I love my new oven!
April 4, 2012
I actually accomplished half of my move-to-London-sometime-before-I-die action plan involving this year’s income tax refund. I got a new stove and I love it! (I’ll get the refrigerator next year.)
Now I admit, it wouldn’t be hard to improve on the old one. It probably dated back twenty-plus years to when my building was redone in the condominiums it is today. The guy from whom I bought my place did a nice job getting it in shape, but during my tenure the old stove did nothing to promote itself. It had two interrelated issues. The oven door handle kept coming unscrewed on one end and falling off, but to resecure it tightly enough, the inside panel of the door got misaligned.
No longer so. Happy days are here again.
The new appliance’s initial selling point (other than its very newness) was its flat top. It seems like such a duh for an electric stove. But now that it’s delivered, installed, and in use—oh boy! The bonus of the flat stovetop is that it’s a much more practical staging area for putting the groceries away.
It’s true, it’s just the most basic, least expensive Kenmore model, but by golly, it’s awesome! I’ve been trying to restrict myself to synonyms of awesome, unless something truly warrants that adjective, because it is quite overused these days. I know a lot of what I’m experiencing is, again, by sheer virtue of its newness and the improvements in technology in the ensuing years, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable!
Though the delivery guys arrived at the very last moment of the stated delivery window, they were very professional and competent. I didn’t actually have any cooking planned until twenty-four hours later, so for the first while I merely gazed lovingly at the flat top. But since then, I’ve had several private moments of joy.
The oven door has a window. The oven has a light inside it. Not only does the light go on when I open the door, but there is a switch with which to turn it on if I simply want to watch the paint of my baking item dry.
The burners operate with traditional physical dials, but the oven is controlled by beepy electronic buttons. Baking temperature, check. Preheated indicator, check. But wait! THERE ARE TWO SPEEDS OF BROILER! You read that right. There is HI broil and LO broil! And as if that weren’t enough, there is an on-board timer. How did it know that I was about fed up with my crappy wind-up egg timer? My new stove is the captain’s chair of the Starship Enterprise!
I haven’t seen it. It’s new to me.
And it’s AWESOME!
Then and now (this is my life)
August 17, 2011
These two photos are the earliest and latest ones I have of myself. What has happened in between? Funny you should ask. Let’s take a look.
Ages ½–10
I’d swear I remember when the baby picture was taken. I have other toddler memories, such as what the kitchen in our first house in Manteno, Illinois, looked like. Yellow and floral.
We spent many summers in Bloomington, Indiana, while my dad worked on his PhD at Indiana University. He finished the work but his committee denied him of the degree.
To this day I have dreams that involve the house on Main Street in Ada, Ohio, where I grew up. I’d love to get back inside that house for a look. I remember listening to Winnie-the-Pooh and Peter and the Wolf records in the living room on our big, console stereo. It was a big deal when I got to operate it myself. We moved to a different house when I was eight.
Ages 11–20
Our new house was a block inside city limits. Most of the time I’d walk or bike to school, but if I wanted to ride the schoolbus, I walked over to Grandview Boulevard.
I spent countless hours in the city swimming pool. I spent countless hours playing Kick the Can with the neighborhood kids. I crashed my friend’s brand new bike that I rode around while she was inside eating supper. There was a horse at the end of the block, where the town suddenly turned into the country. There was a woods at the end of the block that seemed very big at the time. In it there was a treehouse.
We moved to Wisconsin two days before I turned fifteen. During the first year, my sophomore year in high school, it was novel and fun and not completely awful because it was to the small city where my grandparents lived and I already had a couple of friends. Then in my junior year, I grew to resent having been plucked from where I had grown up. I became a troubled teen. I stayed out all night one time without communicating with my parents. I broke up with my boyfriend which upset my parents who liked him a lot. Their reaction was very formative. I considered dropping out of high school.
I worked as a professional radio deejay.
I graduated high school. I started college. I dropped out of college.
I moved out of the house. I moved into the house.
I went back to college. I dropped out of college.
I moved out of the house. I moved into the house. I still have nightmares that for one reason or the other, I have been forced to move back in with my parents at my current age with my youth issues, such as no boys in my bedroom.
Ages 21–30
I started technical college. I transferred technical colleges. I dropped out of technical college.
I moved out of the house. I went back to college. I dropped out of college. Rinse and repeat.
I moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to go back to college. I finished college! My mom proudly told a friend that I was graduating at age twenty-six. Her friend asked what my PhD was in. Sadly, it was just my bachelor’s degree, in English, after eight years.
I went to Europe for the first time on a trip with my parents that was a graduation present.
I worked for a year at a job that was pretty dead-end but which got me lots of promotional copies of albums on cassette. I decided to go to graduate school.
I moved to Madison, Wisconsin, to go to the University of Wisconsin for meteorology. I learned that a boy who had been one of my best friends growing up and who also went to Wisconsin for meteorology was, in fact, gay and that we’d never have that chance to get together that I had been denied when my parents ripped me away at age fifteen.
I flunked out of graduate school when I failed calculus for the second time. I began to get serious about bowling.
I went to the local technical college, Madison Area Technical College, and met Chris Gargan. I graduated with my commercial art degree and have been a graphic designer ever since.
Ages 31–40
I moved back to Minneapolis. I worked through a temp agency and met my two best friends, Jim and California Rob. I became employed at my current position which I’ve held for over sixteen years. Oh my goodness, I began to grow up!
I became a published author, though not in the way I imagined as a kid. But my name now appears in the Library of Congress, so that’s something.
I went to the United Kingdom for the first time and fell in love with it. I realized that London is my soulmate. I will live there someday.
I got more serious about my bowling.
Age 41–present
Along with other spending, all of my trips to England contributed to my declaring personal bankruptcy. I learned that it’s not actually that difficult, in the big scheme of things, to live without credit. Except for being deprived of more trips to England.
I kept getting more serious about my bowling. People think I’m joking when I say I take three balls with my to league. The people who are really serious take six or eight.
California Rob moved to California. Jim got married. Possibly in the opposite order. I began my descent into curmudgeonhood.
Oddly, still in my bankruptcy, I was able to procure a mortgage and buy my first home, a condominiumized apartment. Gotta start somewhere. The housing market tanked. I am stuck unless I want to take a significant loss in my selling price.
I began to develop my love of craft beer. I hate saying “craft beer” because it’s such a buzz-term right how. But if more people like it, more will be made and that’s not a bad thing. My gateway beers were Bell’s Oberon and the local Summit Extra Pale Ale.
I have slowly and surely been gaining weight.
Last night, I picked up a twelve-pack of Summit’s Silver Anniversary Ale. Then I went to the preseason meeting for my Monday bowling league. Then I stopped at a bar that had a firkin of a special, grapefruit-infused version of Odell Brewing St. Lupulin Extra Pale Ale, a current favorite of mine. I was chit-chatting with the young patrons on either side of me about beers in general and India Pale Ales (my preferred variety) in particular. My bartender asked me—almost accusingly, as though I were a spy for a distributor—who I worked for. When I said a small graphic design company, he blinked and said, “You know a lot about beer.”
That made me feel really good.
Tonight, I enjoyed some of that Summit Silver Anniversary Ale.
Stepping
July 13, 2011
Everybody has a favorite place in their home, right? Whether you rent or own, house or apartment, there’s some place where you like to spend time. An obvious answer for me would be in my bed. I love sleeping. I love fading in and out on a weekend morning. But when I’m asleep, I’m not awake actually enjoying it. For the awake experience, I choose my front steps.
As you can see, beer once again is usually involved. That’s because a couple of years ago, two things came into play. First, I had been working out regularly since March and it was then summer and warm. After working out after work, I would then walk or bike home. Second, at some point I accidentally discovered that Sorella Wine & Spirits was a not inconvenient one block detour on that walk or bike home. I’d pop over for some tasty supplies for what I started calling Home Happy Hour. Because it was summer, I’d enjoy sitting on my front steps when the air was still warm from the day, but the sun had sunk behind the god-awful ugly high-rises and wasn’t directly cooking me. It became a favorite thing to do.
Last summer, I bought two cheap, low lawn chairs—I guess they’re known as “beach chairs”—and that transformed the experience for the better. The steps were good, but now I had a more comfortable seat with a chairback and which was low to the ground to facilitate stretching my legs out. Heaven. Then I discovered that the chair tucks nicely into my front door alcove and combines with the protection of the second level deck overhead to make for a wonderful storm-enjoying setup. It’s usually after dark when I sit outside for that, with or without tasty beverage.
It’s not always Home Happy Hour when I sit on the steps, but most of the time it is (oh, and a couple of gratuitous rabbits from the yard). What’s your favorite place at home?
Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog 