Chumados vs. Cheap Seats

Maybe there should have been some type of sacrificial burning of the old jerseys. Or a shot of 'Buca to start off the game. Sadly, there was only Joey showing off his tag as "MVD", the coveted Chumado honor of "Most Valuable Drunk". Or in his case, "Donkey"?


The first inning started off pretty well with the Chumados scoring. This was to be their only one, however. Their friends, Cheap Seats, won the game 15-1. Or was it 18-1? A far cry from last week's 20-0 win over the First Potomac Playas. Here's Coach William concentrating on striking out the batter:


At the Stained Glass Pub afterwards, accolades went to Cheap Seats for their win. Round after round of applause and pitchers of beer sent to the winners were not the only signs of celebration. Here, cutie Gabrielle awaits the arrival of sweet cakey goodness:

The candles were lit and blown out 4 times by various April birthday honorees. I don't remember seeing what Little Tony was doing while "Happy Birthday" was sung over and over (he hates the HB song and used to cry every time). I should have gotten a bigger cake, as we cut this into one inch squares to feed the whole crew. Gabrielle enjoyed the frosting the most, turning down a "regular" piece of cake in favor of the chunks of frosting I scraped off the knife.

Pizza, wings, fries and cake. A birthday meal only Johnny could love!

Have an awesome weekend, everyone!

My Man is 41

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHN!

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Today is my sweet husband's 41st birthday. As you may know, he's addicted to Sudoku. I found a little handheld electronic Sudoku game for him and even though it's not as cool as the regular PC one he downloaded, at least he won't be stranded without Sudoku when we go to the beach.

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To John: Although you had to work today, I hope you had a good day, Love!

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If you see John on the street today (some of you have been known to run into him downtown), give him a big birthday hug!

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OK... carry on.

What a Crock

Last year (or was it for the infamous 12:12 party?) Johnny bought a crock pot for cocktail meatballs. You know the ones... meatballs in chili sauce mixed with grape jelly. YUM! The crock pot comes with a recipe booklet and I've only tried two recipes out of it. So far, they've been really good. The first one I tried was the tangy ribs. It uses bottled bbq sauce and cherry jam (which I had on hand). Of course, I bojangled it up with some extra black pepper, cayenne pepper and probably a lot of hot sauce.

SWEET & SAUCY RIBS
2 pounds pork baby back ribs
1 tsp black pepper
2 1/2 cups bbq sauce (not mesquite flavored)
1 jar (8 ozs) cherry jam or preserves
1 Tbs dijon mustard
1/4 tsp salt
salt (optional)
pepper (optional)

Trim excess fat from ribs. Rub 1 teaspoon black pepper over ribs. Cut ribs into 2-rib portions and place into the crock pot. Combine bbq sauce, jam, mustard and salt in a small bowl. Pour over ribs. Cover and cook on LOW for 6-8 hours or on HIGH for 3-4 hours (or until ribs are tender). Taste and adjust seasoning with additional salt and pepper if desired.

Thanks to everyone for your comments on my recipes! I really like to cook and try new recipes (although folks seem to like the tried and true curries and such). I wish I had time (and energy!) to cook more frequently. It will be good when the gang starts Gourmet Tuesdays again. We started Thursday Night Dinner at William's two years ago, but it fizzled out after two turns.

ASIAN-SPICED CHICKEN WINGS
3 pounds chicken wings
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup ketchup
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup dry sherry
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1 Tbs fresh lime juice
2 Tbs sesame seeds, toasted
1/4 cup green onions, thinly sliced

Broil the chicken wings 10 minutes each side or until browned. Transfer chicken wings to crock pot. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, ketchup, ginger, garlic and sherry and stir thoroughly. Cover and cook on LOW for 5-6 hours or on HIGH for 2-3 hours or until done, stirring once in the middle of cooking.

Remove wings from crock pot and reserve 1/4 cup of the remaining pan juices. Combine 1/4 cup pan juices with hoisin sauce and lime juice. Drizzle mixture over wings.

Before serving, sprinkle wings with sesame seeds and green onions.

This is the recipe I botched. I mixed the hoisin and lime into the crock pot, so the finished product didn't have a glaze over them 'cuz it was all cooked in. I did add a couple glugs of Red Hot sauce and lots of black pepper but it didn't have enough heat for John. He likes it spicy!

ENJOY!

