As always in March

At the beginning of the week, FitBit gave me another badge, which made me feel a little less like a lump.  I've struggled a couple of days to meet the 10,000 steps challenged, and to move each hour.

At the end of the week, I headed to Dallas:

Once again, as a manager in Performer Products, although if the other manager had been able to attend, I would have shifted to being a swing volunteer and supported many other areas.  I did volunteer for the Fun Run - not as a runner, of course (although they offer a "Zero-K" option for people who just want swag) but handing out packets and personning the bag check.

This year I also received a medal.

So these are photos of the masks I wore during the trip, since mostly I take and post videos that allow my mother and others to experience the event.

I also wore appropriate socks, such as these on Friday for the opening of NTIF:

'Bootleg' Girl Scout Cookies

Middle of last week, somebody posted that his granddaughter would be at the North Texas Irish Festival's Volunteer meeting on Sunday, selling Girl Scout Cookies.  I generally send a few boxes to the troops, or whatever is the group's local charity (some donate to soup kitchens or shelters), and the friends with whom I was staying asked for a box of Thin Mints®.

However, when I got to the ballroom at the hotel where the meeting was occurring, the cookies were being packed up and removed.  I was disappointed, thinking I missed the timeslot when the girl could be there, or sales weren't allowed during the meeting proper.  No, it turned out the hotel didn't want the sales onsite.  So, her grandfather announced at the start of the meeting, they would take orders during the meeting, and you could pick up from the vehicle in the parking lot after the meeting.  Yup, in the best Irish manner, a workaround was created, and we all joked about our bootleg Girl Scout cookies for the rest of the morning.

The rest of the weekend was fun:  Two plays, a new pizza place, tacos (different meal), visiting with friends.  I got some rest, and decided to skip the Yoga Boot Camp on Monday because it began at 5:00am locally and I am not that dedicated.

I did get knitting done, of course:

The scarf on the right was knitted on Saturday, and a bit at the meeting on Sunday.  It's just garter stitch of a handdyed acrylic skein I bought at the last DFW Fiber Fest.  The other is the Ghost Ranch Cowl done in Whimzee Stitches DK Deluxe "Maxed Dallas", their 2022 show colourway.  Very yummy yarn, and I won't keep it because there's more pink in the colourway than I like, but somebody should enjoy it.  I made a hat from the yarn and will re-do it in the same stitch pattern.  In the photo I was still working on the (remainder of the) first skein, and now I am well into the second, and it's moving nicely.

Fiche blain

This weekend was the 41st North Texas Irish Festival, and I went to spend the weekend doing my usual work at the Performer Products area (I am one of the managers) and enjoy a lot of Celtic music.

They restarted giving out thank-you pins, and after a bit of maths (my first was in 1998, a few months after I moved to the area, but I missed a few, such as the pandemic year of 2021 and a year I memorably had a horrible strep throat) we figure that I qualified for this:

I took only a few photos over the weekend, it was mostly videos of bands.  Lots of bands.  A benefit of the Performer Products area is that we are next to a stage, so don't have to go anywhere to hear live music unless we want to hear a band that isn't performing there.  After a terrible Thursday (luckily, I was not flying in that day), the weather all weekend was glorious:

A fun bit of NTIF tradition is that the 501st comes out, with a few members in kilts:

A little girl was thrilled to find out that women can be stormtroopers also, but I didn't get a photo.  The 501st love getting pictures with dogs, and one of their non-armored associates fangirled over the Irish Wolfhounds that wandered over.  Those dogs are about the size of the smallest stormtroopers.

I did get some knitting done, but nothing worth reporting.  Of course I brought more projects than I could finish, or even start.

Two special events today:  First, it is the Jewish holiday of Purim, commemorating the story of Queen Esther's bravery.  My congregation often tells it in a silly and musical way, which of course I missed because of being here.

Second, as any Texan knows, this is the day in 1836 that the Alamo fell to Santa Ana's troops.

  

Skinny and Stripey.

Another busy week of work, and other things, and heading to visit my parents before I go to the North Texas Irish Festival.

I finished the long piece that will be part of a scarf.  It is skinny and about 75" long:

I chose to end on the same colour where it starts, so there is a bit of the dark navy remaining.  Now to find the deep grey that will go on one or both of the long sides.

