Ten on Tuesday

Ten Things in My Refrigerator Right Now

This is an easy one for me, mostly, because the contents of my fridge are pretty mundane... most of them, anyway.

1. Butter. Real, actual butter. It's an essential element of apple crisp, pie crust, cookies... all that is yummy and not good for us.
   
2. Cream cheese. It goes in bagels and in apple-turnover crust. I don't know why turnovers demand a crust different from pie crust, but they do.
   
3. Leftover mac and cheese. It's left over from last night, having mysteriously escaped both late-night snackage and being grabbed this morning for lunch.
   
4. Pie dough. I made a quiche for dinner last night, and since I make my own crust, at least a double's worth at a time, there's a handy ball of dough there now and another quiche in our near future.
   
5. Orange juice. It's become one of Miss B's favorite drinks, and I can't complain.
   
6. Lettuce. Have I mentioned that we've been embrangled in major home repairs for the last six months? Well, we have — I should probably post about it one of these days — and the resulting stress on our bank account has led me and Grant to start practicing small economies, including taking our lunch to work. Miss B takes hers to school now and then, too, although I think she's motivated more by the poverty of cafeteria offerings than by the desire to save us money.
   
7. Cold cuts. See lettuce above.
   
8. Apple turnover filling. I believe I did mention that we have too many apples, and I am finding lots of things to do with them. Damn the waistline, full speed ahead.
   
9. Mustard. The Dijon that Grant likes, and the French's that I like.
   
10. I haven't the faintest idea. I'm sure I put it in the fridge with the best of intentions, and I definitely didn't intend to let it get shoved to the back and then forget about it. Since I did, however, as soon as I find it, into the trash it goes, no questions asked.

Ten on Tuesday

Ten Reasons to Watch Football

1. It's like wizard chess with much brawnier pieces.
   
2. It makes a nice change from baseball. Grant is a huge fan of baseball, any game, anywhere, (almost) any level, and, while I like baseball — except for not being able to watch close games while the Sox are in contention, which, fortunately for my fingernails, is no longer the case — it's not the only sport in the world.
   
3. In just about every game, you will see something that is physically impossible. Granted, this is true of every sport — think of the famous Swoboda catch or "Havlicek stole the ball" — but just watching Randy Moss catch a ball floating 20 feet over his head (I exaggerate only slightly) is nearly worth the price of admission.
   
4. You can get a lot of knitting done during commercials.
   
5. You can get a lot of knitting done between plays.
   
6. Not to mention halftime. Recently someone analyzed a typical football broadcast and concluded that only 9 percent of it involves actual playing of football. That's a lot of knitting time; I feel justified in letting it take up three of my ten entries.
   
7. In just about every game, you will see a call so bad you can hardly believe your eyes. Again, this is not unique to football (memo to Bud Selig: give the kid his perfect game already), but watching it happen, waiting for the challenge, and seeing if the challenge will succeed makes for great theater.
   
8. There is also the possibility that Bill Belichick will once again demonstrate his encyclopedic, eidetic, maddeningly pedantic knowledge of the rule book. That assumes that you're watching a Patriots game, of course, but I can include this one because I usually am.
   
9. So-called sportscasting analysis is great fun. "Now, leading 10-7 in the fourth quarter, what the Patriots really don't want to have happen here is for the Colts to march down the field and into the red zone." Seriously? I would never have figured that out. (The baseball version of this is, "Down 3-1 in the ninth and with a man on first, the Yankees will bring the tying run to the plate." If you are down by two runs and have a man on base, by definition every man you bring to the plate represents the tying run. Any baseball fan over the age of three knows this without being told. Stop trying to wind up the tension already — see fingernails above.)
   
10. Reading about it afterward makes a lot more sense if you've watched the game. Of course I only want to read about it if my team won, but if they did I want to enjoy the rehash.

Ten on Tuesday

Ten Things to Do Before the End of Summer

This depends on what you call the end of summer, of course; if you call it Labor Day, I'm already SOL. (About ten years ago my daughter asked me what that stood for. "Sincerely out of luck," I said, thinking quickly.) I'm going with astronomy, which places it on September 22, so I still have a couple of weeks. Even so, this list is probably way too ambitious, but seeing a couple of Hoarders ads has put me into purge mode, and I'd best use it while I've got it.

1. Finish spinning the blue merino. I'm down to three little balls of roving. I think as long as I can spin on the deck I've got a good chance at this one.
   
2. Get started on Pine Street Inn squares. Actually I have started, sort of, because Debbi gave me a big bag of them last week, and I also have a couple that didn't make it into Cheryl's blanket, but that just makes me want to set the bar higher. (I'll have a fundraising page up pretty soon, speaking of setting the bar.)
   
3. Pick apples. We already did this, actually, over the weekend. The apples are rather small this year, but there are plenty of them.
   
4. Figure out what to do with apples. Grant has already pointed out that baking with apples can lead to, shall we say, weighty issues.
   
5. Clean out the freezer in the basement. Then I'll have a place to put frozen apples.
   
6. Since I'm cleaning, clean out the master bedroom. This continues to be my bugaboo because I want to finish what I start, and the bedroom, being the repository for everything we don't know what to do with, resists finishing.
   
7. Clean the rest of the house.
   
8. Have a yard sale. Or maybe just give away everything usable.
   
9. Swim. The local swimming hole is technically closed, but you can swim there if you're willing to take your chances without a lifeguard. Since very few places in the designated swimming area are over my head, I think I can manage.
   
10. Put the rest of my Rangeley 2010 pix on Flickr. I've learned from experience to put files I want to keep on the cloud. (I love that expression, especially given the number of photos I take of clouds.)