Too Cute

As promised in an earlier post, here are the little knitterly things I made up for baby Isabel in TX (click on pic to enlarge). The first is a bolero sweater (cell phone for size reference). Then we have some cute little raspberry red booties and a petal bib (from the same yarn as the bolero).

The best thing about little baby knits is how FAST it is to finish a project! I'm almost finished with the other baby knit project. Hopefully, I will have it all sewn up by OBX weekend. We'll finally get to meet little Caroline!

See you at the Chumados game tomorrow!

Rainy Days and Sundays

Friday night was pretty miserable weather-wise but we had fun at the Quarry House Tavern, a place we used to go to regularly but have only been once since it came under new ownership in December. We were pleasantly surprised to find two of our favorites from the Corner Pub, Nicki and Nick, work at the QH now. With an updated jukebox, martinis, tater tots and the addition of some flat screen TV's, the QH may become our new old haunt.

Saturday wasn't much better with the rain. We went to a party in honor of Nicole's birthday. Always a good time there, regardless of the weather. Last September, Nic brought a tortellini salad (in a big square platter) to our wedding celebration picnic thrown by the GO7. Freddy took the platter home and kept trying to return it to me, despite my many reminders to him that it belonged to Nic. He brought it to New Year's and it's been in our possession ever since. Saturday was the perfect opportunity to FINALLY return this thing to Nic. She didn't remember where it went and had given up all hope it would ever make it's way home. She was very happy when we came to her party with her platter... filled with the following:

CELLOPHANE NOODLE SALAD

2-3 small packages cellophane noodles
1 cup chicken or pork
1 cup cooked shrimp, halved if large
½ cup julienned carrots
½ cup julienned celery
1/3 cup thinly sliced onion
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro

Dressing:
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lime juice
red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper or sweet red chili sauce (optional)

Poach meat in lightly salted water until done. Shred or cut into julienne strips.

Blanch cellophane noodles in boiling water for 3-4 minutes to soften. Rinse in cold water to cool and drain thoroughly.

In a small bowl, combine fish sauce, lime juice and red pepper/chili sauce (to taste) and set aside.

In a large bowl, lightly toss noodles, meat, shrimp, veggies and cilantro. Pour dressing mixture over noodles and combine thoroughly. Adjust lime juice, fish sauce and red pepper to taste. You can also add a touch of sugar if dressing seems too tart or salty.

Chill until served. Toss again right before serving and top with more cilantro leaves.

This is a very flexible recipe. All ingredients can be adjusted to your taste or what you have on hand. You can make this with all shrimp or just chicken, add more or less veggies -- whatever you like!

This is definitely one of my go-to recipes. As with many of my recipes, it's easy to make, but tedious in the prep. Lots of chopping and stuff. I bought carrots that were already shredded, which helped a lot. To tell you the truth about the salad ingredients... I NEVER MEASURE. So, coming up with the quantities was very difficult!!! As always, contact me if you need help with the ingredients or prep methods (or need an official taster).

Sunday was a total "lay around the house doing nothing" day for me. I managed to watch everything I had TiVo'd this week. Poor Johnny was on call and got one at 8:00 AM. Luckily, it was only down in College Park and not downtown or something. For dinner, I cooked up some chicken wings from the crock pot recipe guide but botched the recipe. They still came out tasty. It pays to read the recipe thoroughly before you begin to dump every ingredient into the crock pot! I think John liked their spare ribs recipe the best. I'll have to make those again.

Coming up this week: Haircut on Tuesday, Johnny's big 41 on Thursday and southern MD for the weekend.

Have a good one!

The Big Four-Oh No!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DIANE!

Today, my sister-in-law, Diane, turns 40! Isn't she cute?

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This weekend, our plans are to head up to Carlisle for the car show and then to a birthday party for Nicole. They're calling for some rain this Saturday, so the car show may be skipped. It's all outdoors and John said it's pretty miserable walking around in the muck when it rains. It will be nice to see our friends at the party though!

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We're still trying to think of a design for our kitchen backsplash. We looked at some 3x6 tile at Home Depot last weekend, but the color wasn't as white as I thought it should be. The stock item they have only comes in "Snow White" or black. I compared the 3x6 to another style in white and the 3x6 was not as bright. The beige-ness makes it seem like it would clash with the blue tones of our accent tiles. I'm sure you probably wouldn't really be able to tell that it wasn't pure white once it was installed. At $16 for a box of 100, you can't beat the price of this stuff though.