Last night in the KnitTalk call, one of our members announced that her daughter - who is an honorary niece to many of us - commences high school in the fall.  After we picked our stunned selves off the floor, she explained that in Canada, where they live, you are in primary school for sixth grade, then move to high school for five years.  So the girl is not quite as old as we feared!  Also, Canada apparently doesn't have Grade Seven, at least not in Quebec, just K-6 then 8-12.

Almost twelve years ago, when the mother was about to give birth and had just moved to a new city and was feeling lonely and unsupported and unmoored - all bad for a mother-to-be and then new mother - a group of us decided to throw a virtual baby shower and shipped a carton of gifts of all kinds.  Last night the mother said she still has many of the items from the box.

Almost twelve years later, the mother is in a better state of being, the child is thriving (and showed how she is now learning to crochet, with a scarf for a friend in almost neon-bright red yarn), and we still get referred to as her "aunties".  It's a proud title.

The longest short month

This February has certainly seemed that way.  It's been almost a year since I traveled - the last trip I went on included the North Texas Irish Festival, which will be virtual next weekend.  I remember my mother being worried and I joked that Chinese people didn't tend to come to Irish music festivals.  One woman at the festival wore a mask with "ALLERGIES" written across it, but most of us didn't wear masks.  We did avoid getting too close, although I didn't resist a hug from a friend of mine who came to the festival using a free ticket I had and enjoyed himself immensely.  The festival is dog-friendly and he has a friendly dog, and we were planning to repeat this year.  Well, we'll do it next year.

Work is incredibly busy.  I had a 16:45 hour day last week, according to my work tracker.  It involved some midnight work with people in China and Japan, including my having to fill out a form that was mostly in Japanese.  I was pleased that I made only one mistake, which they corrected on the other end.  I've worked part of each weekend day this weekend, and last one, and it's likely to continue through March.  My boss approved for me to take time off in April.  I haven't had a vacation since April 2019; last year's was cancelled due to the pandemic, and I didn't do a staycation.  I can think of only one day I've taken that wasn't a national holiday, and I've worked on some of those as well.  I guess I'm a workaholic, but between the weather and the pandemic, I don't have much else to do.

Except cleaning and sorting stuff, recycling, donating to the thrift store, etc.  According to my records, I donated 836 items to the thrift store this month.  They ranged from small items such as a card of buttons to large ones such as the carryon that had seen quite a few flights and road miles before travel stopped.  Books, clothing, housewares I wasn't using, or which I hadn't taken out of their packages.  And so on.  I'm not a hoarder, not the kind you see on television or read about, but I am definitely acquisitive.  Now that I've been around my stuff so much, it's clear what I really need, what I want, and what has no further purpose, at least not for me.

If I'd been doing the Minimalism Game I would have donated 406 items, so I am well ahead.  Yes, it's really a thirty-day challenge and February has only twenty-eight days, but if you add the additional 59 items it's 465, well under the 836 I donated.  I call it good.

I do find items that I'd forgotten, such as this guy:

  

Many years ago the Yarn Harlot wrote about learning to make a monkey out of leftover sock yarn at a retreat.  I thought it looked cute and based upon the photos, made one.  I showed it to her at an event and she was very dismissive.  He does look a little crazed, due to the yarn and my embroider-on-knitting skills.  He's still cute.

I missed the monthly cooking club, also due to work running over, but I emailed a photo of my meal:

The assignment was to cook something from the Pioneer Woman's blog and I chose the Crash Potatoes because I could do them with things I had already.  I changed from cheese on top to slices of lemon, which I needed to use up and I thought it went better with the glazed delicata squash and eggs.  Not a food-blogger-pretty plate of food, but it was very tasty.

Overall, it feels like an incredibly long time, and it's hard to believe that February is the shortest month.  Maybe because work has been so overwhelming, or because I was able to do two trips to the thrift store, or just because the days blur because I am not traveling or even going to local events.  Some cinemas are open, with limited attendance, but I haven't felt like going.  There aren't concerts or other performances in person, not to speak of, and there's still too much snow for me to get in a walk.  The rare time I have the opportunity during daylight it's too cold, or raining.  Yes, tons of excuses.

