Golden boys ** Did anyone else notice that all three ice skating medalists last night were blonde? I don't know what that means, but it was interesting. I really loved the performances, and thought the judging was irrefutably fair, finally! Goebel is too cute for his own good, and I was happy to see Yagudin win. Last night was pure Olympic perfection. I loved it.
Posted 10:44 AM by Kerry O.

Happy Anniversary! ** A day late and a dollar short but Happy Fifth Anniversary to my best friend Ember and her husband Brian. You guys have really been through hell and back, but you did it together and I wish you all the endless love in the world! Besides, you got married in Vegas on Valentines Day. If ever you were meant to be together, there's the proof. :-) Kisses to your beautiful girls too! See you this weekend.
Posted 10:27 AM by Kerry O.

1. What was the first thing you ever cooked? Grilled cheese. I burned it too. It was an omen.

2. What's your signature dish? Well, my dishes are changing now with my permanently restricted diet. But I discovered on Wednesday night that I make a mean gluten-free pizza dough for a 5-cheese (including feta!) pizza. That's probably going to be my specialty now.

3. Ever had a cooking disaster? (tasted like crap, didn't work, etc.) Describe. I've had so many, I don't know where to start. I like to experiment with my cooking, but I'm a horribly picky eater. I think the funniest cooking disaster wasn't mine, it was Joe's famous purple dessert. It was supposed to be a blueberry torte-type thing. Well, blueberries were expensive so he used bananas. Bananas?! And since it wasn't purple-y like the picture, he added wine. Yep. And 2 eggs? Yep, he cooked those before putting them in the torte. Scrambled eggs. It was phenomenal. I missed the cooking adventure, but saw the results in my freezer that night. That, coincidentally, was the same night I permanently accepted the role of cook of the house.

4. If skill and money were no object, what would make for your dream meal? I'd love to cook like those people on the gourmet shows. Something uselessly fancy, and doubtlessly involving paper-thin cuts of filet mignon.

5. What are you doing this weekend? Cleaning and preparing for the next two weekends (cousin's wedding, sister's bridal shower and bachelorette party and sister's rehearsal dinner, wedding, reception, etc.). Lots to do, and lots of money to spend that I don't have. I think my mother and I are going to go look at open houses just for the fun of it on Sunday. We both love our houses and have no desire to move, but what else do you do when the weather is this gorgeous (80 degrees today)?
Posted 10:07 AM by Kerry O.

What I did on my summer vacation ** To answer the obligatory day-after-Valentines questions: We quickly put on nice clothes and went to a nice restaurant (right after work - there was nobody there!). Then we came home and played with the dog and {sensored} and watched the Olympics. It was a wonderful Valentines Day, but really not unlike most days. Hope yours was fun too.
Posted 9:53 AM by Kerry O.

Go figure ** Something is wrong when I find infinitely more joy and interest in stories about the President's gorgeous little scottish terrier than I do about the man himself.
Posted 1:44 PM by Kerry O.

Love keeps us together ** Happy Valentines Day, everyone. My favorite VDay wishes are always those from family and friends, so if you feel the same way, I'm sending you my Valentines Day love! Many thanks to wonderful Sara for the wonderful gift!

Off to a lovely meeting. Happy happy joy joy.
Posted 10:10 AM by Kerry O.

Obligatory work birthdays ** The boss lady had her birthday today. We had angel food cake. Well, angel food cake was had by nearly all. I did not partake, and neither did two other of my esteemed coworkers. One eats nothing. She's probably 50 and skinnier than I've ever been. She's athletic, and I try not to judge (*snicker* Yeah, right). The other can't eat anything. She's probably 35 and has allergies to most everything (interestingly, including wheat). We each ate strawberries and talked about how Dairy Queen frozen dessert really isn't dairy. Yeah. They pay me for this. I can't wait to get pregnant and take maternity leave. I need a break from office shmoozing.
Posted 3:59 PM by Kerry O.

Highway robbery, NBA style **"The money a buyer spends for one shoe probably could feed the worker who made it for weeks."
Posted 8:42 AM by Kerry O.

Duh ** There is a plane. It is having technical difficulties. The airport has advised it to circle between Phoenix and Tucson to burn off fuel. You are a news reporter. You haven't been told exactly what the problem is, but it's a problem with the plane's hydrolic system. Do you then get on the news with an urgent bulletin and say, "There's a problem with the hydrolics on the plane, but we don't know if it's in the tail or wing flaps, or the landing gear. It is circling to burn off fuel before it attempts to land"? Um, here's a hint: If the tail or wing flaps had a problem - it wouldn't be able to circle. I'm putting money on the landing gear.

It was the landing gear. And the plane landed safely, by the way.
Posted 8:40 AM by Kerry O.

Reason Number 3,529 ** "Bush meets with Scouts, says he supports gay ban" As if I didn't already have enough reasons to dislike the man.
Posted 3:53 PM by Kerry O.

Beautiful Valentine's Day ** I forgot to tell "you" about the kindest thing anyone's done for me in longer than I can remember. Sunday was my step-mother's birthday. I also had to go to her house to meet up with my step-sister to go for a final fitting on my Matron of Honor dress (which is lovely, by the way). When she and C.R. arrived, she was carrying what can only be described as a small, 2-tier white wedding cake, adorned with silk roses. As she set it down (and I was staring blankly at it, trying to comprehend why it was there), Joe pulled our wedding cake topper out of his pocket and placed it on top. This was unbelievably thoughtful on so many levels. You see, our wedding cake was screwed up. It was supposed to be three tiers, with solid red roses (Black Velvet, to be exact) between each layer. While I was getting ready, it was brought to my attention that the cake was, well, leaning. Horribly. They took a couple of quick pictures (which I don't have scanned in yet) of it, then partially dismantled it. They took the top layer off completely and put it in the freezer. They put rose petals all over the cake (not like I thought they were going to, however), and left it. It was pretty, if you didn't know what it was supposed to be, but not what I'd really really wanted.