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I finished knitting a few baby items for little Isabel Marie in TX and sent them off. I'll post pics soon (haven't downloaded them yet). I also finished another baby project for Eric & MB's new little girl, Caroline, who joins big brothers Evan and Brady. I just have to sew up the seams and find some buttons. I also started on the second of the little matching shoes. So cute! This set is for a 6-month old, so I don't have to worry that she's outgrown them already like I did with Isabel's newborn bolero sweater.

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That's all for now... have an awesome weekend, everyone!

One of the Good Ones

On Thanksgiving Day 2004, I met John’s parents. To describe them, he simply said, “They’re good people.”

I didn’t have the opportunity to get to know my father-in-law very well. About six months after meeting him, he passed away. It was a year ago on this date. Looking back, I wish I went to visit and hang out with him more, although he was often resting or recuperating from his treatments. I think he would have had a lot of funny stories to tell.

John’s mom often tells me how much John is like his father (and how Mike is more like her) in terms of personality and all those innate things you can’t explain but just are. I take a lot of comfort knowing John is very much like his dad. ‘Cuz he was good people.

Reverse Vacation is Over

I actually like having my boss back, although she left the building around 10:00 or so and was supposed to be back by now. There's supposed to be some consultant coming by to evaluate/analyze our department. With my luck, he'll probably recommend my termination. Too many visits to Blogger and Go Fug Yourself. That site cracks me up!!!

I was contemplating going to part time (although I like my weekly salary as is). That's how much work there is for me at the moment. We're sort of in between software updates. OK... truth be told, our vendor is waaaaay behind in his programming. What was supposed to be installed last month (and rolled out to numerous sites beginning in early May) looks to be postponed for who knows how long. So here I wait for programming completion so I can do my documentation thing.

Although the temps were soooo awesome this weekend, John and I didn't do that much outdoors. He was on call Saturday and we ran some errands. We were invited to the infamous Fanesca, hosted by Roger and Mariana, but decided to stay home. Sunday, we celebrated the B-Family April birthdays [Mike (14th), Diane (21st) and John (27th)] and Easter at Mom B's. She served up a yummy ham, baked potatoes, rice, asparagus, corn, and rolls. I made a cellophane noodle salad (didn't really go with the meal, huh?). Had John told me there was going to be ham, I would have made my famous mac and cheese! I think that's just something from childhood... when my mom made ham, she always made mac & cheese. And there was always raisin sauce for the ham. We had a great time hanging with the peeps. Hee hee.... get it? Peeps. Like the marshmallow chicks. You know... Easter. Never mind.

Gassius Clay

Here's an interesting site mapping the average gas prices around the country. If only the stations I frequent would raise their prices a cent or two instead of by tens!

Nineteen Sixty What????

Wishing my brother-in-law, Mike (who turns 43 today),

a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Happy New Year!

OK, so it's not the new year you're used to. It's Songkran, the Thai new year. Now, I didn't remember it was today. Johnny text messaged me this morning (so sweet, isn't he?). Every year, my dad will remind me of the festival at Wat Thai on Layhill Road to celebrate Songkran, but this year, he must have been too busy planning golf outings to tell me it was coming up (meh!).

The 2006 festival falls on Easter Sunday. We already have plans to celebrate all the April birthdays (Diane, Mike and John) and Easter at Mom B's house, so you probably won't see us there. But if you don't have any plans, Wat Thai is just down the road from Stained Glass Pub (a landmark reference for you Chumados reading this) and the food is yummy. They also sell plants (thai chili peppers, herbs, etc.) and various Thai goods (clothing, knick knacks).

Oh! You can't park along Layhill Road anymore, so you'll have to park in the back neighborhoods and do a little walking. Happy New Year!

Public vs. Private: Part I-a

No need to be alarmed! Many thanks to everyone who e-mailed or called me (so quickly!) after my last post. I have the most awesome friends! And they read my blog. yay.

No, I'm not removing myself from the blogging world because of one person's rude comment. I thought I'd post something that wasn't about knitting, home renovation or tha pissa. You know, something more thought-provoking. Like Bill does. I'll never be Bill. I could be Jello, but never Bill. OK... so the attempt to spawn conversation should not be part of my normal repretiore of topics. Duly noted.

