The six-egg quiche for a 9-inch pan is a good rule of thumb. Different recipes I had gathered called for anywhere from 4–10 eggs. The first recipe I was making called for six eggs and that seemed to fill up the pan nicely so that’s what I went with for the remaining recipes.

I had invited five people over for our New Economy Brunch, four of whom showed up. Having never made quiches before I was a little uncertain about how many to prepare. I figured on four but then had enough extras on hand to produce six. I was also serving mini-bagels, fried potatoes and fresh fruit so I really had no idea how much quiche each person would be eating.

I figured three pans would fit easily into my oven at a time so I prepared those first and then held off on cooking the 2nd round of three, but everything was chopped and ready mix, all I had to I was crack some eggs and start whiskin’.

Quiche 1: egg, tomato, onion, fresh parsley, cheddar and mozzarella cheese;
Quiche 2: egg, pork sausage, tomato, green chile, cheddar cheese;
Quiche 3: egg, cheddar, mozzarella and Parmesan cheese.

With the potatoes I had prepared, bacon and fruit, it turned out that those three quiches were more than enough for everyone (leftovers), so I didn’t get to try out the mushroom/spinach combo or my bacon recipe. I have enough extra ingredients to try them out this week, although I think I am going to be all cholesteroled out.

Thanksgiving is traditionally a time spent with members of your family. When I was living in Texas, 2000 miles away, I came home for Thanksgiving once and only once. The airports were nightmares (and this was before 9/11 security screenings), the airline lost my luggage and it was a chaotic 72 hours spent in preview of a trip I would be making in a mere three weeks anyway. So I stopped coming for Thanksgivings after that.

When I moved to DC in 1995 it was much easier to go gone for Thanksgiving since it was a 90-minute drive. I liked arrive on Wednesday evening so that I could wake up to the smell of the turkey, a ham, stuffing and all the other sides baking away, my Mom getting up early to get everything started. She would have a checkoff list if everything she was preparing and the order in which it needed to be started. She would have two or three ovens going at the same time, all burners in the stove on and then be using country space as prep area or, more likely, rolling her homemade pie crusts. She’d let us help out: chopping celery or rolling the dough, opening canned goods or getting the table ready. I miss those days.

As my Mother’s ALS progressed to the point where she could not perform these activities, Thanksgiving dinner responsibilities have been passed on to aunt Darlene or, currently, my cousin Deidre. She has a huge Great Room and it’s a good place to hang with your plate and watch the football. We’re never too formal.

A couple of months ago my Dad informed me that my middle brother and sister-in-law were going to visit her family in upstate New York. This means that the kids, my niece and nephew, are going to be out of town for the holiday. Possibly rightfully so, this is my family’s only bonding agent and without their presence everything falls apart. Case in point: my Dad also says to me “I know you sometimes go and do things with your friends or have plans so don’t feel like you have to cone down.” Wow. Not only have I attended the last 13 Thanksgiving dinners (and every other family event during these years) but I’ve also carved the turkey every time. Has this gone unnoticed?

So presented with the opportunity for a skip, I took it. It will give me time to prepare for Saturday’s brunch and the opportunity to sleep in is always good.

It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and most folk have already left town because nobody really lives here or has family in this hellhole of a city town.

Those of us that haven’t left yet are going to work and carrying on with the rest of our daily routine. For me, that consists of a bus, a train, another train and then another bus. It’s a fragile time-sensitive schedule that has to work together in order to get me where I need to be in a timely manner.

This morning I’m at the bus stop on time and make it to Union Station in pretty good time; there aren’t a lot of stops as there aren’t a lot of passengers to pick up or drop off along the way.

Then, at U-Stat where I’m waiting for my first train transfer, is where The Delay happens. A train is held up somewhere on the Red Line. Because the entire Metro system is run from a computer program from 1976 that uses punch cards, this means all red trains going in my direction are delayed. But the red trains running in the opposite direction are free to keep running, of course. Eight of them went by as I waited.

Almost 30 minutes later a train is coming down my track but it’s one of those hilarious pranks that Metro likes to play on passengers: it’s an empty car. Looks like it’s running fine to me, so why not make all the stops along the way? Haha, that’s a good one, Metro, happy fucksgiving to you too!