Of course, I can't have wedding cake again - ever. It's a good thing I found this out after our 1st anniversary, when I was still able to enjoy that top layer. But further, Chelsie spent her Friday researching gluten-free (GF) baking, bought all the weird ingredients you need to make a GF cake, and baked me my wedding cake all over again. It even had raspberry filling. The top layer was white cake, and the bottom chocolate. And it had my roses, which even my revised wedding cake was too weak to hold.

It was the nicest Valentine's gift I've ever received, and it was delicious! It took great self-control to hold back tears, that someone would go through all that trouble to give me a gift I would really enjoy. Thank you, Chelsie, and thank you, C.R. for supporting her while she had so much trouble making it. I can't tell you how much it meant to me.

My father did take pictures, before we all dove into its yumminess, so I'll post those when they're given to me.
Posted 12:03 PM by Kerry O.

Get some beads and head on down to the Quarter ** It's Mardi Gras, boys and girls! New Orleans is hopping! We're going to take the dozens of beads I have from our visit in November and head over to Fat Tuesday's after work to celebrate! Yippee! It would be much more fun if I could actually be there again, but alas, I'll just celebrate where I can.
Posted 11:10 AM by Kerry O.

Comfortably numb ** The recent terror alerts make me uneasy. There's a deep statement. It's just eerie to me. I woke up yesterday morning with a very uncomfortable feeling. After my morning pit-stop, I went straight into the living room to see the news. I just had this bad twinge in the pit of my stomach. I didn't want to say anything about it yesterday in case I'd jinx something (okay, I'm superstitious sometimes, I admit it), but I was relieved to wake up this morning and have that feeling be wrong. I don't feel quite as creepy this morning, thank God. But the terror alerts are still concerning. What I wouldn't give to have that September 10th security feeling again. It hasn't broken me, just made me a little more jaded.
Posted 9:27 AM by Kerry O.

Enough already ** You know, I was really irritated last night, and it didn't get any better this morning. Joe and I were watching the Olympics while I experimented with gluten-free baking for the first time. As I was finishing, the pairs figure skating was reaching its climax. Now, I am not a figure skating expert, but come on! It is a subjective sport, people. I refuse to jump on the "Poor Sale and Pelletier" bandwagon. They put on a very good performance, but it was not convincing enough to enough judges for them to win! Frankly, though clean, I felt their performance was a "just enough" attempt. They knew they only needed a 5.7 - and the judges' approval - to win Gold, so they aimed for just enough to get by. Yes, they skated well, but it was not technically difficult. She said, "When you skate your best and come in second, it is difficult.” Okay. But the point is, you should be proud of 2 things: you skated your very best, and your very best was enough for a Silver medal in the Olympics! Um, that's a frickload more than I can say! It's just a good thing it wasn't U.S. vs. Russian Federation or we'd probably have ground troops on the way already. I feel for them, really. Had the situation been reversed and one judge changed their vote the other way, would we be as caring for them and their close call? No way in hell. That's a crock.

And once again, I'm proud of my country-mates. From the MSNBC article, "American champions Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman finished fifth, but he called the performance 'the greatest thing we’ve ever done.'” Amen for that.
Posted 8:22 AM by Kerry O.

Friends don't let friends blog alone ** Found a Phoenix Bloggers ring. Neat-o. I feel so... involved or something.
Posted 4:03 PM by Kerry O.

A Bad Case of the Mondays ** {cough cough} I had a little nothing cold over the weekend that overnight decided to park in my lungs like a fuming tanker truck. I should lose my voice by midday, though the majority of those around me are guessing mid-morning. Had a lovely weekend, though busy. We finally saw Black Hawk Down yesterday. I was very surprised by how much I liked it. The special effects really were awesome - it was like watching a documentary in a way. It was a little gory for me, though I managed to keep my eyes firmly shut during the "leg scene" (if you have seen it, you know exactly what I'm talking about), but some of the others, like the guy alive and missing half his body, caught me unprepared and watching. Blech. Besides the gore, it was a great movie.

What surprised me is that we lost so few people in the "raid." Obviously, the situation was horrible, the outcome nasty (for both sides), and it furthers my hatred of war, but it could have been much much worse. I kept flashing back during the movie to the news report I saw when the movie first came out about a screening they held in Mogadishu and the Somalis who cheered while watching the helicopters come crashing down. There were several points in the movie where Somali militia bigwigs were saying things like "This is not your war" and "Without victory, there will be no peace. This is how we fight." They were calm and deliberate, and I frankly think the real people they were imitating probably were too. And it gave me pause to think about the parallels between Somalis and our current enemies. Not suprising, considering many of the Somali militia were trained by al Qaida and related groups.

But to realize that our military, utterly outnumbered on foreign soil and blundering about in desperation, had the military might to slaughter so many Somalis and walk out with 19 casualties... is stunning to me. And it points to another important issue. We can blow up anyone. That is why they want to fly our planes into our buildings and light matches to set off shoe bombs on trans-Atlantic flights. They want to hurt us as we have hurt them - issues of right or wrong set aside - and they do not have the military capability to do so. They are trying to get it, we are sure, but for the meantime they will use our own power as a weapon stronger than any they possess.

No, it's not rocket science (well, okay, actually it is, but I digress), but it just put some things in a different perspective for me.

And Ewan MacGregor still rocks.
Posted 8:44 AM by Kerry O.