Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   highlight of my week
Friday, July 19 2013
The heat wave continued, and I did something I've been doing a lot in this weather: I took a siesta. I turned on the ceiling fan in the upstairs bedroom to full blast and then just fell asleep and stayed that way for a couple hours. Meanwhile Gretchen was down in the basement reading an actual book, the kind with a cover and pages made of cellulosic films. She actually reads a lot these days, which is part of her "homework" for her occasional shifts at an independent bookstore in Woodstock. In addition the the heat, an added stressor was some idiot down at the bus turn around firing an enormous gun every minute or so. Guns fired by idiots at the bus turn around fall into two categories: small semi-automatics fired almost incessantly and very large guns fired just enough to keep you on edge. All of this gunfire increased once Obama became President, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that some of the noise pollution is the result of nascent racism. Before the internet, people got annoyed by pornography enough to make it so its difficult for people to enjoy it in the privacy of their own home. But gunfire is a lot more annoying than pornography, and yet there is nothing that can be done to make it go the fuck away except electing Rick Perry President of the United States of America.
This evening, Gretchen and I drove into town to make some much-needed purchases. We started out in Lowes, where I got the hardware to build yet another copper pipe lamp, this time to be a wedding present for a friend. While there, we also bought a small kiddie pool in hopes of providing a place for our dogs (particularly Eleanor) to cool off.
Next we went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and ended up somehow spending $350 on five new pillows (replacing some ancient pillows stuffed with non-vegan down), a picnic blanket, a picnic table umbrella, something called "butter socks" (a complete and seasonably-inappropriate impulse buy on Gretchen's part), yet another frying pan, and a rice cooker to replace a ten year old one that just died. There's just something about Bed, Bath & Beyond that makes people overspend. It must be that "Beyond" part.
Originally Gretchen just wanted to get in and get out with these purchases, but I somehow convinced her that doing dinner at La Florentina was a good idea. For vegans, at least, the main reason it's always a good idea to dine at La Florentina is the sformato calzone. Our waitress was surprised when we ordered it with tahini sauce instead of porcini, since few people get it that way. But the porcini isn't vegan. When I took my first bite of sformato this evening, it was probably the highlight of my week (I'd say my month, but too much fun happened in Charlottesville to say that).
Back at the house, I filled the kiddie pool and Gretchen and I tried to convince Eleanor to get in, but she's always suspicious when we want her to do something, so she ran away and hid.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?130719

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