mishalak

I have sucessfully imported most of my old email files. I now have much, though not all, of my email right back to September 1st, 1999. Yeah... I am totally a geek. My email archive is nonsensical in its size. Also embarrassing to see how bad a writer I was and what kind of a person I was back then. But I kept them to remind myself of a very important thing. No one else remembers. I doubt most of these people remember who I am. But here is a copy of a newsgroup mail I saved from David Morgan-Mar of Irregular Webcomic fame.

2 cups raisins 1 cup sultanas (white raisins) (substitute glace cherries for some of the above if you prefer)
410g jar fruit mince (14.4 ounce, this is just fruit**, and maybe some vegetable shortening, mushed up - this seems to be something not well known in North America - make your own substitute if you can't get it, by just partially blending some fruit. ** raisins, currants, citrus peel, mostly)
200g butter (7 ounces) 1/4 cup brandy 1 cup brown sugar 1/2 teaspoon sodium bicarbonate
3 eggs 1 1/2 cups plain white flour 3 teaspoons mixed spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, etc) extra 1/4 cup brandy

1. Grease a deep 20cm (8 inch) round springform cake pan. Line the base and sides with baking paper, leaving paper extending 5cm (2 inches) above the pan rim.

2. Combine all fruit, butter, brandy, sugar in a large saucepan. Stir over low heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Simmer covered for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sodium bicarbonate. Pour into large mixing bowl and let cool.

3. Add eggs, flour, spice and mix well. Pour into cake pan.

4. Bake at 150C (300F) for about 1 hour 45 minutes. It is better to bake longer than shorter. If the top gets too brown, cover with aluminium foil and keep baking. Test with a skewer - when it comes away clean the centre is done.

5. Poke a few holes in the hot cake with skewer and pour over extra brandy.

6. Let cool, then wrap in foil and store in an airtight container for up to 2 months before eating. Or you can eat it straight away.

I usually make a double batch in a 28cm (12 inch) pan, because it gets eaten so quickly.

I remember making this recipe that year for Christmas and it was good. Very good.

Six year ago, almost exactly six years ago, I got pierced. A few days ago I started thinking that it was time for a change. I'm almost 33 years old after all and I think that calls for a different look than when I was almost 27. Plus they're no longer as much fun as when I first got them. So this morning I took them out and that's the end of that. Sort of an end with a whimper though. Rather like this journal. Looking back six years ago I had a lot more people who commented on my journal and I followed in turn.

Still, having a journal is still useful for me even if hardly anyone I used to follow is still around. And I think I'm a much nicer and happier person now than I was then even though I'm less social.

Well not in the sense of actually being rained out or something, but Brunch today was supposed to be at Lakeside Waffles. Unfortunately they were closed for, what I gather, are flakey reasons involving "We did not feel like coming in to work on a Sunday." I got the call when I was nearly there and I did not have the presence of mind to immediately say, "Thanks for finding an alternate location, but I'll just head home now." Instead I tried to find the Village Inn at I-70 and Federal to tell Rose in person that I'd prefer not to eat to eating at Village Inn, somehow failed to see the restaurant despite the huge sign, and then was rather rude when I called her to say I was heading home. I regret having done that, but I'll attempt to make amends later.

At that point I finally started wandering home and stopped off at Argonaut Liquor to pick up a six pack of beer I've been meaning to try, got here, at a little food, and now it is about time for me to head off to work. The morning could have gone much better, but it could have gone much worse as well. So I'm not unhappy except with how I behaved.

Hopefully work will go smoothly and afterward I can come home to clean and have a beer.

I had a lovely time on Thursday. I went to Herman Gulch Trail with J.K. Simmons (not his real name, just one I'm going to use because that's the actor I think he most resembles, though not when he's playing J.Jonah Jameson). I was a crazy person and took along a bottle of Cristallino (A nice Brut sparkling wine from Spain), a pork chop with apples and onions, and various other hiking necessities. Good food, good wine, high altitude, a warmish day, and bright sun, what more could you ask for? Not many wildflowers yet on the hike, but there were not an excess of people either. Part of that was it being a Thursday, but the rest was how early it is in the season. Still a fair number of snowbanks to climb over, but it was warm and dry enough that my clothes dried out as we were still climbing.

