Living on Crackers

My dad fixed my van last Saturday night. It turned out that it was possible to access the adventurous bolt while the lift was folded up and then he put the joint back together. He took it to Triad Mobility on Monday where they did some routine maintenance to check everything out. They also replaced the bolt, which was somewhat stripped.

That night, my parents and I went to the Flying Fish and I tried a duck quesadilla special. It was pretty good, but very cheesy. That's what one expects of a quesadilla, but I didn't really notice until I tried to eat it cold, for breakfast, the next morning.

Last Sunday, DS and I went to Target, which was loads of fun. I've liked Target more each time I've gone there. Of course, I think I've spent less and less money each time, too. After a visit with HS, we had dinner at Kemp's. They had excellent oysters, as always. DS made the suggestion that I should get a combination platter that combined oysters with something that warms up better. In my opinion, oysters are pretty awful the second time around. Well, I got flounder and only ate the oysters. I ended up having three additional portions out of that one dinner.

Here you can see 'February Gold' daffodils that have been blooming in my yard. As I recall, it is fairly normal for that variety to bloom in January here.

Monday night, my parents and I went to ACME Food & Beverage Co. I believe that I had forgotten just how spicy the calamari with Asian slaw is, because I ordered it. It is very good, but it's just a little too hot for me. For dessert, we shared an enormous piece of ginger cheesecake with pear-ginger-caramel sauce. It was one of the best desserts that I've ever had at ACME, or anywhere, actually. I'm not a huge fan cheesecake, although I do enjoy it on occasion. This was absolutely wonderful. If you live in the Triangle and you like ginger, you need to go before they change the menu.

Tuesday, I had dinner with Annette at Chai's, which was a nice way to unwind after a super-busy day at the office. I had the udon noodle soup, with tofu.

Wednesday, my mom made fried chicken and I got to visit with FIFO again. My mom's fried chicken is delicious. Hopefully I'll learn to make it someday, if I'm brave enough to try again.

Thursday, we were supposed to have some sleet and freezing rain. We had snow instead. It was very pretty and I got to work at home, which I appreciated. Early in the morning, I got to see a pileated woodpecker on one of the trees in my yard. That was exciting. Of course, my faithful red-bellied woodpecker, provided me with a cacophony of crashes and bangs outside all the windows of the house.

Friday night, after guitar practice, we went to Vin Rouge. I had a watercress salad special with duck liver and proschiuto stuffed figs . It's was interesting, but not something I would ever order again. In fact, I may avoid duck liver in the future. I also ordered a side order of fries, which were very good. We shared some little neck clams and oysters gratin as appetizers and they were the best part of the meal.

Last night I went to a party at the G's and had long conversations with several people. As always, the food was great. I think I've been finding their vertical-windy-terrifying driveway easier to negotiate every time.

We've been having sleeting and freezing rain all day. Everything around here is lightly coated in ice, but it should warm up and melt during the night. I got to play Desktop Support this afternoon. My mom's laptop spontaneously decided to display everything rotated 90 degrees and she brought it over to my house for me to take a look. After looking and various settings (not the useful ones), I used the Google to determine which setting to change. It made sense that it would be the configuration for the graphics card, but it behaved differently depending on which user was logged in. While it's fine now, I think the machine probably needs to be re-imaged, because it doesn't even want to reboot half the time and the screen randomly goes blank. (Thanks to CF for her background image.)

So how have my New Year's resolutions been going? Well, I've had mixed results. I haven't kept up with practicing the guitar and lifting weights. I have, however, taken my vitamins every single day since the beginning of the year. That's actually exceeding my goal. I don't believe that I've "broken" the other two resolutions, because I an opportunity to start the habits anytime. In the meantime, I'm happy to have some default nutrients, so I can live exclusively on Jacob's crackers and peanut butter.