Unfortunately, not the only mouse in my house.

You know how “they say” things come in threes? I’m not sure I ever really believed it was true, but the past day or so has convinced me otherwise.

It started at my ice skating lesson on Wednesday night, when I leaned over to pull the guards off my skate blades and felt my lower back pinch uncomfortably. It hurt, but I decided I just needed to get moving to work it out and so I took my class as planned. Unfortunately, by the time I finished, I could hardly sit down to get my skates off. The drive home was excruciating – I was seriously in the worst pain of my life. (And I say this as someone who has had sciatica off and on over the years. Unicorns and cupcakes compared to this.)

So, with my back killing me, just imagine how my mood was improved when I got into my apartment and discovered my heat was broken. For the third time this winter.

I took a giant handful of ibuprofen and headed to bed, grateful for my electric mattress pad, which both kept my warm and heated my back. It did not, alas, heal my back overnight, and – since I could barely walk – I opted to stay home from work.

As it turned out, however, I was not the only one at home. I was in bed reading when I thought I saw something move and looked up to find a mouse looking at me from atop the throw pillow I’d tossed on the floor the night before. I screamed – first in horror, then in pain – as I attempted to get out of bed and… I don’t know. Kill the mouse? Capture it? It ran off and vanished under the cedar chest before I had to figure out what, exactly, to do.

As I climbed gingerly back into bed, I started to laugh in that hysterical way you do when it’s all just too much. When you’d rather be crying. Because seriously? My back was jacked up, my apartment was cold, and there was a goddamn mouse in my bedroom. Enough already!

Fast-forward to today… Two visits from the landlord later, the furnace is working, the mouse-access holes are plugged, and the bedroom is full of tiny poison pellets. Sadly, there was nothing he could do for my back, which is slightly improved (like I can sit up enough to watch tv, which I couldn’t yesterday) but still absurdly painful.

So that’s my three. Not only am I converted to the truth of this old adage, but I’m also more than happy things don’t come in fours.

It took a moment of perusing my own see why. The interests listed were fairly accurate: cooking and recipes, specifically soups, stews, and Asian; team sports, notably hockey; and assorted interests around technology and social media. Yup, sounds like me. Primary geographic area: Washington, DC – also true. And then I got to the basic demographics, where they took me for a 25-34 male. Wrong, and really wrong.

Currently, this stuff is tracked by web browsers – that’s the change that’s got people up in arms. Google’s new plan is to merge browsing data into our account information to make the results more accurate, and therefore be able to serve more creepily-specific ads.

But because everything is still handled at the browser level I have a somewhat different profile at home. Still have cooking and recipes among my interests, but for meat, seafood, and Middle Eastern cuisine. I also like hockey, but apparently not technology/social media, so at home I’m a 25-34 year old female.

I have two thoughts on this.

First: holy gender-norming, Google! Technology AND hockey? Must just be a dude who likes to cook, but when tech’s not in play, clearly hockey is the outlier interest and cooking means I’m a chick. Oof.

Second: Though Google gave me mixed marks on my girlieness, I did land squarely in the age group that’s between six and 15 years younger than I actually am. Combined with the fact that offline me is often similarly mistaken, I think it’s clear that I’m meant to be lying about my age.

So all that stuff I said last spring about turning 40? Disregard. It was a typo. I meant 30 – the numbers are just so close together.

My teacher was the married older sister of a school friend who taught us in her basement. Eventually, she had enough students to form a little group to perform in local parades. We were called the Pink Panthers, with the cute hot-pink skirts shown below. I have a vague recollection of there being some sort of falling out amongst the group that led to the creation of a second group – Pink Panthers, Ltd. (I know, right?) – but I have no real idea what that was all about. What I do know is that we marched in more parades than I can remember, mostly because I blocked them out. Why? It’s simple: Binghamton, New York; St. Patrick’s Day and/or Veteran’s Day; a mile-plus parade route; and short skirts. You cannot imagine the cold…

Clearly, this picture was from a summer parade – Memorial Day or 4th of July, perhaps.