It's also been over a year since I've seen any of my family, except for a couple of Zoom calls.  I speak to them, and email, but it's not the same.  I haven't seen a lot of my friends in at least that long, except for the ones I saw at NTIF last year.  We keep up via email and social media and a very rare Zoom call, but again - not the same.  I really miss seeing people for more than a distant front-stoop chat, or the routine of post office and weekly CSA or farmstand shopping, or the less frequent food delivery.  It will be nice to sit across a table with somebody and share a meal.  It will be fantastic to hug my family again.

Mini-Resolutions Status

I finally started the second sock, although I haven't gotten far.  I'm well on the way with the BLUE hat for my KnitTalk Make-Along challenge:

The multi has some blue in it that may be too close to the solid, but from a distance it looks better than it does when I am knitting.  I didn't do the deep ribbing the pattern has so I am leaving off one of the rounds of the full-sized dots to compensate.

I haven't finished any of my UFOs, nor a single book.  I am behind on the reading, as I would have to finish an average of one book every two months.  Maybe I need to choose a different book.

Catching up with Cooking

Like much of the world, I am staying in lockdown.  While I don't have any of the medical markers requiring self-quarantine, I am staying home to avoid dragging the virus around.  I go out of my neighborhood by car about once a week; I get mail at a post office, not at home, so I have to collect it.  This past week I went out on Thursday because I had a discount coupon for Walgreens that expired that day, and it turns out they didn't have anything I wanted, so I'll be back to a Saturday trip next week.

When the weather is good I try to go for a walk outside the neighborhood.  On Friday I put an out-of-office message reading "Following the recommendations of our leadership for self-care, etc., I have gone for a walk.  It's lovely out today and the weather this weekend is supposed to be drek.  I'll respond to email and review things when I return, which will be before sunset."  And indeed the weather this weekend is not conducive to walking:  From sunny and mid-60's(F) on Friday, it's been between freezing and low 40's(F) with waves of sleety rain alternating with heavy rain all weekend.  I was very glad I'd gone walking when I did.  I walked down to the reservoir and back, about three miles, and I saw a lot of cars parked on the north side of the road.  It seems they had decided enough people were there and they closed the reservoir and were turning away even people on foot.

The strangest thing to me about being at home All The Time is not having to constantly pack a suitcase or overnight bag for each week's travel.  It was odd enough before to have a week when I didn't travel, although I enjoyed being home to do local activities.  Now I've put away the suitcases into the closet, and I'm participating in some local activities that have moved online; SWAN DAY shifted to ten nights of online concerts from some of the performers.  It's fun to do even further away things that I might not get to see or hear, such as the Metropolitan Opera's daily stream, or Paris Opera, or touring museums, and going back in time with Playbill's weekly showing of a musical.  I'm hugely excited about some of the shows the National Theatre (of Britain) is going to show.

All of this does mean that my reading has slacked off considerably.  Oh, well.

Since I posted last, there have been several holidays for which I've done cooking.  First up was St. Patrick's Day, and since I don't do corned beef and cabbage, and I had to work with what I have in the house, and work was going NUTS because we had to figure out how to respond to the COVID-19 effects on our customers, I didn't have much time to do anything elaborate.  Of course, I did make soda bread:

Whole wheat flour, oatmeal, baking soda.

Stir in buttermilk, form.  One half had caraway seeds added,
then cut into quarters or "farls", the other dusted with oatmeal.

Finished!  Hot and buttered and YUMMY.

When I finally had time to prepare supper, I was too hungry to bother with pictures.  It was supposed to be a venison casserole, but I made it as a stew because I have ground beef.  So instead of flouring and browning chunks of meat, I browned the ground beef in some bacon fat, added onions (should be browned in the fat, but I'd missed getting fresh ones in the panic stockup people did so had to use dehydrated) and the rest of the ale from the Apicius cooking a few nights before, plus the seasonings: juniper berries, allspice berries, orange rind, ground pepper, cider vinegar, and a bit of stock.  The upside of ground meat is that it cooked fairly quickly this way.  I have a photo taken the next night, when I ate leftovers:

Stew on soda bread with roasted brussels sprouts,
because they look like miniature cabbages.

The last bit of pear and
blackberry pie for dessert.

I had a bit more time on St. Joseph's Day to make "Carpenter's Pasta".  It should be spaghetti or something similar, but I'm not fond of long noodles so used rotini, which I have on hand.

