willowisp | Wherein My Previous Accomplishments Bite Back and Fun With Recipe Adaptations

It turns out what we were doing to today wasn't buyer orientation; it was a final walk-through so we could add our concerns to Pam's. I'll leave the rest of the house update to

callicrates, except to note that our final radiant heat stuff may not be done by our real orientation, which is on Wednesday at 15:00.

Today I turned in our rent check and 30-day notice; Andy plans on us being completely out by my sister's birthday, May 31st. Anyway, we were both bears of little brain; we signed the second page and initialed the first, but didn't sign on the first. Luckily Toby thinks we're nice freaks, so we're ok. I'll probably turn it in on the way to KC tomorrow.

I also found, thanks to Toby, the name of the tree which will be going in our courtyard as soon as I can get my hands on one -- a Bradford Pear. As a bonus, it appears on the list of water-wise flowering trees. I fell in love with it in NC and was so happy to see it literally all over the place here. It's a non-fruit-bearing tree which has white flowers before and a little bit mingled with very pretty green leaves. I'm not sure what I'll do with the tree currently in the courtyard, possibly put it in the side yard or something. I had planned, since we first signed on for the house with the courtyard, for a Bradford Pear to be the centerpiece, or at least the focus. I just didn't know what it was called.

Kitty City was nigh on silent. There's a huge adopt-a-thon going on this weekend (it started today, hence the ghost town effect) and all but Muffin and Sylvester are there. Sylvester was feral as recently as a month ago and is still prone to snapping; Muffin was abandoned in an apartment and not found until the cleaning folks went in, and we think she was abused before that. She tends to snap at sudden motions. Apparently the real reason she didn't go, though, according to Jill, was that she said "Please don't take me; I don't want to go". Translation: Growl hiss snap hiss <draw blood> snap claw bite. Or, as Jill said, "Look who won."

Making sweet and sour meatballs wheat-free (but not Celiac safe) and egg-free.

When I got home I tried an old favorite which I've made maybe once since getting married, and that's because Andy was out of town. He'd always seemed very hesitant about it, but in the past few years he's become much more willing to try things. He also wants me to start making decisions without getting his permission first, so deciding on a dinner which he had never shown any enthusiasm for was a big step. Then came the fun part: last time I made it I had no idea I was allergic to wheat and eggs.

I substituted oatmeal for the bread crumbs, 1:1. While I was forming the meatballs it really stuck out and I had decided I should try instant, which is just oatmeal cut really small as far as I can tell. I substituted 2 tbsp of milk for the egg (though I believe I should only have used one, since the egg substitute powder I have calls for 1 tbsp water for every egg being feigned). I used Tamari soy sauce (thank you ever so much for telling me about it,

esmerel and

merlinofchaos!) and a tbsp of onion powder in place of the 3/4 cup chopped onion.

After browning the meat and adding the pineapple and lemon juice and soy sauce, the oatmeal flakes seemed to disappear. In fact, Andy didn't realize there was oatmeal in the meatballs until I told him. His assessment today was that he didn't know if this would go on our regular rotation, but he was looking forward to leftovers tomorrow. Maybe next week I'll try Swedish meatballs. Unfortunately the first time I made them for him I used onion powder instead of onion soup mix, which means they came out deadly bland for want of salt. I've since figured out how to compensate, but I think Andy still has memories of that awful first time. Not to mention the mashed potato curse.

Snape. Ooga booga. Scared yet?

Tomorrow I'm spending from 11:00-16:00 at Kitty City babysitting Muffin and Sylvester. I've asked Andy if I could take his laptop with me, since I have a story idea niggling. It's actually a fanfic, the first I've ever attempted since Narnia lo those many years ago. It's sort of a Snape fanfic, but only in that the story is mostly from his POV. I haven't actually read any HP fanfic (Bless me,

druidsfire and

sc_angel72, for I have sinned), so I'm guessing this will be somewhat close to canon Snape.

The story is completely slash-free and will probably be rated in the very "g" or at most "pg" range. I'm using the first name of a character I played briefly on an HP MUSH, but the resemblance ends there -- even her last name has changed. I've had the idea for a while, but the ending didn't present itself until this past week. The dream didn't hurt, either, though it isn't actually part of the story. It just helped spur things.

RL Bites

And finally, what the first part of the subject line referred to: I've only seen POtC:COtBP once, soon after we got the DVD. Earlier this week I cataloged and packed all of our DVDs. Tonight I was musing that it might be fun to pop in POtC:COtBP, until I remembered that to do so we'd have to find it in the huge pile of boxes by the front door. Is it very wrong of me to want to yell out "I'm not left-handed either" as the pretty boy and Jack Sparrow duel it out the first time?