Spring Cleaning

I've been horribly remiss in updating ye olde blog. Mea culpa! At first it was because nothing at all worth mentioning was happening, and then because life got a little too busy. In the future I will attempt to keep this place a little fresher.

First order of business: I've added a few new Bad Vanity Plates to the sidebar, although not nearly as many as I've seen lately. There have been a rash of first names, for people who apparently suffer from amnesia but at least can remember where they parked the car. What's my name? Hold on, let me check my plates. Oh yes: Otis. 

Most exciting update: Mike and I signed up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Midlands. It was originally Mike's idea, as with so many of our life improvements (see: vegetarianism), after he was inspired by President Obama's call to public service. When Mike went to his orientation session, he learned that we could be a Big Couple, so I signed up as well. I just completed my orientation last week, and we can't wait to get a Little Brother. We were told that because there are so many boys awaiting mentors and not enough Bigs for them, we should get a match soon. For girls, the opposite is true: Big Sisters go on a 6-9 month waiting list. So I am happy to help out a little boy who is waiting to find a friend. Out of respect for our Little's privacy, I will probably keep any future blogging about this experience to very limited & general updates, but we are so looking foward to this new adventure.

In more recent news, we had another excellent restaurant meal last night. We went out with friends to Stokes Grill & Bar in the Old Market. It is a Southwest spot that we've been meaning to try for ages, but which I always seem to forget about when we're deciding where to eat; finally, we made it down there. I had somewhat low expectations, and this is probably unfair, mainly because it looks cool and the ambience is well put together. Sometimes restaurants that focus so much on appearances fall apart on the food, but this is not the case at all for Stokes.

I'll mention the one downside up front: not a whole lot of choices for the vege-pesca-tarian. There were only one veggie and two seafood entrees for us to choose from; however, there were also four salads and eleven appetizers that could easily combine to make a meal. The four of us started out by sharing nachos with cowboy beans and some crab rangoons. The rangoons were good, nothing spectacular, but tasty and crispy as they should be; the sauce was a little on the sweet side for me. The nachos were great, with blue & yellow corn chips and plenty of topping.

I ordered fish tacos for my entree: grilled tilapia in two flour tacos served with beans and rice. I usually don't like tilapia all that much, because it has little flavor of its own and is often badly prepared. However, the fish tacos were very good! The tilapia were cut in nice little filets, neatly blackened and well seasoned. The soft tacos seemed fresh and were just a little toasted. Best of all, the beans and rice were absolutely delicious. I have had many Mexican meals since moving to Omaha, and in pretty much every instance the bean & rice sides have been travesties: cold, dry and completely and utterly without flavor. At Stokes, they were hot, seasoned, and zesty. I almost would have been happy just to eat the sides, and that's saying a lot when it comes to beans & rice. Mike ordered the Twisted Garlic Shrimp Pasta: radiatore pasta with Southwest spices, tomato, avocado, and shrimp. He thought it was also very good. I stole a few bites of his pasta and it was tasty: kind of like a Southwest-style mac and cheese. 

One other minor complaint: I ordered a margarita, and, while pleasingly large, it was weak and off-the-charts sweet, with a pretty artificial-tasting lime flavor. Like a limeade with a couple extra teaspoons of sugar. Probably would not order again, but it didn't take anything away from the meal.

Today we have been busy doing some much-needed but much-dreaded housecleaning, including washing the curtains and table linens, and doing poop patrol in the backyard. Of course, two hours after mopping all the floors, it all looks crap again because Russell has dragged in two tons of dry leaves. Lesson for next fall: RAKE.

On a lighter note... weekend review.

Mike and I went to see the car show downtown this weekend, to celebrate the birthday of a friend who does not like to celebrate birthdays - hence, a low key event completely unrelated to cakes or waiters who sing to you in front of the other patrons.