I think I'll go back in a month or so to the same trail to see the wildflowers. In certain places I saw evidence of such a mass of columbines that it is sure to be fairly spectacular. Later J.K. and I walked around Georgetown looking at the Victorian buildings and a Victorian power station that I did not know was open to the public as well as still generating power. If you have time to stop for a visit I highly recommend the Georgetown Energy Museum. It is free and somewhat exciting to see such old equipment still spinning away making electricity.

Dinner at Beau Jo's Pizza and then it was off to Denver.

First published on Mishalak Blogspot

There is only one Drive-in Theater left in the Denver area, the "Eighty-Eight" up on 88th Avenue and Rosemary Street in Commerce City. Dry and dusty as all drive-ins tend to be when it has not recently rained, it is not pretty. But there is a peculiar industrial beauty to the place with its rusting neon sign amid a tangle of telephone and power wires. The tower screen is made of corrugated tin painted white, many of the posts marking spaces no longer hold speakers and are bent due to collisions. Sometimes I have fantasized about the perfect drive in, but the thing is that if a drive in were perfect with nicely mowed grass and concrete parking spaces and surrounded by trees to keep out light pollution, it would lose some of the charm.

Going to a drive in is all about being able to bring in your own food and having enough space to behave badly. It is just like cars vs. mass transit. In a car you can talk back to the radio, sing along, or whatever you please. This is why I love going to bad or silly movies at the drive-in because then whatever group I am with can keep up a running commentary without bothering other patrons without our wit. Which Richie and I did to a certain extent as we watched first Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and then Iron Man last Sunday night. I was drinking very strong Thai Iced tea (it still needs to have the amount of anise reduced a bit), eating popcorn, bad Chinese food, and drinking soda. I just wish the 88 still had funnel cakes because that would have been a perfect addition to our self indulgent fare.

The movies were good, the wait to get in was long (show up at about a hour and a half before sunset, don't worry if the line is long), and we were up quite late because of this. But it was a lot of fun and reasonably priced at just eight dollars per person.

Today while I was out working I stopped for a moment and really looked at the mountains during my lunch hour. Thunderstorms were building over the mountains leaving the high peaks in cloud and shadow. A few high feathery clouds were beginning to reach out, but the foothills and all the city were still in bright sunlight under a sky that shaded from nearly white at its edge to navy blue at its zenith. It was a lovely summer scene. The plains and city swealtering in a dry heat while storms built over the mountains. Tonight it is raining heavily here off and on as hidden towers of cloud pass overhead.

For this evening's project I put about 475 ml by volume, or almost 650 ml packed into the measuring cup, of cut up peaches into a canning jar with 550 ml of vodka. I'm going to let them get to know each other for about three weeks and then we'll see. Perhaps I should buy more peaches and start another batch this weekend. Peach season won't be here long and if my calculations are correct then I should get about 750 ml of total liqueur out of this once the peaches are discarded and I bring up the volume a bit with simple syrup to sweeten it, if necessary.

I picked Richie up from the airport yesterday at quarter to ten in the morning. Yay! I made him a lei from purple Chrysanthemums and Alstroemeria. There was a lot of kissing and hugging. Then we did stuff. Like went shopping various places on Broadway like The Crypt and stopped in the Book Mall, but Nina & Ron were not there. Then we went to Noodles and Company for lunch because Richie had missed having 'normal' food when in Hawaii. He might be over Japanese food for a while. And maybe Hawaiian Pizza, I'll have to ask him about that tomorrow. So I had a beer and Pad Thai, he had Macaroni and Cheese with a soda. Then it was off to see Spiderman 3 out at Colorado Mills (Richie Drove). We got caught in a hail storm, but I don't think there was any damage because the hail was kind of soft.

Spiderman 3 was not great, but it was fun to see it with him. No cookie at the end, but I stayed in case there was one. Then we drove to his sister's house where he'll be staying while we apartment hunt for a while. He'll be coming out here tomorrow and Friday.

