Melyssa-with-a-Y

Yesterday, while I was getting ready for my supper club (making whole wheat pizza dough, and then rolling it out and decorating it with homemade pesto, mozzarella and sundried tomatoes, and another one with crushed tomatoes and artichoke hearts and more mozz... ) I was listening to the middle rounds of the National Spelling Bee on ESPN. It was sort of funny to see how ESPN made it more "exciting" ... they even did short interviews with the kids and their parents. It was cute. Starting with Round 4 (semifinals), they had to spell words like skeuomorph, hircocervus, echinocystis, and omphaloskepsis. Yikes! These are mostly 12 and 13 year old kids! I was amazed. I thought I was a good speller - I won the spelling bee in my elementary school in 5th grade and made it to regionals... where I was tripped up by the word "platelet" (I hadn't had biology yet, I didn't know that it didn't have the "-ette" on the end! oh well..) So yesterday, I tried ...

eeeexcellent.

and it's empty! where is everybody?

oy vey. This has been some day. I think I spent more time in my car than I did at the office. Or anywhere, except maybe the doctor's office. I started the day at the medical building for my annual physical, and to get a referral so I can get my knee checked out. He thinks I have patella-femoral syndrome , which is exactly what Bryan had when he grew too fast and had no cartilage in his knees. I can live with that -- I'd rather have to do PT than have any kind of surgery, but we'll see what the ortho says. I was all ready to head back to work after 45 mins in the docs office, but no! That would be too easy. I had to go to the lab first. EKG, blood test, and a tetanus shot for good measure. (ow. did I mention that they had to stick me twice to take my blood, because he screwed up the first time? ugh.) An hour later, I was finally on my way. I made a beeline for Starbucks first, since I had been fasting since midnight, and had only slept for about 5 hrs. And "beeline...

Having a whole bunch of movie channels (and a DVR) is great, though sometimes it keeps me from watching my Netflix movies for months at a time. I can watch some of my favorite movies whenever they're on, over and over again, and quote most (if not all) of the lines. The list is long: Star Wars/Empire/Jedi, Princess Bride, Pretty Woman, Hunt for Red October, French Kiss, Footloose, Crimson Tide, Bridget Jones, Unforgiven... occassionally Dani and I try to build a complete list, but we can never think of all of them. I think it's a comfort thing. I know I can do just about anything around the house - work, laundry, build bookcases, hang pictures, knit, and even nap - and know exactly what's going on in the movie. It's actually harder for me to do these things when I'm watching a new episode of something, like Countdown on MSNBC, or CSI, because I want to concentrate on what's being said. But these movies are my comfort food. Speaking of which, tonight, Fie...

This afternoon, Rebeka and I went to a baby shower for our friends Juan and Letty . Letty has another six weeks to go, but she looks like she's about to pop! It was a nice, small shower, with couples and kids. Of course, I was happy to go to the shower, and I made the world's quickest duckie - started last night at 9:30am, finished in the car on the way to the party! But the biggest draw for me was that it was being hosted by one of my favorite bloggers, Stephanie Klein (and her husband Phil). I've been reading Stephanie's blog for at least a couple of years, since she published her first book, Straight Up and Dirty , moved to Austin (shortly before I did, I think), had her twins in December '06... It was great to actually meet her! The "beans" are a little over 2 now and talking. They're SO cute. And Phil is just the nicest guy in the world. Our illustrious hosts made finger sandwiches, complete with the crusts cut off -- cucumber, salmon, egg sal...

Wholesome student fun: BYU has a bowling alley on the bottom floor of their student center... And it's packed! -- ================================================================== This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T

Time flies- last time I was here was four years ago!

mountains are purty... :)

Annetrelac socks, in On Linie supersocke 100, Highland color. Trying to decide how much more cuff before I stop...

4lbs of strawberries for $5.99! and they're HUGE! yummmmmm

After a much delayed flight (2.5 hrs on tarmac in Houston!) mom and dad made it to Austin... and not having eaten, I brought them right to Rudy's. :)

I am trying to keep Pesach this year. I get almost all the way through the week every year, but after about five days or so, I invariably put something in my mouth and start chewing before I realize it's a no-no. But, I definitely do my best at home. I moved all of my chametz into a couple of bags and put them away in the closet. I have been eating "matzah-and-" everything I would normally eat, so it's matzah and sun butter for breakfast, matzah and sliced turkey for lunch... etc. And some leftover matzoh ball soup (don't ask me why I spell the crackers with an "a" and the balls with an "o" - I don't know!) ... and haroset... it hasn't been too difficult yet. Tonight I decided to cook one of the new Passover product s I found- Kosher for Passover cous cous , to go along with a really neat recipe for chicken with asparagus . All I can say is, one of these recipes worked very well and is delicious. The other one, not so much. Can you gu...

I can't believe I'm finally seeing Springsteen! It's taken me 20 years to get here!

they're about to show Monsters v. Aliens in 3D... coming off two giant film reels. It's a $30million machine. Wow.

Passover is coming. I'm going to be making a brisket for Seder, so I thought I should practice making it once, just in case. I bought a small 1.5lb brisket and cut off the fat, and made it with garlic, broth, thyme and tarragon. It isn't falling apart like mom's did, but it's very tasty, and now I know what to do!

There was a severe storm warning in Austin this afternoon, which became a severe thunderstorm watch... so I stayed at work for a while longer to wait out the storm. But then I discovered that one of my neighbors had golf-ball sized hail in his backyard! Yet another one of the new things I'm learning as a homeowner -- hail is scary! What if it broke my windows? So I drove (slowly and carefully) home in the diminishing rainstorm, and was pleased to find that while there were little golf-ball hail lumps all around the house, the house was still intact. :) Here's a pic of the hail (oops, it's blurry) and a pic of the backyard. It's wild! Of course, less than an hour later, the sun came out, and there was a nice sunset. But the hail didn't melt right away.

Sitting at National airport, watching USC basketball and waiting for my flight back to Austin, a lady walked by my table and made what she called a "strange request" -- she asked if she could use my laptop really quickly to send a note to her boss. I figured, what the heck, she looks nice, and it's good karma. And I know the feeling - though it hasn't happened to me since I got my blackjack last year. She sat down and started typing, and we chatted a bit... it turns out she is going to Israel to visit her son. She didn't bring her blackberry because she doesn't have international service on it, and she really needed to send an email. I mentioned that I hadn't been to Israel since my bat mitzvah, and we had a laugh about "Jew-dar." :) She told me she'd be at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem tomorrow, and would say a prayer for me. So there you go, I'd say that's good karma!

Hmmm... maybe I'm off the hook for a little while? Thanks, Val! ;)