last night's neilson-ism occured when the symphony was rehearsing a ravel piano concerto. the piano soloist doesn't come to rehearse with us until next week; for now it's just the orchestra alone stumbling through this music, which sounds more like gershwin than ravel. it's got some strange harmonies that the musicians were having a hard time with, following by long pauses where the piano solo will be inserted later.
the musicians were huffing & puffing through a difficult passage and as soon as the next pause came, alan said:
"...and then the piano comes in and we're off the hook."i went online last week and bought a birthday present for myself. it arrived last night: 12 bags of cheese puffs.
these aren't any regular old cheese puffs. they're barbara's natural jalapeno cheese puffs. i used to be able to find them at whole foods, but lately they're only carrying the plain variety, not the jalapeno. so a couple months ago i googled them up to see if the jalapeno variety was available anywhere else. the only place i could find them was ShopNatural.com, and they were out of stock at the time.
but they had a little button to click to request an email notification when they came back in stock, so i signed up. and last week i finally got that email. i hesitated for 4 or 5 days, thinking, "hell, i don't need no cheese puffs!" but in the end i caved in. they're that good.
they arrived in a gi-normous box and ray was very curious to know what was inside. when i said, "cheese puffs," he thought i was nuts. at first he didn't really want to try them, but after i read the blurb on the back he caved in:
...the finest sharp cheddar and the tangiest marbled blue cheese. Then we add real jalapeno peppers to turn up the heat. We use only natural ingredients... no hydrogenated oils, artifical preservativs, flavors or colors of any kind. So there's no reason not to go ahead and munch away!"they're damn good, i tell you. ray noticed with some alarm that the expiration date on the bags is june 2004, but that's of little consequence. i'll be surprised if they last me through march. i've already finished one bag; it's going to be hard to keep me from eating one a day!
so now that the house is reasonably whipped into shape i've started to wonder what my next project will be. i do want to build a long, low cabinet to go under the painting in the dining room, but that's a pretty huge deal and i'm not sure i'm up for it yet. i also want to finish painting the trim, but i'm damn tired of painting right now. i think i'm going to take a break from the house stuff for a couple of weeks. so i think my next project will be movies.
beth throws an oscars party every year, and i have quite a bit of movie viewing to catch up on. i missed a lot of films due to the inordinate amount of home repair going on this fall & winter. so i've got plans to see "mystic river" friday and "in america" on saturday. i won't have time to see "seabiscuit", and i'm not terribly disappointed about that. i also haven't seen "LOTR", but i suspect peter jackson is a shoo-in for best director anyway, so why bother? (i'm not a big fan of the whole fantasy genre, anyway.)
i think i've seen most of the other major contendors. usually beth gives prizes to the people who guess the most (or least) winning films, so by the party on sunday i hope to be in pretty good shape. i'm hoping for heaps of awards for "lost in translation". anything "the house of sand and fog" could win would be nice, too.
Posted by xta at February 25, 2004 01:52 PM | TrackBack