Weekend Wrapup

Saturday:

Hung out w/ EC and SH (and lil man) over in Oaktown. For some reason, internal A's internal gastank ran a little empty, so we went home early.

Sunday:

Mt. Tam hike on Dias Ridge. 3m up, and 3m back - with a beer refresher at the Pelican Inn, and then dinner at Paradise Bay in Sausalito. (With GL, DS, MP.)

I need to start pinning out these places on a map.

Kaiser WTF?

I suppose I should be directing this at my employer, who changed our Kaiser plan. I just spent last week home, and abed, because of a flu. Monday - Wednesday saw a 100-101 fever that was barely controllable with Tylenol/Advil alternated every four hours, a nasty headache, and a cough.

Enter Kaiser.

I called Kaiser on Monday, and saw my doctor on Thursday. The total: $40 for a small bottle of cough syrup.

Copay for doctor visit: $20.00

Copay for blood test doctor ordered: $10.00

Copay for tiny bottle of cough syrup: $9.00

Total for SINGLE VISIT: $39.00

Un. Believable.

Trying to pick this back up a little bit.

Recently been on a cookbook buying binge. Purchased Cooks Illustrated New Best Recipe and spent some time trying to look for recipes that weren't too difficult to make. I usually cook a big pot of something on Sundays to help with meals during the week, and also a pot of soup. This Sunday, I made the Corn Chowder, even though it was a little bit late in the season, and the Chicken Provencal.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to find the salted pork back that the corn chowder called for, but I had bacon in the freezer, so I used that. The grating of the corn was a total pain the butt, but at the end, this soup was totally worth it. I'm hoping that half of it freezes well, because there is WAY too much of it - and it's a fairly rich soup. The prep on this soup took about an hour - but I'm kinda discombobulated when following recipes, but it was ready about 20 minutes after I actually started cooking.

The Chicken Provencal, by contrast, was a much easier recipe to make. It called for a quick fry, skin side down, of skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs, and then blasphemously instructed me to throw fried skin part away. My S.O., standing over my shoulder, made sure I put 99.9% of it in the garbage. This dish took about 30-40 minutes of prep, but needed to stay in the oven for 1h 15m, plus an extra 10 on the stove to reduce after it came out.

I'd do both of the recipes again, but probably not on the same day.

Mi niña bonita

I don't know what it is about this song. It makes me smile. It makes me giggle. It makes me laugh. It brightens my day, especially when I hear it on the radio on my way in to work.

Support UAFA

More on the gay marriage front. Pro prop-8 people are trying to counter the grass-roots, knock-on-doors program that gay marriage supporters have been running. They could use some extra money to combat haters all over the country. Donate here, if you can.

**An aside: Major prop 8 proponent, Doug Manchester, files for divorce.

Major immigration reform bill getting ready. Please send an email to your Congress-person to allow bi-national same-sex couples the same immigration benefits as straight people.

Shopping

Wow. Lots of shopping this weekend. Picked up this couch this weekend.




Also bought a mattress, platform bedframe that I am hoping I don't kill my shin on, and a tv stand thingie that weighs a thousand pounds. All these things are getting delivered tomorrow, as well as pilots getting lit for the water heater, which I mistakenly assumed would be easy to light. A burned finger later, screw that, gas people come and do it for me.

Accomplished: cleaned house, turned on water and garbage

Still to do: assemble furniture (tomorrow evening). Find a TV that I like (and buy it). Build extra closet rod. Get rid of more stuff.

All in all, house moving is coming into place, and I should be 95% done by Friday. Yay.

Obama on DOMA

Obama filed a defense of DOMA brief today (and what a great anniversary present for Loving v. Virginia). I'm no lawyer, so I don't really know what the hell is going on, but the gist I'm getting is this:

Gay people don't have the same rights as straight people because there's no constitutional right to be gay.

What do you do in a two-party system where neither candidate is appealing to you? I suppose you vote for the least noxious of the two. I have to admit being, thus far, pretty disappointed with Obama. Actually, really disappointed. Surprisingly, I have been really stoked about our Secretary of State.

I suppose I will have to vote for Obama again next election cycle, but I won't take any of his platforms seriously - and I'll just hope that he's better than any Republican candidate going up against him. Maybe I'll have to cast my vote Libertarian.