A few minutes later a train doing its actual job comes through and picks up us unfortunate work-up-until-the-holiday folk. You would think the tunnel ahead would be empty since a train hasn’t come through in half a hour save the one that was barreling through without stopping at the stations. And yet the train I’m on crawls through to the next two stops where I can transfer to my next train. Fun and not stressful at all! Thanks for the headache this morning!

Note to those attending Inauguration Day: if you can walk to The Mall in under 120 minutes, do it. You’ll get there quicker than if you took Metro. If the system’s having 30+ minutes delays on one of their lightest passenger days of the year, I fear to think what is going to happen when you add an estimated five million more people to the mix.

People I know are starting to get laid off from their jobs. Frankly, I’m expecting to get the same talk any day now, or at least someone in the studio getting let go. My department hasn’t had much (if any) work for the last couple of months, and with three of us tenured in that department something’s got to give.

In addition to a friend in Chicago, a local good friend’s husband was recently laid off. She says they’ll do fine, that they’re in good shape and is optimistic about finding new employment, but it’s still a little scary.

While our gang of friends try to get together for a brunch whenever we can (and is not often), we were planning for this Saturday afternoon. With the recent news, and everybody’s financial belt tightening, instead of going out and spending money on brunch I’ve decided to serve brunch at my place. Hopefully this will be more cost-effective for everyone involved.

I spoke with Franklin last weekend while I was contemplating hosting this and he had a great idea for quick quiches instead of me making omelettes for everyone. Some potatoes, fresh fruit and maybe some muffins and I figure that should be a pretty good spread. Add to that mimosas and bloody marys and we’re good to go!

Not a lot has happened this weekend. At least not a lot that I participated in. Saturday I woke up with a sty-eye which after some interwebs investigation I found out is actually chalazion. TMI? Maybe. I didn’t even go to Blowoff but I reluctantly found the energies to run to the co’ sto’ before they closed up last night to get garlic and onions for the sauce I didn’t get around to making today. It was cold out!

Now let’s get to the sauce. One of my favorite smells ever is olive oil, garlic and onions heating up in a pan. I didn’t have any meat to put into this batch, and I wasn’t about to go outside in the cold to get any. Since this was to be a straight tomato sauce I decided to double up on some of my ingredients.

I had a huge white onion which I chopped up and added to it an entire head of garlic, which ended up being about 10 cloves. Yum! After those two started to sweat in the olive oil I added: tomato sauce, stewed, diced and crushed tomatoes, mustard, a beer, crushed red pepper, cumin, sugar, ground chipotle, whole black peppercorns, oregano, adobo seasoning, ground mustard and salt & pepper. Is that everything? I can divulge the amount of each ingredient because I don’t measure; I just season it to taste. Cook all of that down for three or four hours and that sauce was good to go.

While Food Network today was all about Thanksgiving recipes (with lots of great stuffing recipes) this sauce is good to eat for a few dinners. After that I will usually freeze the remainder in single-serving bags for later use. And that’s how the weekend went.

.7
ferrel lenn
no i never, no i never ever realized
chasing alpha
i want to take shelter from poison rain
semantically-questioned something or other
v.i.p.v.i.p.
24th & 8th
02h48m50s
there’s a moon in the sky
the feeling’s gone and i just can’t get it back
watch out, you might get what you’re after
so sad they had to fade it
nahezu jederzeit und überall

The company I work for is redesigning their website and incorporating an employee blog. The blog is up and running while the new site is being designed and tweaked and all employees are invited to contribute. We are told that content will be posted unedited and the subject matter can be anything. While most are posting about design-related issues or the economy I don’t think it would be appropriate to post there about guys on trains or bitching about my commute. So here’s my first contribution:

There is a gasoline energy company whose new ad campaign has taken over the South Capitol Metro Station. The aim of the campaign is to move the consumer’s perception of the company from a gasoline company to an “energy provider”. 

The components of the campaign feature headshot closeups of the perfectly (think: Benetton) racially-mixed group of models, who are looking thoughtfully concerned into the camera. Typeset in a handwritten-font are phrases like “I will leave the car at home more” and “I will unplug things more”. Pretty bland and trite copy, if you ask me. As if people taking Metro would actually choose to triple their commute time or unplugging a 30-watt lamp is going to really make a difference. I’m all for turning off the lights in a room you’re not in, but unplugging the television everytime I turn it off? Not going to happen.