Now, go mill about smartly.

Public vs. Private: Part I

I've been thinking about a knitting blog post I read recently. The author has a blog dedicated to journaling her fiber arts but she occasionally rants about her family members or co-workers. Most of us in blogland have gone on a rant at one time or another. OK, some every day, but you get my point. She hasn't shared the existance of her blog with all of her family, friends or co-workers as she felt they wouldn't understand "why" one would blog about their knitting. Also, she doesn't want Aunt X to read about her hatred of Cousin Y (who doesn't do the internet) and go blabbing all this to Uncle Z, etc.

So, her husband told a family member about the blog and gave out the web address. He also told his colleagues she had a knit blog and they wanted to read it. Private no more, although very public in knitting blogland.

When I first set up my blog, you know the story... it was to keep my friends from far away up to date on life back in MD. I didn't have this blog listed as "public" on the blogger site, although you can google certain terms and land on my blog. I have some good friends with blogs who have me listed on their links (and I to them). That's my little circle.

For about a minute (a few days), I turned on the listing feature. Nothing came of it, but I turned this off because I didn't necessarily want to share my blog with the entire universe. Just my little universe, you know? Plus, I noticed a couple ADVERTISEMENTS disguised as anonymous comments (Rejected!) and I figured maybe being totally public wasn't a good idea.

So here are my queries:
[1] Do you share your blog with your friends, families, co-workers?
[2] Are you listed on any type of bloglines or blogging community?
[3] How do you keep something soooo public a little more private?

This and more on the next episode of the Jallie Beans' Beanz.

Dear Anonymous:

In response to the comment you left regarding my Lost Necklace post from February:

[1] Yes, I’m very lucky to have John in my life and as my husband
[2] The necklace wasn’t expensive and I still have the pendant
[3] To suggest I’m ungrateful for losing such a beautiful present and that John should have married a “white girl” (as if a “white girl” couldn’t have lost the necklace???) shows how very small-minded you are. I feel very sad for you.

Yes, folks, believe it. Anonymous Central University of North Texas actually said that to me. I don’t know how she fell upon my blog, but I hope it was accidentally and not via linkage of friends’ blogs, or worse yet, someone we actually know.

At first, I thought it might be a joke from someone in our group, as we are all fairly brutal to one another about everything. But there are always obvious over-the-top phrases or in-group references in those comments to let me know who it was. This comment was just for the sake of being bitter and hurtful.

I’ve never received such a mean-spirited comment before. If I feel compelled to leave a comment on a post of a blogger I don’t know, at the very least, I identify myself. So, not only are you stupidly small-minded, but a coward too. Pity.

They Did It!!!

Mr. & Mrs. Cuello Rojo (aka Kevin & Rosa)

Well, it finally happened! Rosa and Kevin made it official on April 6th. Head on over to the Moreno Family Website to check out the pics.

Congratulations, Kevin & Rosa! Johnny says, "Married life RULEZ!!!"
We love you and wish you a long and happy life together!

Dear Coach:

No one on your team reads my blog... do they? Except maybe BHL and Bianca. And on occasion, Freddy, Joey and Marie. And you. I'm sorry I let the beer mug out of the bag.

Does this mean I won't get a shirt?
M #13

Yours Truly,
Big-Headed Snitch

Skidding Towards Nasty

Be thankful I don't have my camera with me today, 'cuz I probably would have snapped a picture, despite the grossness of what I am about to post...

I work in an office of mostly women. Our ladies' room is pretty clean, with the occasional funkiness but overall, it's not gross or anything. I admit, I've eaten the bad lunch here and there and have been forced into an office poop. I don't go at work unless it's totally unbearable. And then it's very quick... tcb and out the door. No lingering for fear of getting caught. And always courtesy flush!

Sometime between yesterday afternoon when I left work at 4:30 and today at 10:00 in the morning, someone had to take a dump. The evidence was not in the funk of the bathroom, as there wasn't anything unusual. It was the massive skid mark at the bottom of the toilet in the right-side stall I normally use. But wait... there's more!

OK... I can understand the poop hitting the bottom of the toilet and not completely flushing down. I can deal with that. Just flush again and it's gone. But WTF is it doing on the back edge of the toilet seat?????? SOOOO NASTY!

From now on, I'll be in the middle stall with 50 layers of tissue paper ass gaskets between me and the seat, thanks.

