Another Monday and More Ice

I awoke this morning to my roommie knocking on my door, which I tried to ignore (for a bit), and when she insisted still knocking I peeked out and found workmen had entered the apartment. They were here to tape up our windows. The managers of our apartment complex have decided to rip out the old pool and apply fiberglass, sand the fiberglass, and then re-coat the fiberglass with more fiberglass. Unfortunately, our little apartment is right over the pool. The pool re-surfers (workmen? pool-dudes?) began Thursday and Friday of last week and we were choking on the fumes both evenings we come home. It was lovely.

The managers agreed to have the windows sealed this morning, and hence the workmen in our apartment. Our windows were sealed by the sweaty workmen while I made a smoothie with coffee ice cubes, milk and banana. I love this recent addition to my breakfast as it has the consistency and flavor of an ice cream with the morning caffeine I need and some fruit!

The rest of the day was just a typical day, except for some very exciting news. Some friends who recently moved to Seattle sent out a pregnancy announcement and attached a sonogram of the fetus. In the email they mentioned that since they have been in Seattle they have been in some serious Mexican food withdrawal and are adjusting to the more prevalent rain. Unlike some sonogram images this one actually looked like a little baby. I am thrilled for them and know they will be excellent parents. I'm tempted to send the sonogram back with a photoshopped burrito in the fetus' hands. Then they would clearly see the family resemblance.

This evening I came home to find my room had the faint scent of the workmen from this morning. It was odd and gross to find a scent left over from 9 hours earlier. I wanted to make a mint and lime icee to cool off but with the mint on the balcony and our windows taped shut I had to improvise. I needed something else that would be cool and refreshing to blend with ice. In the fridge I found a bag of celery a friend brought over a few weeks back when I needed maybe three stalks for a recipe. His misunderstanding and abundance - he brought two large bags - ended up being greatly serendipitous. I'm not a fan of celery in general - I find it too stringy - although it is wonderful very cold with ranch dressing and hot buffalo wings. I thought "what the hell" since I would have probably thrown the celery out in a few weeks anyways. I usually feel too guilty to throw out perfectly good foods in my fridge even when I have no earthly idea how I plan to use them. Please don't ask me how they get there in the first place.

I roughly chopped the celery and whirled it with some ice and a squeeze of lime. It was wonderful! What I had worried would be an over-powering green-ness was actually nicely cut with the tangy lime and mellowed into a sweet base. Further, and this was thrilling, while I had thought celery from a blender would be a stringy mess it actually was very similar to the consistency of the blended ice. The celery was a slightly-sweet but non-cold version of blended ice.

The rest of the evening was spent at my sister's place (since I still had to air out the male BO from my room) watching "Thank You For Smoking" and eating leftover panang curry. I was also simultaneously writing this here entry and trying to advise an old friend on how to practice flirting. His homework this week is to make eye contact once a day with someone he does not know. He must hold this eye contact for a fraction of a second longer than he is comfortable and then smile very slightly to break the contact. I'm not sure if he will get immediate results but I am hoping he begins to build some confidence.

And that was Monday. This post was not really building to any sort of structured recipe. I am just trying to write some more and to occasionally remember what it is I have been eating. So I will end it by slinking off to bed. Night!