Enjablog

Thursday started out with breakfast with Ian’s parents. I got my first stocking and have plenty of Christmas candy to last me until the new year. :)

Thursday afternoon was with Ian’s extended family. The big differences from previous years was the musical extravaganza and birthday cake for dessert. We sang happy birthday to Jesus. It was a fun day.

Did Christmas with my family on Boxing Day. There was dancing, more snorking, and bingo! Plus, Anna had a chance to enjoy the activity book I received the day before.

Mac & Cheese (I made this for Thanksgiving too, but forgot to link the recipe. Thanks to Anna for sending this to me!)

INGREDIENTS
For topping
1/2 stick unsalted butter
2 cups panko (coarse Japanese bread crumbs) or 3 cups coarse fresh bread crumbs (from 6 slices firm white sandwich bread)
1/4 pound coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (1 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

For macaroni and sauce
1 stick unsalted butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 cups whole milk
1 pound coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (6 cups)
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 pound elbow macaroni

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle.

Make topping:
Melt butter, then stir together with panko and topping cheeses in a bowl until combined well.

Make sauce:
Melt butter in a heavy medium saucepan over medium-low heat and stir in flour. Cook roux, stirring, 3 minutes, then whisk in milk. Bring sauce to a boil, whisking constantly, then simmer, whisking occasionally, 3 minutes. Stir in cheeses, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper until smooth. Remove from heat and cover surface of sauce with wax paper.

Make Macaroni:
Cook macaroni in a pasta pot of boiling salted water (2 tablespoons salt for 4 quarts water) until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water and drain macaroni in a colander. Stir together macaroni, reserved cooking water, and sauce in a large bowl. Transfer to 2 buttered 2-quart shallow baking dishes.

Sprinkle topping evenly over macaroni and bake until golden and bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes.

NOTES: Add a tablespoon of mustard to the roux. I’ve been using progressively more pasta each time and I think for my taste, about a pound and a half of pasta with some ham mixed in was a good cheese ratio (can reduce final baking time to ~15 mins). I mixed whole wheat with regular rotinis and started that when I started the sauce and let it sit in the water to overcook the noodles until the sauce was ready.

Other finds:
- 2 boxes of unopened mail; ~5 years of Marine Technology and Maritime Reporter
- 2 calendars from 2005
- 12 pads of paper, 20+ new postcards
- 2 AP review books for classes that I never took; 1 LSAT review book, which I also never took
- Sonny’s dimebag

Went over to Lenny’s place last week to have a sibling potluck for the brothers’ birthdays. I pulled out my camera at one point and Eliana just started dancing. I was told that she learned from my brother…

Anna made General Tso’s chicken from scratch. We were all thoroughly impressed with her cooking skillz. Sooo good!

And a belated happy birthday to Crit!

I had so much going on in the past few days…

Thursday was Pamela’s birthday shindig at Cafe Mozart’s. Lots of fun, pretty low-key. And some really bizarre conversations going around.

Saturday, got up bright and early for the Race for the Cure. The plan was to meet Ian’s mom and her friend at the Van Dorn Metro, but they closed their park and ride area and had a sign directing people to Huntington for parking. I headed for the closest metro station that I knew of, thinking it was Huntington… and arrived shortly after realizing I had never been to Huntington and was now at Eisenhower. Thank goodness for cell phones. So we worked that out and made it in for the race as the rest of the walkers were starting.

The race went well… not much of note. Then we left to catch the metro home. First, there were too many people on the platform, so they wouldn’t let any more people through the turnstiles until after the next train arrived. Then we got stuck behind another train that broke down, so those people had to get out and the platform there was filled to capacity. They boarded our train and it was a madhouse for about 5 stops. Then, around the airport or so, someone got sick, so we had to wait for that person to get out to receive medical attention. Longest metro ride ever.

I got home long enough to shower before heading out with Ian to pick up my parents’ minivan and go to Ikea. He got two Billy the bookcases and a Hopen bed. I got a mat to put in my foyer under my bike and some collapsible boxes to help me organize. I have one for mail and one for remotes, both of which have made a huge difference already. I also got a hanging shoe rack.

We got back from there and went over to Anna’s for Sonny’s welcome home party. It was such a blast. There was loads of food, karaoke, Boggle, and so many people who stopped in throughout the evening. Fortunately, we were able to move the party inside to hide out from the heat. So, it all worked out well. And I finally got to meet Sonny’s friend-in-law, Laura, whom I’ve been talking to online for almost a year now. I think she was more enthusiastic about karaoke than Sonny was. And that’s saying a lot.