Eileen and me, circa 1979.

***

Do you have photos from your past that you’re willing to share – and a blog to post them on? Play along with Wayback Wednesday by linking back to this post or sharing in the comments so we can snoop into your past, too!

A few of my Pinterest boards.

A little over two weeks ago, I wrote a post about Pinterest, currently the next big thing in the social media world. Since then, I have spent even more time on the site, creating a page for work. As it turns out, I am learning a lot using Pinterest, including:

• I am apparently the only woman in America not planning a wedding, either for real or on spec.
• My apartment is lame and has no discernible decorative style.
• The only thing worse than my apartment is my fashion sense, which is dull to the power of boring.
• I have insufficiently niche-y interests – for example, elephants, the color yellow, or plush toys. I also don’t care enough about movies or specific actors/actresses.
• Inspirational quotes drive me bonkers.
• There will never be enough time for me to cook all of the amazing recipes I have seen. This is probably for the best, as eating all of these delicious-looking things would make me tragically overweight.
• I could quit my job tomorrow and travel the world for the rest of my life and never, ever run out of amazing sights, places, and people to see.

My reaction to this is somewhat conflicted. On one hand, it’s a little depressing, but on the other, it’s kind of inspiring. I’m not sure looking at pretty pictures will ever make me a fashion maven, but it could get me to finally decorate my apartment like I am actually staying. (Years and years of moving annually taught me not to put in too much effort, but seriously, I’ve lived in this place almost six years now. It’s time.) And I have already found – and shared – some recipes there, so even though I’ll never cook them all, pinning them doesn’t seem like a waste of time.

One thing I’m fairly certain it’s not going to make a dent in: my antipathy for weddings. Still hoping to find a guy who thinks a trip downtown to see the judge seems like the right way to go…

• We had a two-hour delay for work today, for an ice storm that never materialized. Somehow, despite sleeping an extra hour, folding laundry, and doing the dishes, I still didn’t manage to kill off all the extra time. I know… I’m as surprised as you are.
• As if I need to watch more television, reading Tina Fey’s bio for my book group makes me think I may be missing out not watching “30 Rock.” Thoughts?
• While technically I bought my fleece-lined yoga pants to wear for my ice skating classes, they’re so comfy that it’s possible I’ve worn them every day since I got them.
• I made magloubat, a dish I had in Jordan, for dinner tonight and my apartment smells amazing. I’m not in love with the way it came out, overall (the rice is super-sticky), but it tastes pretty good nevertheless.
• It’s not even game day yet, but between Ovechkin’s suspension, Backstrom’s concussion, and Green’s surgery, the Caps lineup will be as depleted as can be for tomorrow’s game – and they’re facing the reigning Stanley Cup champions. Alexander Semin, you’re our only hope…
• Oof.

And with that, I bid you goodnight.

So, at the risk of this being the lament post ever, I decided to take inspiration from my neighbor Maggie – whom I know only on the Internet despite the fact that I live like 30 feet from her – and photograph the, uh, bold light display across the street. (Maggie posted a couple of pictures of said lights to Instagram yesterday.)

On the… ahem… bright side, I dig sparkly lights, so I kinda like these. Which is a good thing, since they’re basically right outside my bedroom window.

So maybe it’s time to make a suggestion box for blog topics, eh?

The street side view, in all its glory.

On the up side, we do own the land, and that has real value, so that is something. In reality owning the land not a bad return for a four-year investment.

The view from the back is even better, especially the weeds. Funny how the drought killed everything but the bloody weeds!

And we met for a third time with the builder Friday. We have settled on a plan, and will sign the contract on Monday to officially start the process of rising from the ashes. So yesterday was in fact a good day. A day of accomplishment. A day to look forward and not back. A cause for celebration!