But I think where the ball really gets dropped is the way the energy provider has bought out all of the ad space (and more) of the station. It’s in all the typical places, the backlit dioramas and wall posters. But it’s also wrapped around the concrete columns. It’s on floor decals that are larger than my living room. It’s on vinyl banners hanging from the handrails. The effect is very Disney-esque; it’s overload. I’ve seen this happen before with the South Cap station, but it is usually focused on some Congressional legislation that the purchaser is trying to get passed. As if the people voting under the dome take public transportation to work.

UPDATE: Actually, the more I read this, it seems a little too negative to be putting up on the work blog.

This has not been a good evening for public transportation in the District. First I was dissed by the D6 driver downtown as I was hurried to catch the bus. I had crossed the street and waved at the driver, who was starting to accelerate from the stop. He saw me and pointed forward as if to indicate he would continue through the intersection and pick me up on the other side. So I’m running back across the skreet obli to see the bus not even slow down, buy continue full throttle on its route. Asshole.

This makes me about an hour later from when I wanted to get home so that I could pack for tonight’s trip. Buy it turns out I had plenty of time, even to shower up after the humidity of today’s persistant drizzle.

Then it’s back outside to wait for the 7:59 to take me to Union Station to catch my train. Oh, I’m going up for the weekend to visit with Franklin. I’m outside ten minutes early and Shreve(port) from upstairs comes outside too; he’s going out to party in Georgetown and is waiting for the D6 as well. The bus is more than 15 minutes late and I resort to desperate measures: call Goldy to see if she can give me (us) a ride to the station. Luckily she’s home and comes and picks us up. (She did, however, look as if she were planning to spend a night with a pirate.)

At the station I find that the line for the 198 Northeast Regional is redonk but getting on the train it isn’t that bad. Right now I’ve passed BWI and everyone still has a seat open to their side. The Conductor has told us this is a 7-car train. Amtrak has finally upgraded their notification system in the terminal from circa-1986 Zeniths with IBM-multicolor (cyan, magenta, that green- you know) to a refined monochromatic look that is actually easier to read.

The blond cutie across the aisle from me has popped open his Macbook and a scientific calculator. And of course an iPhone.

My car’s number is 44234. Nice.

Dude directly across the aisle from me gets on at Balmer, hon, and has an iPhone. That’s three within eyeshot.

I’m having a rum & diet Coke. J’adore le train travel.

Wow, iPods really are everywhere.

Franklin is driving me back on Sunday, and bringing down his old home theatre system which he’s giving to me. Ain’t that sweet? I’ve already warned Shreve(port) to tell the J/Ts if they hear lasers or explosions coming from the basement, not to worry.

Coming up on Aberdeen, MD, only about 30 mins to Wilmington! I better rush up on this cocktail.

How many times have I visited Franklin while he’s lived here? Hmmmm… Maybe six or seven? His place now is so much nicer and bigger than the studio he was in originally. Although it was cramped, he fixed it up nicely and we still had a great time.

Soundtrack for the train: Yaz. But now a text from Goldy makes me want to hear Ebn-Ozn.

Nice touch: 120v outlets at every seat to keep all batteries at their maximum.

Uhoh. Train stop 10 minutes south of Wilmington. Smell of burnt disc brakes. Okay, we’re moving. Keep chugging along 198. I think you can I think you can!

Wilmington!

Ernold Same awoke from the same dream
In the same bed
At the same time
Looked in the same mirror
Made the same frown
And felt the same way as he did every day
Then Ernold Same caught the same train
At the same station
Sat in the same seat
With the same nasty stain
Next to same old whats-his-name
On his way to the same place
With the same name
To do the same thing
Again and again and again
Poor old Ernold Same
His world stays the same
Today will always be tomorrow
He’s getting that feeling once again
Nothing will change tomorrow

In California and New York protests are spilling into the streets for the cause of human rights, protesting the removal of existing civil rights of the residents of California and those that choose to perform a marriage there. Do you know why or even care?