Sunday, got up bright and early to move Ian’s furniture out of the mini-van. We swiped a flatbed dolly from my building and used that to move stuff. Took less than an hour, which was much better than I had envisioned. I was definitely not strong enough to carry all the parts from the car to his apartment, so I was hesitant to volunteer, but it all worked out in the end.

From there, I got cleaned up and headed over to my parents’ for family lunch. We were celebrating the dragon boat festival, so my dad told the story for all the newbies and we ate sticky rice dumplings. And everyone was entertained by Eliana running around and getting into stuff.

Came home, took a nap, and woke up in time to go to Ian’s family dinner. Pretty low-key over there. His brother did the Chesapeake Bay swim that morning, so they were all sunburned from going out to watch. Hung out for a bit over there and then came home and crashed again.

So… This morning, I got up and got ready as usual. And then about halfway to the Pentagon, I started feeling nauseated. I thought maybe I was getting motion sickness from reading, so I stopped reading. But then I got really warm. I got off the bus to transfer and sat down on a bench. Then I had to decide between sitting in the sun and feeling feverish or standing in the shade and feeling nauseated. Not a good morning.

I stayed at work long enough to attend our department meeting, get NewerGuy set up working on his new task, and answer some questions for VTGuy. Came home, went to lie down, and just conked out for 5 hours.

Feeling better now though. Someone suggested I might have gotten food poisoning. I don’t know what it could’ve been from though because I’ve eaten with family for my last few meals and I haven’t heard about anyone else getting sick.

Hey, family. Any of you not feeling well? Hot flashes? Nausea? Maybe it was from the B.O. cake…

Woo! Lots of fun family time last night and much more planned for this weekend. And, of course, GTC. :)

And an update on yesterday’s post — Apparently I paid my taxes where I live, but Fairfax County thinks they get a cut too. So now I have to prove I don’t live in Fairfax County, even though my legal residence that they have on file isn’t in Fairfax. Good work, guys.

Happy birthday to my cousin in NJ!

I used fabric softener for the first time today. I stopped using the dryer a few months ago and my world has changed. I haven’t gotten shocked in my apartment all winter. My clothes continue to fit and have less wear and tear. And now, they come out of the washing machine soft. I’m so sleepy. My clothes are soft though.

Went to a former coworker’s place for a holiday happy hour tonight. She got a real tree for the first time and her apartment was so festive! Lights, garland, decorations… She even had boat ornaments all over the tree. They were so cool.

Looks like I’m going to be re-taking Advanced Aero/Hydro next fall. So, I’ll be studying up for the PE this spring, take the summer off, and be back with this same course. Uf. At least I understand much more of the material now.

Sleep.

Somehow, Myers-Briggs came up at Thanksgiving #3. The past few times this was mentioned, there was discussion as to whether I was truly an INTP. I realized recently that a lot of my opinions have changed in the past few years. It’s especially noticeable when I think back to opinions I held in high school about relationships, socio-political issues, religion, and many other things. I have developed a lot of grays where they didn’t used to exist. So, in light of my intellectual transformation, I was open to the possibility that INTP no longer best describes me.

I re-took the test today and I came out as an INTJ. Very introverted still. Moderately intuitive, which I think is consistent. I’m moderately thinking, which I think is a decrease from before. I am learning the feeling thing and there were a few questions that were obvious to me that I would have answered differently 13 years ago. And moderately judging. That’s completely different for me and I have no idea what that means. I’m going to need to do more research.

EDIT: Added some links to descriptions. Item of note: Gandalf and Hannibal Lecter are INTJs.

The open-endedness (from Perceiving) conjoined with the need for competence (NT) is expressed in a sense that one’s conclusion may well be met by an equally plausible alternative solution, and that, after all, one may very well have overlooked some critical bit of data. An INTP arguing a point may very well be trying to convince himself as much as his opposition. In this way INTPs are markedly different from INTJs, who are much more confident in their competence and willing to act on their convictions.

To me, this sounds more like I’m INTP. I’m really not understanding this change.

Strength of the preferences %
Introverted 78
Intuitive 50
Thinking 25
Judging 56

Oops. I’ve had so much going on this weekend that I forgot to attend recitation today. I got caught up watching football and then left to go to my parents’ house for dinner tonight for Lenny and Grandma’s birthdays… And only remembered when I got home because our TA sent out an email changing the time for next week.