YAY!

One week ago I purchased a power backup system. Three days ago I got around to plugging it in and getting it all set up with all my computery stuff plugged into it. Today the power went out at three while I was working on my computer. I was able to save everything and shut down in good order instead of worrying if my computer would work when I turned it back on.

The hummingbird perched upon the wooden lip of the feeder quietly. He, for the dark ruby gorget about his throat clearly marked his sex in the growing dark, moved very occasionally from his silent observation of the falling snow to dip his beak into one of the three artificial flowers. Every feather on his body was fluffed out to save every possible bit of heat. I have to remind myself not to worry about him. There is snow clinging to parts of the feader and even spots on his back, but I saw him in deeper snow earlier this month. It has snowed three times in May this year and the hummingbirds are still here with the warm rising of the sun each day.

Perfect grace slipping in and out of sunlight. Golden brown and far too large to believe in the eagle came swooping between our trees. I cried out excitedly and pointed thinking I'd seen an owl at first and afraid I would be the only one to see it. But it circled around again and again coming closer to the picture windows. And then there it was, perched in a tree not far from the house. Every pass had made me doubt again what I was seeing, an owl? a hawk? But it became clear that it was an Eagle and I called out guesses. An immature Bald Eagle? No, there was a second one flying overhead and it didn't have the molted pattern. It spread its wings again to join its mate and I decided it must be a Golden Eagle.

I felt privileged to see such an animal in flight. Farewell lord of the air.

And at my computer. I've stayed up rather longer than my body wanted given how little sleep I got on the flight back from Hawaii. All part of the plan to somewhat avoid jetlag. I'm going to go to sleep at my normal time here in Colorado and hopefully productively work on things like laundry tomorrow. I have much of that to do having overstayed and only having about enough clothes for a week. I'm happy, exhasued, a little wistful, and energized. And there is a (small) convention next weekend (Karval Kon, ask for details if you're interested), and DASFA this weekend. Not to mention a table to staff for MileHicon at the local trek/media convention, StarFest. Wowie. Lots of things going on.

Right, I better get working on a trip report.

I have a sore throat and congestion. I guess I'm sick with some form of cold. Not fun. On the up side I tend to be sick about once a year, so this is my quota for 2007. And I'm glad it didn't happen when I was going to see Richie. Right. I need some ibuprofen. Or however it is spelled. No aspirin. Very bad if you even think you might have a fever, Reyes Syndrome does not just happen in children. And don't use anything with plain salicylic acid either.

So with the chances that my already malfunctioning brain might be crushed against the inside of my skull by a mysterious syndrome I think I'll sit back and wait for the miracles of biochemistry to do their thing. Hopefully in a bit I'll feel like doing something entertaining so that I can distract myself from my upper respiratory distress and painful throat.

Richard Moorman, Age 49 and nine days.

I'm happy that I said these things before it was too late, but I repeat them now because I will miss him very much. I enjoyed being his friend and all the conversations we had over brunch. He made wonderful comments in my journal. If he was here now; if he could hear what I say, I would not have much else to say. I just wish we could have had more of the same and like all of his friends and family. But I'd thank him for all the times we had, they were good ones.

( Photographs Behind Cut )

The icon used in this post is from a photograph taken at the same time as the rest in this post. Let me know what you think of it. Should I work to lighten it up some more?

On Friday

animazed and I arranged to have a date on Sunday after brunch. Since he's in Hawaii and I'm here we decided to go to simultaneous showings of The Prestige in our different timezones. It was actually rather fun, a good second best to sitting in the same theater. Plus it was a good movie as well. I saw part of what was coming right away, but I thought it was too simple, that couldn't be the trick. But it didn't hurt my enjoyment of the movie at all because the movie didn't depend upon the trick. It was all about two obsessed men destroying each other. And the strange coolness that is Nicola Tesla as played by David Bowie.

We talked for a long while after the movie, not as much before. Richie enjoyed it as well as I did, though he seemed not to intuitively grasp what was happening with the big plot device as intuitively as I did. After a while it was time for me to go and drive home. I'm pretty hopeful that this whole long distance relationship thing will work out okay.