A little light snow on Friday night.

It’s kind of a cold, icy day today, so rather than doing much outside the house, I’m powering through this month’s book group selection (Bossypants by Tina Fey) in advance of tomorrow’s meeting. Of course, it is Saturday, so I also need to take a moment to look back on three beautiful things from the past week.

1. Rather than be sad on the one-year anniversary of her father’s death, my friend Jordi decided to celebrate his life – and the kind of entertaining he enjoyed – with a huge Italian feast. I thought it was a lovely way to honor her dad.

2. My friends Farin and Shereef – whose wedding I attended in Egypt just over two years ago – welcomed their first child on Wednesday, a gorgeous boy named Adam. I can’t wait to meet him!

3. So mundane after items one and two, but last night’s snow (before the ice fell on it) made everything sparkle.

What’s been beautiful on your world this week?

I take no credit for the creation of this recipe – I got it from John “JC” Campbell, the cook at Eamonn’s, where I used to work when I lived in the Albany area. The bar is long since gone (it burned down several years ago), so I don’t think it’s giving away secrets to share it now. Enjoy!

Eamonn’s Potato-Bacon Chowder

6-8 large potatoes
8-9 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 stalks celery, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
2 15-ounce cans chicken broth
2 cups water
milk as needed
1/2 cup roux *

Boil the potatoes in the chicken stock and water until they start to soften. Add the bacon and celery, boil for about 10 minutes. Add the onion and boil another 10-15 minutes. Thicken slowly with the roux. Add milk until a creamy consistency is reached. The soup should have a creamy base with lots of potato chunks.

By the way, this recipe is pretty easily adjustable to larger or smaller quantities. In fact, JC gave it to me in the amounts the way he made it – five gallons at a time. The measures above make eight-ish servings.

* I learned this from JC as melted butter and flour mixed to the consistency of pancake batter. I now know there are other ways of making roux, but I’ve never tried them with this soup. You’re welcome to, though.

A Star Wars Stormtrooper snowflake, made by my SIL Jen.

A month or so ago, in the process of passing along an article, I mentioned that I spend a lot of time reading various and sundry online articles, stories, blog posts, etc. (Quite possibly too much time.) I’ve decided to put all that effort to good use here on the blog, however, in the form of a new semi-regular series: I Read the Internet So You Don’t Have To. I’ll use this to share stories I’ve found interesting, along with a little blurb as to why. In the day job, we call this “content curation,” but here… Well, let’s just call it being helpful.

First up, an article I became aware of via the ultra-pompous New York Times book review podcast. Knowing that I am not the only one of my friends addicted to “Downton Abbey” (only the most recent), sharing this article, If You’re Mad for ‘Downton,’ Publishers Have Reading List, feels like a public service.

It’s been more than a week since I first read Not So Fast from Google’s Think Quarterly, but I keep coming back to it. There is something both inspiring and humbling about the notion that, at this early phase of the digital age – when we think we’re innovating at lighting speed – we’re essentially doing the equivalent of using the first printing presses to make illuminated manuscripts more quickly. It’s stuff like this that reminds me why I love my work – both the history and technology angles.

Not surprisingly, my browser also often finds its way to hockey stuff. (Boatloads of it, if I am being honest.) A week or so ago, the Backhand Shelf blog had two of the funniest “non-hockey” hockey posts I’ve read in a long time. If you like hockey and guys and/or hockey and beer, both are good fun.

Technically, I did not come across the amazing Star Wars snowflakes – such as the one illustrating this post – online, but my sister-in-law Jen did, which is close enough. I think.

And finally, the meme of the moment is “Shit [People] Say” videos. Shit Girls Say, for example, or Shit People in DC Say, or approximately eleventy billion others. There’s also the counterpoint: Shit Nobody Says.

I have, however, actually said one of these things. Anyone care to guess which one? And no, wiseass, not the one about Nickelback.