. When in close proximity, I feel friends share general information as a matter of course. However, if I emailed everyone ...