This weekend… Friday was NewGirl’s and Ian’s last days at their respective jobs. Our floor took NewGirl out for happy hour. I skipped out a little early to have some quality BFF bonding time. Saturday started off early with some homework, cake, cookies, and catching up on last week’s TV shows. NewGirl’s going away bash was Saturday night, so I ran some quick errands at Target, Rack Room Shoes, the office, the bank, and Popeyes before arriving a fashionable 30 minutes early. I really thought everything would take longer. The longest stop was at Popeyes where I bought 30 chicken fingers and the girl behind the counter asked if I could wait 4 minutes for them to cook up more. Uh… yeah, I can wait 4 minutes.

The party was really fun. The U of M game was on and there was lots of gossip, food, and drinks. Of course, the purpose of the party was bittersweet, but it was definitely memorable. We had a gallery for my office art shelf, which consists of drawings NewGirl has created over the past year. There was flip cup, which apparently Boss got talked into playing. I’m kind of sorry I missed that part of the evening. Skunknut was sick and missed out on all the chicken fingers, but otherwise, I think everyone else NewGirl was expecting made it out to say goodbye.

After the game, a bunch of people started to head out, so NewGirl, NewGirl’s reason for leaving (a.k.a. boy-toy), and I made our way over to Boss Jr’s haunted house. It was definitely an adventure driving over, especially since I was driving and have no concept of direction in DC. But an hour or so later, we made it and, after signing a lengthy waiver, were thoroughly haunted. Boss Jr was a convincingly creepy clown. NewGuy had a zombie look going on. There was also a nun, an awkward mad scientist/doctor, a dude in a cage, and other random bodies strewn about. It was definitely fun and games for us since the three of us walked through the house together. But I think if I had gone through by myself I would’ve screamed like a little girl.

We got out of the city without incident, but then wandered Arlington for a bit trying to drop NewGuy off. I’m really bad with directions in Arlington and he may have been a little drunk mixed with unable to figure out where we were fast enough to tell me where to go. In any case, after about half an hour of extra bonding time, we successfully dropped him off. We promptly got lost again trying to find our way back to Alexandria, but we found NewGirl’s yellow brick road and were on our way.

So, I got home and was fast asleep around 4am. I woke up a few hours later to go meet my advice columnist hero at the ALS walk. It was interesting… I was so excited to meet Carolyn Hax, but then she was just a regular person and I totally felt like a nerdy groupie. Which was ok because then I met a group of girls who were also readers and came out to meet her like a bunch of groupies and we all hung out and chatted for the entire walk. Robin, Emma, Laura, Brooke, and another girl whose name I don’t remember… They were all so nice and welcoming. A couple of them came together, but the rest of us showed up solo and didn’t know anyone else. So, it all worked out. I also got to meet Kenny and Nick. And the kiddies were running around climbing over both of them, but I have no idea which one was which. I am so impressed by their whole family dynamic. I can only aspire to such maturity in my life.

On the charity front, our team won a second place award for the rookie team to raise the most money. This team was formed 30 days ago and raised over $10k. Our total doubled in the past 3 days and we were ranked 9th overall. It was all very exciting.

Afterward, a bunch of us were deciding which metro to head toward or what we were going to do with the rest of our day. I ended up heading over to the Freer Gallery of Art with two people and hung out for a while. Then I got a call from NewGirl letting me know that she had rented a cargo van to deliver her recliner to me. We ended up having to get past the mean front desk lady, but we got away with moving in furniture on a weekend anyway. We had a heartfelt goodbye and then they were off to get more stuff done before heading out for good tomorrow morning.

I went back upstairs to finish watching the ‘Skins game and then got a call from Lenny asking if I had baked a cake. I decided to head over to the parents’ a little early so I could head out right after dinner and work on my homework some more. Instead, I just hung out there longer and decided that it was very important for me to blog a bunch before doing anything actually useful or productive.

And now here we are. This is why I forgot to show up for recitation this afternoon. I kind of suspected I would forget since every time I looked at my calendar to see what I had scheduled this weekend, I was surprised to see recitation on my calendar and was concerned that I was going to be too busy. And well, I was. I least it’s recorded, so I can play it back and see if there was anything useful.

Ooh, I just noticed that this is the 20th day in a row that I have blogged. That’s pretty good for me.

Ok, I’m out.