Step 1:  Brown breadcrumbs.
They are supposed to represent
a carpenter's sawdust.

Step 2:  Soften onions and
garlic until they are golden.

Step 3: Add chopped tomatoes,
basil, and oregano.

Pasta cooked, tomato sauce over, breadcrumbs on top.
Steamed asparagus and fresh figs, the latter of
which is also associated with St. Joseph.

It was easy and rather tasty.  I used soda bread crumbs, of course.  When the bread got a bit dry, as it does due to the lack of fat, I toasted slices and put butter or cheese on top.  Still rather yummy.

I've done some cooking since, but nothing very photogenic.  I tried making pumpkin waffles, to use up the pumpkin from the Ides, but my waffle iron is old and not cooperative.  So the batter became pancakes and I added the rest of my fresh blackberries:

As you can see, I was eating "at work".

Last night I made a Tuscan Stew using a packet of herbs I'd gotten some time ago.  The idea is that you follow the recipe using the premeasured amounts in the packet, and then keep the recipe (it's on a punch-out card) so you can remake it later.  I had everything on hand except chicken, so I used some extra-firm tofu that has been waiting in the refrigerator.  I also subbed frozen greens (put in the freezer last summer) for fresh spinach, and swapped half the beans with some potatoes that needed to be cooked and eaten.  Overall, the result is very good.  It does make a LOT of stew, so I have meals until well into the workweek.

On the first Monday of spring, we had a snowstorm:

       

It didn't daunt the crocus:

Pi Day and the Ides

The title sounds something like a one-hit-wonder band, doesn't it?

Yesterday, I made a pie, as I do on Pi Day:

This year's is pear and blackberry, combining recipes from an old favourite cookbook and baked in a 6"x3" springform because I don't have small-sized pie plates and didn't want a full-sized pie.  Not for just me.  I used the recipe for a single crust, mixing:

• One cup whole-wheat flour
• One half-cup all-purpose flour
• Half a stick of cold butter
• Enough cold water to make a paste

Then I rolled out about a third and cut a lid, using the pan as a measure.  The remainder (and trimmings) rolled out to fill the pan.  I chopped up about three cups of peeled pears to about the same size as the blackberries, and mixed them with not quite all of a six-ounce box of blackberries from the shop; a few went into the cook to determine sweetness of the filling.  I added about a tablespoon of lemon juice, a tablespoon and a half of sugar (quite a bit less than the recipes said, because I do not like sweet pies), and about two tablespoons of all-purpose flour.  Filling in, lid on, sealed, and the traditional π cut for juices to escape, although as you can see, they ran out around the seal as well.

Today, Ides of March, and I decided to pull out Apicius.  Often I do roasted carrots, but I've had a carrot-based curry this weekend, so I decided to do something else.  First to figure out what I can do with what's in the larder; a recipe for Pumpkin and Chicken intrigued me (ditto a more Thanksgivingesque option), but couldn't find poultry in the freezer.  I did find a package of ground bison, and decided to split it between Roman food for the Ides and something for later in the week.

Some more browsing turned up recipes I may try in the future (especially a nut tart) but being limited to what is onsite, I decided to substitute a patty of bison for roasted meat, make a sauce for it, and have pumpkin on the side since I've got pumpkin.  Changes I had to make was using ale instead of wine (because I have the former, and need a partial bottle later in the week) and skipping some of the greens I don't have, such as lovage, which to be honest I never have.  The result is:

• Broiled bison patty with a sauce of ale (4-5 oz), honey (about 2T), allspice (5 berries), and pepper (about 9-10 peppercorns), based upon a recipe for Roast Neck.  Many of the recipes include cumin but since I have it in the vegetable, I looked for a different combination here.
• Pumpkin (one cup) mashed with oil (1T), oregano (1/2 tsp.), cumin(1/2 tsp.), caraway (generous 1/2 tsp.), and onion (generous 1T minced), a combination of recipes 74, 78 and 79.
• Salad, because I have a little, and the Roman dressing is oil and vinegar, much as today.  I used olive oil and red wine vinegar.
• Asparagus, because I have some, and Apicius mentions it just cleaned and boiled.

Overall, it's nice, although as noted the two green things didn't have much done to them.  I simmered the sauce to about 3T and strained it over the meat.  In the future, I would use half the cumin and caraway, as they overpowered the rest of the flavours in the pumpkin, but it wasn't unpleasant.  The photo shows about half the pumpkin; the rest went into storage for lunch tomorrow.

It's definitely a week for creative cooking, since I'm staying home except for once or twice a week, important things like the dentist (an old crown needed replacing, with some infection underneath) and post office.  Upcoming are St. Patrick's Day, and y'all know I don't do corned beef and cabbage, and St. Joseph's Day.  Catching up a bit, I made boxty for the first-Sunday brunch this month:

..... remembering too late that it was St. David's Day and I should have done bara brith or some other Welsh thing instead.  These, being similar to American biscuits, were well-received.  Most boxty are a sort of pancake,  but I have a scone-like recipe and used it.

A few days later was the North Texas Irish Festival, and despite COVID-19 becoming serious, I went.  Good thing, as Performer Products (the area where I work) was understaffed - not enough volunteers, one manager flaked out, and another ended up in hospital with an allergic reaction.  The rest of us pulled together and it all worked, and I got a few minutes to go out and see dogs in costumes, and stormtroopers in kilts, and hear music at stages other than the one next to our booth.

  
I will say, there's a benefit to being a manager, when you go to the staff-and-performers-only hospitality area:

What it was in March to mid-April

Doing a bit of catch-up on the blog.  When I last wrote, the North Texas Irish Festival was just beginning, a weekend later than usual due to international cheerleader competitions that overtook the hotels and Fair Park on our usual (first) weekend in March.  This turned out to be a good thing as the previous weekend's weather was wet and cold and miserable, but the weather on the second weekend, especially Saturday, was spectacular - sunny, warm, and people came out by the thousands.

I didn't get back for the Volunteers Picnic but did get the jacket, which has the 35th year's "Texas Grown Irish Roots" design, and LOTS of pockets.

March was the end of my company's fiscal year, so LONG.  Skidded up to the end of it trying to get deals closed, while also balancing everything else, including my role starting a chapter of (ISC)² which is for cybersecurity professionals.  We're slow starting but determined!

Because I was out of town I missed all the St. Patrick's Day parades and such, but I did a bit of cooking.  Unlike make of my friends who did the Irish-American corned beef and cabbage, I did some traditional Irish dishes:

From the top, soda bread (whole wheat and barley) and butter, braised spinach, roasted onion, poached fish with brown butter and caper sauce, and roasted beetroot with a squeeze of lemon.

Below, my dessert - bread-and-butter pudding with dried fruit.

At the end of March, SWAN Day CT's annual event, featuring women artists of all kinds:  musicians, painters, crafters, performers, and women-led bands.  I love to attend it, and this year assisted BiCi Co.'s "Beyond Gender" group to staff an information table.  This group focuses on women, trans, and non-binary persons in the bicycling community to give them a supportive place to meet, learn how to DIY repairs and upgrades to their bikes, and participate in activities with a community.  Of course, I was able to do a little shopping and listen to a lot of music.

Then in early April was DFW Fiber Fest.  Fourteenth year, and they added a day of classes, and had 95(!!!) vendors.  I took classes and did a volunteer shift, and had fun seeing friends and learning things and tried to keep my shopping somewhat moderate.  Among my classes was a new way to do crocheted cables, how to design my own pi shawl, and how to design a top-down sweater to fit me, which makes me happy because I don't like sewing (I still have trouble getting sleeve caps to lie evenly) AND I am a nonstandard shape so most patterns don't fit me well.  Just learning how to deal with horizontal planes in a vertical fabric was worth the time and class fee.

One of my test things in the crochet cables class.

Yes, there can be a LOT of maths in knitting!  But I can make it shaped like ME.

Start of a pi shawl, pre-pattern.  Lace came next.

While there I went to Rover Dramawerks' 365 Women a Year Festival, which features short plays about women who may not have gotten their full due from history.

The schedule was in two parts, and luckily I could go on two nights (DFW Fiber Fest has a great event on Friday night, so I wasn't going to anything else that night!) and see all the plays.  Definitely interesting, although some of the performances were a bit less interesting than others, all the women featured gave you something to think about and maybe research to learn more about them.  My one complaint was that it wasn't always clear from the title and characters who the woman was, so I've suggested they add her name and birth/death dates at the least to next year's programs.