birthday pizza mars

So its been a bit of time between posts. Last saturday we had an 80s party round these parts. Was at a house a little bit down the ol' country road and we travelled there in perhaps the greatest caravan I've ever been a part of. After numerous visits to athrift store where for 5 bucks you can buy a bag and leave with it filled with clothes, we were attired in our finest 80s apparel and proceeding to the house via bicycle, a very 80s mode of transportation for me. Was a lot of fun dancing for 4 hrs and such. Fans of my original style of dancing will be disappointed to hear that I lost in the balloting for best male dancer to charlie who is a mild-mannered plant phylogenist by a day and a smooth dancing, wise cracking artful dodger type by night. I was wearing a sweet gray jacket (think rain man) which was purchased for 2 dollars, a red hawaiian shirt, 2 watches, and a necktie. That night at the stroke of midnight I was transformed as if by magic, or by cultural and legal convention, into a 23 year old. When I arose from my slumber the following morning made some buttermilk pancakes for myself, opened a package from the family with books and season 1 of arrested development, a highly acclaimed television show that is still profitably underwhelming, and several nice cards. Kevin also very thoughtfully sent me a disc for my birthday which I was immediately enamored with as it has the chinese zodiac on it, providing an easy reference for whenever I forget that I'm a dog. Sort of had a quiet sunday which was good then threw a roast in the oven at 150 and went to watch the beginnings of Batman, I think my favorite comic book movie to date if only for the use of the word spelunking, and the ninjas, though there is much more to enjoy than those two items. When I returned the roast was not burnt or otherwise inedible and I enjoyed it that night and every ensuing supper for the past four days.

Now for some bad news. I'm afraid that my attendance at sandblast is in jeopardy. The powers that be have decided that the very same weekend as chicago's premier annual beach tournament would be a good time for everyone here to enjoy a subsidized trip to the black hills of south dakota. I would still like to go to chicago, but any method of transporting myself across space to get there is now in doubt. Of course if I could move to and fro in 4 dimensions with facility equal to my powers in the first three this would prove a trivial obstacle. I'll look into arranging spatial transport upon my return from Mars but at this point my probability of attendance has dipped considerably. This is a great disappointment as in addition to the regulars zahlen, tazo, lyrica, josie, Tea & Strumpet types, and other notables will be there.

So I'm beginning to look forward to Mars more and more, to the uninitiated and those wondering how I can manage the logistics of coming back from there but cannot get to chicago this is a 3 day ultimate tourney in pittsburgh in addition to being a heavenly body, and today I got really excited when I saw the full roster of people going. Get to play with a lot of friends from chicago and Josh and/or Gwen, depending which is looking after their toddler on any given point. Its also abando's return to grass which should be interesting and fun.

So at the top of my list of things to do when I get back from Pennsylvania is to once again begin looking for a job in earnest. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions feel free to contact me with them. I am at this point willing to do just about anything except I'd like to avoid sales of any kind. I also like to think and research stuff. As anyone can see from that last sentence I'm also an excellent communicator.

other less meaningful things that have happened are, I had my first cup of coffee in a year and a half and it was quite good after 3 spoonfuls of sugar, enjoyed it while watching arrested development, I'm feeling a little jittery at the moment. I named my 6 week old basil plant Basil, it is sort of like a pet, I feel a genuine sense of joy whenever I interract with him and I bring him out for the day and put him away at night, I hope to steadily devour him in the near future. I have 2 pounds of honey and don't use it very often, but i like the taste, has anyone made candy with honey? How hard/easy is it? recipes? The spurs won the championship, I am very happy about this as I root for them as long as they don't play the bulls due to very fond childhood memories associated with them. That's about it. oh yeah. In intern news here last friday night a comical series of events played themselves out. A girl got quite drunk and had a meaningful conversation with a fellow about wanting a relationship, sadly he didn't see things the way she did. Later, wanting to speak to him more she went to his tent. he was not there. She decided to wait for him. She began to feel sick and proceeded to throw up inside his tent. this led to a mad dash of trying to warn him about the tent, which was a moot point as he had left the creek for the cities since talking to her. I was witness to the great moment on monday when he asked her if she had in fact thrown up in his tent, which he was 100% certain had happened because some thoughtful amateur historian had taken pictures of the aftermath, and she with a face closer in colour to red than not admitted to having done it. He took it rather well both when he became aware of the fact and later when he asked her about it, and to her expressed his happiness that she was none the worse for the amount of drinking she had done and that he wasn't angry about the episode at all since she of course had cleaned it up the next morning. In addition to the throwing up there was someone on the roof of a building threatening to pee on passer-bys. Good times, good times.

In what's joe saying, when I just looked up how to spell passer-bys (don't know if I got it right) came across passepartout, which is a person that can go anywhere, or a thing given to a person that allows them to go anywhere. I also believe its the same spelling as the servant to phineas fogg. while I haven't used it yet, I am certain that I soon will.

Finally here is the pizza recipe that Kevin asked for courtesy of Rose.
1 T active dry yeast
1 1/2 c warm water
1/4 c nonfat dry milk
2 t table salt or 1 T coarse salt
1/4 c olive oil
2/3 c wheat
2-2 1/2 c white flr
cornmeal if you've got it to sprinkle on heavy cookie sheet

1. Dissolve yeast completely in 1/2 c water in lg bowl. Stir
milk, salt, and rest of h2o together (I use 1/4 c reg warm
milk and 3/4 c h2o for this part), then pour over yeast.

2. Add and stir to mix: oil, wheat flr, and ~ 2 c white flr.
Place on lightly flr'd surface, while you wash out, oil
bowl. Knead lighlty just a few m, just til smooth, adding a
lil flr if necessary. Place in bowl, cover w/ plastic wrap,
let rise while you go do something else (at least 1 h), til
it's 2x size.

3. It'll lk real spongy and oily when you tk it out
of the bowl, so mk sure your hands, the surf, rolling pin are
all well-flr'd. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

4. Divide dough into 2-4 pcs. Knead LIGHTLY, no where near
as much as we did for AB's, ~ 3-8 m, til dough is just smooth
and not sticky, sprinkling on more flr as you go along to kp
from sticking.

5. Flatten w/ rolling pin, coaxing it out from center towards
edges. Get it as thin/even as possible, concentrating on
areas that remain thick by twirling w/ your fists. Haven't
gotten much ht on the twirl, but it does get to be real thin.

6. Place on flr'd or cornmeal'd heavy cookie sheet, sprinkle
w/ toppings, and bake ~ 12 m. EN-JOY!