I’ve been getting kind of antsy lately, which is definitely unusual for me. And with the weather finally turning to fall, it’s nice enough that I would want to go running outside. I haven’t been running in weeks, so I decided yesterday that I would go after work. And then I ended up staying at work (yes, on a Saturday) until well after sundown. I got home around 8:30 after a quick stop at Giant for cake supplies. Just a 10-hour day. At least I get paid overtime, though.

Anyway, I woke up earlier than I intended this morning, so I had plenty of time before heading over to my parents’ for lunch. I went over and mapped out a route for myself and I was off! I’m loving the pedometer thing. I’ve been using a treadmill for a while and that keeps me on pace. But I always end up making deals with myself, like if I can run through the next half mile, I don’t have to run for a full 30 minutes. If I just go this far, I don’t have to finish my workout. It’s kind of bad. I have no endurance or motivation. ;)

Previously, my running routes were to places I knew were a set distance away. I would run there and back. And every once in a while, I would convince myself that I was too tired to go all the way there, so I may as well turn around early. So I definitely need a loop. By the time I try to convince myself I should turn around, it’s not worth it. It’s closer to just keep going. And I know that it’s just a cheap psychological trick I’m playing on myself. But it works, so I’m not going to question it.

After the run, got cleaned up and headed over to my parents’ for my mom’s birthday lunch. Almost everyone was there. Yenny had to miss this week because she’s a workaholic. Sonny called just as we were finishing up and got passed around to chat with everyone. That was pretty cool. He and I usually don’t have much to say to each other on the phone. We usually IM or talk in person when we have anything going on. But I was able to catch him up on all the excitement at the house today. Juniorita is a total technophile. Steph’s mom was there and I brought my dad’s laptop over to show her a picture and Juniorita crawled across the room to come push buttons for me. At least she had motivation.

That’s about it for the weekend. Exhausted from being awake over 12 hours now. So heading to bed early tonight!

Sigh… I have this growing list of things I wanted to blog about, but with each day that passes and I don’t write something, the more outdated some of these topics get.

Examples:
- New toaster oven, its awesomeness and how it betrayed me.
- My addiction to Super Paper Mario (which I beat and stopped playing about a month ago).
- ALS Walk in about 2.5 weeks.

And then there’s the rule Sonny’s friends made up for the fantasy football league a week ago:
“So am I to assume that, since this is a family league, I’m not allowed to make a comment about your mom? Because if not, damn you.”
“You know, you’re right. How ’bout this? Any moms that aren’t actually in the league are fair game.”

QOTD also from the fantasy football message board: “He’s got a tougher schedule than most, but he’s on-ig-it like Kurt Vonnegut.”

I arrived early for my family 12:01 lunch today, to find some strangers at the house. My parents have finally decided to replace their front door. The issue? Apparently, their door is from the 1980s and is incompatible with modern-day door technology.

Right.

So far, I’ve been here for an hour and a half. They’ve been here for 4.5 hours. The frame is not yet in place. No door knob, storm door, or molding back on. I’m guessing they’ll be here until 4, at least. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Ahh…

Sonny’s back in town for almost a week, so everyone planned for a big Fantasy Football Online Live Draft tonight. And even though it was online, a bunch of us gathered at my parents’ house. There was a huge dinner (my mom and SIL cooked so much good food!), awesome cake, and so many laptops.

Then, we ended up with an odd number of participants and Yahoo kicked us off.

So we did a “live” draft over IM. And I wasn’t really paying attention after the first few rounds. I mean, I wasn’t really paying attention at all, but I tried during the first few rounds at least. But, um, I ended up without a kicker. Oops.

So, that was 3 hours of my evening. Time for bed.

So, a few weeks back, I was at my parents’ house eating cake and brownies when the doorbell rang. There were already a dozen people in the house and the person at the door was obviously not related to us since they rang the doorbell. Similar to the phone ringing, oftentimes my family will respond to the doorbell with yells of “Door!” while continuing to sit and do whatever we were doing before the bell rang.

My uncle ended up being the first one curious enough to answer the door. Before the other person had a chance to say anything or even introduce himself, my uncle greeted him, “Congressman Davis! How are you?” He stayed long enough to hear the polite response before walking away giving an explanation of, “I don’t live here.”

(Yes, these are the kinds of celebrity sightings my family gets riled up over.)

So, my mom goes to the door, since she does live there, and starts talking to him. Meanwhile, the rest of my family and extended family are milling about asking who was at the door and why he was there.