I've always known it didn't. After Tuesday I expected this,

armoire_man is dying of his brain cancer. He's being moved to a hospice. His wife gave us the news via a mailing list many of his local friends are on.

The last time I saw him was at brunch, Sunday October 22nd, if I am remembering the sequence correctly. He was not looking good even then and he had surgery scheduled for the next Thursday (26th). He was released to a rehab center a week later (Oct. 30th) and there was some hope that he'd get better. But this week on Monday the 13th he was back in ICU. There was not any word for a while and I quietly assumed the worst, because that's my pessimistic nature. I'm not crying much now and I'm okay, expecting the worst blunts the blow when it falls. At least for me.

The doctor says that he doesn't expect him to make Christmas. I expect I'll go see him and try to convey that I love him as a friend, though since he doesn't seem to understand language very well it will have to be all in my expression or something. I've written a letter of sympathy and now it is time I went to bed. I stayed up too late trying to find the right words.

I don't expect the world to be fair, I'm an atheist. So is

armoire_man.

I have a fire going in the other room. It helps to take the chill off this blustery day. It is not unpleasant out and perhaps I should go outside for a walk, but I have become caught up in editing old journal entries and adding tags to things. At some point I shall have to do a blast from the past entry where I post links to some of my older writings that I think should have a larger audience. But for today it will be all editing and finally buckling down to write two conreports before MileHiCon and Bubonicon fade from my memory.

Today is the 1 year anniversary of my journal. I reuped last week because I felt it was the right thing to do, plus I wanted to keep all my spiffy icons. Though it was more expensive than I remember from last year it is still a comparative bargain. (I do hope that this won't be a trend. If the price is up next year by more than inflation I'm not renewing.)

To celebrate the whole one-year thing I've been getting caught up on putting journal entries into my memories. I use the feature as sort of an index and I figure this is a good time to get caught up and to tell everyone who joined since the last time I explained this.

I'll explain more tomorrow when I'm more awake. Putting in everything upto this month took more work than I thought it would. But hey one year 465 entries and over 2000 comments. I'm doing okay I think.

I think that having tea some afternoon with a bunch of livejournal people would be a lot of fun. I could set up my card table on the back porch and then we could have tea with a bit more quality than could be achieved at a coffeehouse. I don't mean that I have any particularly fancy tea sets, but the tea at a coffeehouse leaves something to be desired. I think it would be better to have out my big black teapot and homemade biscuits (look at the Britishism I just used!).

Okay my suggested where is out there. Who's interested? And what afternoon would work out best for you if you're near enough to Littleton to do this?

I may have mentioned that one of my coworkers is off on vacation until next Friday. That means I'm pulling 10, 11, and 12 hour days starting at 6am MST. I might be less coherent than usual during the week, just a warning.

BIG EDIT!!! Huge change of plans. I'll email everyone in just a moment, but right now it looks like the thing to do on Saturday will not to go to Pablo's Coffeehouse. Instead we must (by all that is unholy) go to the Cinderella Twin Drive-In Theatre because on Saturday they will be showing a double feature of The Chronicles of Riddick and The Day After Tomorrow. Two movies that look like great drive in fare! People may still gather at my place before noon, nosh on some things, and hang out but we will be leaving at 6:15pm SHARP to get to the box office by 6:30. We'll do that excessive chatting thing while waiting for the movies to start 'round about 8:30pm

Dance of Joy! And Fruitcake!

Taking Out the Bits

Brunch Washed Out

[Mishalak] Thursday on Herman Gulch Trail

The Simple Joy of a Drive In

Mountain Storms, Mountain Peaches

Hey-La-Day-La My Boyfriend's Back!

A Good Investment

Hummingbirds in Snow

Eagles Soaring Over Crumbling Mountains

Actually Physically Home

Blearge

In Memoriam, armoire_man

Hanukkah Blizzard 2006

A Bill Gates Date

The World Makes Little Sense

Windy Tuesday

One Year

Afternoon Tea

The Mishalak Picture Show

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June 2020

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