November 2005 Archives

BoingBoing had a link to a gallery of old Czech products. It brought back memories of my childhood (we're talking '70s vintage stuff). I still vividly remember using this tooth paste as child.

I have less fond memories of the commie toilet paper, either on a roll or as folded squares. It was a bit like wiping with butcher paper -- both scratchy and non-stick at the same time. I also hated it when my mom used this hair cutting razor blade to cut my hair.

We went to UT's Madrigal Dinner on Saturday night and had a very merry time. We had a very good table, thanks to this year's producer letting me in on early tickets sales due to last year's screw up (Katherin Andrews -- thanks again!)

Now Wassail has always been a big part of Madrigal. I have a great recipe and occasionally make it for a holiday party, but it's not something you'd make on the spur of the moment (it involves several citrus fruits, madeira wine and other things I don't always have on hand).

But when it gets cold and you get a hunkering for some Wassail, what are you to do? Well, last night I came up with a quick and simple recipe. Simply combine some Chai concentrate with apple cider and you have a very authentic tasting Wassail -- a thing I like to call Chaider. I use TAZO Chai Concentrate (even though TAZO's Website is an evil Flash monstrosity) that I get in bulk from Costco.

Actually, I used apple juice for my "chaider", but "chaipple juice" just doesn't sound as cool. Beside, I don't know what the difference is between juice and cider. So there.

As anyone who's been been to our house in the last couple of years (!) knows, the exterior has come into sad disrepear. We finally got our butts into gear and decided to do something about it. We got a couple of estimates and a few months (!) later decided to go with Austin Allen, who'd done work on Tim's house. I'd never know how to pick a contractor (Yellow Pages feels like playing roulette) so it was great to have someone with a personal reference.

Austin, of AHA Woodworks, did not disappoint. He spent several days fixing and replacing rotted trim, fascia and siding. He practically rebuilt our chimney. His painting subcontractor Pedro and his guys then spent a couple of days prepping and caulking before laying a couple of coats of paint. I didn't know what to hope for, since some of the siding had gotten quite bad towards the ground, but the results are stunning. The exterior looks like a new house -- and the quality of the work is probably better than what you get with a lot of new construction.

So, if you're in the Austin area and need someone to do some house repair or remodeling, I highly recommend Austin Allen, (512) 657-6811.

I've been using a price tag from Rock-a-Bye Baby as a book mark. It just had the name of the store on it in big cartoony letters and pictures of balloons. When Magda was on my lap the other day, she looked at the tag and started doing her sign for "baby". That kind of freaked me out. I spelled out "dog" on the other side of the tag but she didn't react to it. So I figured that she just likes "talking" about babies.

Today, according to Jfer, Magda played with the tag again, did her "baby" sign and when she looked at the back of the tag she started her barking! Freaky indeed! Obviously she can't "read", but it seems that after spending all this time with her baby books, she can recognize some written words. Not bad for a 13 month old!

The cold weather must have but a bug up Rose's behind. She's been quite the pest the last couple of days.

First she resumed her quest against our cable connection. She'd chewed through it in the back yard before, but this time she not only managed to pull it out of the ground, she also ripped the cable box off the wall of the house. I guess the loose cable that the painters failed to tack back to the wall was just too tempting. After I finally managed to find my tools and spar splicing kit, I repaired the cable -- again -- and it's not better then ever.

Yesterday, she made a hole through two old rotted planks behind the house and took off into the park. Tina, one of our dog neighbors, picked her up and took her on a walk with her dogs. We picked her up across the street at our other neighbors.

Then today, she escaped again -- twice! The first time was when Jfer was going for a walk with Homer and picked up someone else's loose dog (maybe there is something in the air) across the street. Rose heard the comotion and felt left out. So she chewed here way out through a couple of other rotten boards to join the comotion. I fixed that hole over lunch, but she made another one, right next to it, during the afternoon and ended up at another neighbor's.

I think her backyard priviledges will be severely courtailed until we get a new fence. It'll be the tether until then.

Jfer celebrated her birthday today, with family in town and some sophisticated baking on my part. When asked what kind of cake she wanted, she replied that she'd like the meringue cake she had in Pargue. I couldn't find an exact recipe for that (especially considering that she didn't share much of the original cake when she was devouring it) but I did discover something pretty close. So this Chocolate Cinnamon Hazelnut Meringue Cake has Jfer's full endoresement. It's a bit on the sweet side for my taste, but it was fun to make and definitely an unusual cake. If anyone makes it, I recommend that they use twice as much whipped cream than specified in the recipe.

Rita came for the weekend and joined us when we went dancing with Archie and Jessica. It had been way too long and our stamina and feet aren't used to it. but all of us, including Rita and Magda, had a very good time.

Today we were supposed to go to Wurstfest. Alas, out house painters needed access to an open front door (which is now a deep red) and we couldn't find a house sitter on a short notice. So we spent a fairly relaxing and unproductive day in Austin. As it turned out, this allowed me to not miss my mom's phone call. I had to laugh that she doubted it was actually Magda saying "tata" and "mama" over the phone -- she thought it was Rita fakin' it. Where's the trust?

Magda is finally standing up. Last night I put a wooden toy dragon out of her reach on the sofa and she managed to stand up to get to it. Once standing she seems a bit unsure about how to procede but then eventually just plops back on her butt (or, in once case, on top of Rose).

And after dinner, she was crawling under the table and was trying to get from Jfer's side to mine by climbing over the leg spreader(?). This involved standing up, ballancing over the spreader and plunging down on top of her had -- which she proceded to do a couple of times with gusto.

We've all seen parents who seem (or pretend) to understand their toddlers random noises as some form of coherent speech. As an outsider, it makes you feel slightly inferior because when the child directs their babble at you and you don't respond, they usually get a frustrated (or patronising) look and it doesn't lead to anything good. This is especially true when it happens with a child whose old enough to be actually producing speech, albeit not inteligent to the uninitiated.

Being now on the parent side of the equation, I've discovered that interpreting baby speech can be lots of fun. Magda's spoken vocabulary is still fairly limited: mama, tata, buh (book), beh (bird), ah (give me more food right now and ignore the fact that my mouth is still full) and the occasional dog bark. But Jennifer has her going on Baby Sign and she's mastered all the words in the couple of books we have and uses them fairly consistently.

This is where the fun part interpretation comes in. Last night, Magda was feeding herself vegies at the dinner table when she took a break for "pushing". That's when she quiets down, stares in fixed concentration straight ahead while her face starts turning red and contorting with effort. Sometimes this may include a quiet grunt or two, or a tear of effort may squeeze out of her eye (I think she may need more fiber in her diet). Anyway, in the middle of all this, she started doing the sign for "baby".

My first and immediate interpretation was that my briliant daughter is complaining about the effort it takes to push that turd out and is equating it with giving birth to a baby. We haven't had the birds-and-bees talk, but it is conceivable that she could have learning this from TV, right?

My second interpretation was that she was refering to the picture of the baby on the box of wipies sitting on the wine rack next to the table (BTW, there is no reason for us to have an unopened box of wipies sitting on the wine rack in the dining room) -- telling us that it's going to take a lot of those after she's done with her busines.

Obviously, someone who doesn't interact with Magda on a daily basis would not be able to understand her expressive conversation(s). But we, the parents, do. Yes indeed!

Later, when she thought that I had forgotten about Magda's efforts over dinner, Jfer sweetly suggested that I change our doughter and get her ready for bed. Turns out Magda's diaper was just wet and her efforts had been for naught. And maybe she was just making the baby sign because that's what she likes to do. But you would never know, since you don't speak baby talk.