At the time, I was carrying around a clipboard with a half-written letter to Sonny. We’ve been writing group/family letters to him basically live-blogging our Saturday lunches. And what better way to live-blog than to have a guest blogger, right?

I approached the door… After my mom’s attempts to invite the Congressman in and have some cake were politely declined, I caught his eye; he saw my clipboard and started to look a little shifty-eyed. I explained that my brother is in training and about to get sent to Iraq and we were writing him a letter. Would he like to add something to our letter for that week?

Well, that explained the clipboard, but he still had no interest in blindly writing and signing something some girl just hands to him. So, he pulls out his wallet and pulls out one of his cards to write a note to Sonny, which we can mail with our letter. Seemed like a reasonable enough compromise.

As he was writing, he made some polite conversation with me. He asked if I was still in school. There was the initial look of surprise when I said no, then the next surprised look when I said I graduated about 5 years ago, then yet another when I said I graduated from Virginia Tech (not high school, as I can only assume he was expecting) and am now working as an engineer for a defense contractor.

Anyway, the whole reason he was there was to campaign for his wife, Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, who is running for re-election for Senate. Now, I didn’t realize they were married. The last time I had been in the area when she was campaigning, she woke me up from a nap and didn’t have Davis tacked on to the end of her name. I had no idea who she was at the time either, not that it would have mattered in my groggy state. In any case, this time she sent her husband to come around my parents’ neighborhood and, as always, it was an exciting time at my parents’ house.

This weekend was fantastic! I’ve been craving birthday cake for months. Seriously, since like January. I got some cake on Ian’s birthday, but it just wasn’t the same. Maybe it’s the getting old part that makes it taste so good.

I spent Saturday afternoon at the parents’. There was tons of food, but, specifically, yellow cake and brownies. I mixed together a mandarin orange topping, varied from the usual pineapple topping I make for my dad. I preferred this one — it was a little sweeter and had a better texture. He still prefers the pineapple. Oh well. Wasn’t for him this time. :P

I kind of regretted not taking any desserts home with me afterward, but that’s ok. I’ve been trying to cut back on all the bad food I’ve been eating lately anyway.

Which, of course, leads us to Saturday night dinner at Sweetwater Tavern. Ian let me order my two favorites: Drunken Rib-eye and Chicken Fingers. We swapped plates about half-way through, and then swapped back. Soooo good. And at some point, Ian told the waiter it was my birthday, so he came out with their Flourless Chocolate Waffle on a plate that said “Happy Birthday” in chocolate syrup. Mmmm.

Then, on Sunday, Ian’s mom made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles! So good! And for the second year in a row, Ian’s grandma informed us when the cake was served that his cousin has a birthday too. And we had to explain that, while that was true, her birthday was 4 months ago and Ian’s birthday isn’t tomorrow.

I spent part of Saturday doing homework, but I also re-finished book 6 of Harry Potter. Which meant that I was finally ready for the last book. I shouldn’t have waited so long to start book 6, but whatever. I don’t need to buy into the craze… as much as everyone else. Yeah, Ian and I still got the last book on the Saturday it came out. Whatever.

I’ll try not to give anything away here, but if you don’t want to hear anything, I guess don’t read the rest. Overall, I thought the book was good. But holy cow. The boring part was slow. I was up stupid late on Sunday finishing the book because halfway through Sunday afternoon I fell asleep during the boring part of the book. It’s like a hundred pages of the characters being bored. Yeah, that’s interesting.

Went up to NY yesterday with Ian, my parents, and Lenny for my cousin’s chinese style reception for his wedding. Overall, it was pretty fun. Got to see a bunch of my cousins and relatives. And I chatted with my cousin’s wife for the first time really. We’ve met a number of times, but just never had a real conversation. She seems pretty cool. And their daughter is one of the most pleasant children I have ever been around. It was nice getting to see them for an evening.

Lots of family drama/discussion/whatever in the car. But the thing that stands out most about the car ride happened around 1:30 am. We were passing through DC and my dad was telling us where the XM building is. It was a completely surreal experience — it was maybe half a second that I saw him. I noticed as our car was passing and I could see his face clearly, but it took my brain a moment to register and figure out what I was seeing in the darkness. A homeless man was on the other side of the guard rail in the overgrown grass and weeds. He was asleep in a blue armchair. I wonder if he covers it up with garbage bags or something when it rains so the cushions don’t get soaked.