PISSA UPDATE: So someone used the right stall and attempted to clean the toilet seat (not totally sparkling, still some crap smudge left). Was it the person who funked it up in the first place or someone who thought it was gross and decided to clean it up 'cuz they're partial to the right stall? Mystery continues...

Design Completed

YEA! William approved this draft of the softball team's logo. Hope he didn't want to keep this a surprise and unveil it at the first practice or anything! Don't tell him you saw it here. Oh... I forgot William reads this blog too. DOH!

On my first draft, W said the hand and beer mug looked too "realistic". At dinner on Monday night at Maggiano's (to celebrate Mikey's 36th birthday), I gave Mike a card with cartoon characters holding beer mugs and W said that's what he wanted for the logo - simple and cartoony. So this is what came out.

I think the original idea (from Njevin) was to have the hand/mug crashing out of the logo. I attempted it in my first draft, but it didn't have the impact I wanted without splitting "Chumados" into two sections. Hope the Chumados have another winning season!!!

Oh! In other unmentionables: Has anyone ever defiled your brand new counters by humping them? 'Cuz poor Borealis Blue was assaulted on Saturday. Just askin'...

04/05/06

Hi, everyone! Just a quick note... take a moment tomorrow at two minutes and three seconds past 1:00 PM to reflect on how 01:02:03 04/05/06 only comes around once, so enjoy it like you should enjoy each day, despite how boring, hectic or disastrous everything around you may seem.

Love and Hugs,
-- jallie beans --

Happy Birthday, Mike!

Glass Tiles and Randomness

Tiles on Order
After a Saturday filled with runs to every home store in the greater Laurel/Columbia area to look for cabinet knobs and tile, we ended up ordering something online last night without seeing samples first. It's from Foster Michael's South Beach line of tiles and I *hope* it is as pretty in real life as it is in these pics:


We're going to cut this up into strips (maybe 3 or 4 rows high) and use it as the accent in the base field of white 3x6 tiles. Originally, John was looking at the 1x1 mosaics, but I think this one will give it a little pizzazz... and it mimics the field tiles.

Uncle Jed's has Closed its Doors
Friday night, Uncle Jed's Roadhouse had it's last hurrah attended by the gang (John and I were celebrating Mom Becky's BD with the rest of the family). This was one of our primary sports viewing bars where Johnny rescued the owner from the elevator and the venue for our 2005 12:12 event. On occasion, we'd order mixed drinks, such as White Russians, and they'd be served in pint glasses. RIP, Jed.

Goodbye, Hard Times Cafe - Laurel
Chevy Chase Bank is sprouting up like dandelions in Laurel. They're in the process of building one about a mile south of us on Route 1, there's an existing branch about half a mile north of us on Route 1 and they knocked down the old Citizen's Bank/Hard Times Cafe building to erect another branch about 3 miles north of us on Route 1. How many branches within 4 miles do we need?

So, to pay homage to the fabulous chili we'll miss so close to home, I made a pot of chili, grilled some dogs and cooked up some noodles to serve a la Hard Times. I had it served over spaghetti with cheese, beans, chopped onion, green pepper, cilantro and sour cream. Johnny had a chili cheese dog and then had some over Fritos. Freddy had a chili dog and then over spaghetti.

I was hoping more of our chums would stop by, but they all went to Rock Bottom to watch George Mason vs. Florida. I think Mason has the talent to beat Florida, but it just wasn't their night. I'm now routing for UCLA to kick Florida's toocus like they did to LSU.

If you're thinking of checking out a Hard Times Cafe, go to the Bethesda or Rockville locations. My sister-in-law's brother owns them.

Time Change
Yesterday morning, I didn't sleep in and I think that helped me with the time change (in terms of getting to sleep last night). I'm not as brain dead as I thought I'd be today.

Robert & Pokes Host a BBQ
With cousins visiting from NY, Ecuador and Galapagos, Robert & Pokes had a BBQ yesterday in their honor. Thanks for the yummy eats!

FO's (Finished Objects)
I finished the sleeves on the Baby Bolero for little cutie newborn Isabel Marie and seamed it all up. I think that part took the longest (sewing in the sleeves). I'm also not too sure about my technique for weaving in all the ends. I also finished weaving the ends in on the red booties. I should probably make some to match the sweater. Pics of the little sweater and booties to come.

That's All, Folks!