Category: Entertainment

  • Ramblings from the middle of December

    Well, we’re just over 10 days from Christmas. Hope everyone’s just enjoying the season and not getting too stressed out (mother). Here in Ohio, we still haven’t had much snow – a few little dustings, but nothing that’s really lasted. This past weekend was our first true cold stretch of the season, where the frost and snow stuck around for a few days, and didn’t melt when the sun came up. On a happy note, the days start to get longer next week!

    We took another random trip down to Tower City over the weekend. Kinda bummed, they didn’t have all the decorations up that they usually do. C still enjoyed the Christmas tree and giant toy soldiers, but the flying things would’ve been neat too. In any case, we had a good time walking around, he got to ogle all the “pretties” (lights), and we had some hot chocolate and a latte at a little local coffee shop. And I didn’t wear gloves, so my hands got cold. Good winter fun.

    S and I are hosting a bunch of friends this Saturday, which means a lot of cleaning and trying to finish projects that should have been done a long time ago. I did get all the shoe molding cut and installed in the kitchen; it looks nice, and now there are no more gaps between the floor and the baseboard where we can lose crumbs. Regarding the cleaning, I’m going to wait until the last possible minute, because if we had done it already, we literally would have had to clean it six more times between now and Saturday. If you think I’m joking, I’ll let you rent the child for a day… The good thing about this is that it gives us an excuse to pick up around here and get some more projects knocked out that otherwise would have remained idle.

    On an unrelated note, anybody ever seen the Syfy movie Yeti? They’re having marathons of winter-related movies (think Abominable, Ice Spiders [another good one], and Snowmageddon), and I caught some of Yeti on Saturday. I’m a sucker for overly cheesy sci-fi flicks (it all started with Alligator when I was but a wee young boy), but only in small doses. I couldn’t handle a marathon. Anyway, Yeti ranks up there as an all-time classic (although, they kind of all do if done right). It’s a newer movie (2006 or ’08?), but has terrible special effects, terrible acting, terrible costuming, ridiculous plot… and by terrible, I mean awesome. Go check it out if you have a few minutes. You may not be able to handle the entire thing in one sitting though. Just a heads up.

    Checking out the fountain.

     

    Terminal Tower from inside.

     

  • Mr. Independent

    Well here we are, December already. That was quick.

    We’ve been riding a pretty solid stretch of decent weather here lately. It’s been on the damp side, but it was in the 50s again over the weekend, and even sunny for a little while. So I was able to put some trim around the window on the shed, move more logs, and put some lights up on the house, while maintaining feeling in my fingers the entire time. I have a tendency to delay the lights, which usually comes back to bite me as I run out of nice days. I thought not doing it over Thanksgiving weekend would haunt me, but it worked out okay. Little rainy, but at least it was mild.

    We got our Christmas tree too, which is an improvement over most years. It was fairly sunny on Saturday, so we had a nice day for it. C enjoyed being out in the fresh air, and liked when I walked him through the big pines. I started out carrying him, which he had no problems with for the first fifteen minutes, but once he saw how much more fun it was on the ground, he’d had enough of that. After all, he can run now! Forget the fact that he’s only been walking for four months, he had to be down and running loose through acres of twelve-foot, tightly packed trees (where we’d lose him in about three seconds), and a minefield of stumps and holes. Heck, mommy’s been walking for 28 years, and she was tripping over stumps. I tried putting him on my shoulders, swinging him around, hanging him upside down…

    But a one-year old will not be denied. He expressed his displeasure… loudly and repeatedly. Good thing we were on acres of land instead of in close quarters – people could hear the screaming, but most couldn’t see us, which saved him (us) some embarrassment. I’ve never been “that parent” with the screaming kid, so it was a new experience. And also eye-opening. I would always look at “that parent” and think to myself “Why can’t you control him?” but I realize now, there is no controlling them. You just deal with it. Very therapeutic, actually, to understand. This was probably the first real, public tantrum he’s thrown, so we’ll just look at it as a day of milestones. One more new phase of his development. Makes it sound so much better, doesn’t it?

    Semi-related question of the day: real or fake trees?

  • Winterfest 2011

    Winterfest is the lighting ceremony they do each year on Public Square in Cleveland. We’ve never been before, but we have a little kid that likes bright lights, and the weather was nice, so we headed on down Saturday afternoon. They had carriage rides (that were supposed to go until 5, but stopped at 4:30, so we didn’t get to go), a couple large screens showing Christmas-themed entertainment (Rudolph was on when we walked by), and Santa, who was bunkered down inside the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument. There were also a bunch of food trucks lined up, so we were able to grab a couple bites to eat.

    C cooperated fairly well, at least while we were pushing him around in the stroller. When they got closer to the actual lighting event, I took him out so we could see better, at which point he got pretty squirmy and wanted to be put down, which was obviously not going to happen in a crowd of several thousand people, which obviously made him even more squirmy. I think he had a good time though – he liked the lights (for a little while at least), and the fireworks engrossed him, but unfortunately, didn’t last long enough to keep him very still. I don’t like crowds much, but he had fun, so I suppose it was worth the trip 🙂

    Wouldn't smile until they gave him a candy cane.

    Stinker already won't smile without being funny.

  • Cornbread stuffing (it’s vegan too!)

    Hi all, hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving weekend, and got to enjoy a bit of nice weather. I have a recipe for a vegan cornbread stuffing that I made for dinner. Of course, since C can’t have dairy right now, I wanted to make something that he could enjoy too (when he’s in the mood to eat anything, and not just pitch it all over the floor). It’s pretty easy to assemble, and pretty tasty too, if you like cornbread in your stuffing.

    Cornbread Stuffing (loosely based on Paula Deen’s recipe)

    1 pan of cornbread (see recipe below), cubed
    1/2 to 1 loaf French or Italian bread, cubed (I probably used about 2/3 of a loaf; vary based on how much filler you need)
    1 medium onion, chopped
    1 bunch celery, chopped (I used locally grown celery, which isn’t as big as the usual store-bought bunches, so 2-3 cups is about right)
    2-3 carrots, diced
    fresh sage (or dried, if you don’t have anything fresh)
    fresh thyme (or dried)
    4-6 cups chicken stock (I didn’t measure how much I actually used; vary based on how wet or dry you like your stuffing)
    salt & pepper
    small bowl of flour and water

    Saute the vegetables in a skillet and some oil over medium heat until fairly tender, 5-7 minutes. In a large bowl, combine the cubed breads, onion, celery, carrots, and seasonings. Add chicken stock and mix gently until the bread is as wet or dry as desired. From here, I mixed up a little slurry of flour and water (1/4 c water to 2 Tbsp flour?; should be pretty sticky) to add some stickiness to the mixture. This replaced the eggs – if you want, replace the flour slurry with a few well-beaten eggs instead. Stir into the bread mixture until combined.

    Dump the stuffing into a greased pan (I used a 9 x 13 glass pan), and bake at 350 F for 40-45 minutes.

    Vegan Cornbread (courtesy Food.com)

    2 Tbsp ground flax seeds
    6 Tbsp water
    1 cup all-purpose flour
    1 cup cornmeal
    1/4 cup sugar
    4 tsp baking powder
    3/4 tsp table salt
    1 cup soymilk (I used rice milk instead)
    1/4 cup canola oil

    Boil the water in a small saucepan, and add the flax seeds (this will also act as a “stickening” agent). Reduce heat, and simmer for a few minutes, until thick and pasty.

    In a bowl, combine the flour,  cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the flax, rice milk, and oil, and stir gently. You want it to be mixed just enough that the ingredients are all incorporated. Overmixing will result in a tougher final product.

    Pour the batter into a greased 8 inch square pan. Bake for about 20 minutes at 425 F.

    For being vegan, the bread was very good, and tasted the same as a regular cornbread.

  • Night lights

    I’ve gone into work early the past couple days, and (sadly) we’re at the time of year that it’s still dark until after 7:00, so yesterday I took the camera with me to get a few pics of the skyline at night (or early morning – I guess the dark is what matters). The Terminal Tower is periodically lit up in different colors (notably around Christmas time with red and green), and right now it’s purple for the month of November for Alzheimer’s awareness. I got onto the roof, but we’re still a little far to get the nice details. Maybe around Christmas we’ll head down to Public Square and get some good shots from right underneath it. For all its problems, Cleveland is still a nice city. Under the right lighting.