As we were driving down, we ran into a colossal traffic jam, headed toward the Qwest Center where the car show was taking place. We had to take a circuitous detour and as we finally approached, we saw that all the official parking lots were filled. So Mike dropped me off as close as he could get me (a few blocks) and went to find a spot to park.

I trudged along with a big herd through the bitter cold - it was in the low 20s and windy - and followed the crowd into the lobby of the box office. It was packed with people, freezing cold, and sold out. Scalpers were outside hawking tickets. Our friends were nowhere in sight and when I texted them, they replied that they were still parking. Unbelievable! All this for a car show? What, were they debuting the first working Delorean time machine? I was confused, cranky, and freezing my buns off.

At last Mike arrived from Parking Siberia and informed me that I was in the arena part of the Qwest Center. You know, where they were having some big college basketball game. Ohhhhhhhh.

So we trudged back over to the convention center, found our friends, and looked at some cars. I'm not all that into cars, but I can appreciate a little pretend shopping. Mike and I were ogling the Honda Fit hybrid, while our friends were comparing and contrasting Lexus and Mercedes. Different strokes and all that.

Afterwards we parted ways, and Mike and I went grocery shopping and returned home. I made some veggie maki rolls - cucumber, avocado, and carrot. I think my sushi rice is decent and I am an okay maki roller. The weak spot always seems to be the nori, which is chewy and on the ends it's even crispy and hard. It's probably just not the greatest nori in the world, but at $4 a package for the cheap stuff, that's about all the splurging I can justify for DIY sushi.

Post-dinner, we watched Hustle and Flow. It was a little hard for me to put the celebrity gossip about Terrence Howard out of my mind at first (I've heard he's kind of a... not a nice guy) but he did give a good performance and I enjoyed the movie. I was worried that it was going to glamorize pimping, but that was far from the case. It was a pretty heartbreaking portrait of what life is like for men & woman who try to make a living on prostitution and petty drug deals.

Today has been a day of cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. We dusted, we laundered, we scrubbed, we mopped. We (Mike) unclogged the gross shower drain and installed a strainer thingy. I also attempted to start our taxes and realized, after several hours, that I have to wave the white flag this year. Life has gotten too complicated for Turbo Tax, and I think we're going to hire a pro to figure that jazz out for us this year.

Nebraska Food Cooperative

While in our local health food store buying dog food for a certain spoiled cocker spaniel, I recently spied a business card for the Nebrasaka Food Cooperative.  To my surprise, this was exactly what I had spent hours googling and never found... a local CSA (community supported agriculture) group that would enable us to buy local food and goods year-round and support family farms in the area.

Mike and I are big fans of the Farmer's Market that takes place downtown, but it only runs during the summer and early fall months, and of course there is the added downside that if we are too lazy to make it downtown by noon on a Saturday morning, we miss our weekly opportunity to buy the beautiful, delicious, and inexpensive produce they have to offer.

The NFC seems to have all the variety of the Farmer's Market and more, with a wonderful selection of produce, dairy, baked goods, handmade gifts, and even (were we so inclined) local, sustainably-raised meat products... and the best part is, it goes all year round. This particular CSA group operates on a monthly basis (many are weekly) and all orders are delivered to Jane's Health Market in Omaha, which (lucky us!) just happens to be right in our neighborhood.

NFC membership gratifies two of our pet passions at once: supporting local businesses, and eating local, healthy, environmentally friendly food products. Most of the items available through their catalog are organic or produced with minimal chemicals, and are farmer-friendly. They even sell a large variety of fair trade coffees for the same prices we already pay at Whole Foods.

More information on CSAs can be found online at Local Harvest.

I Saved Us From a Tornado

Peonies are my stepmom's favorite flower, and it's easy to see why. They're big, exuberant flowers with a messy beauty and an intoxicating scent. The neighbors who back up to us have peonies all along the length of chain link fence that separates our yards, and I have been compelled to clip a few - just the ones leaning temptingly over in two-foot shoots, some bending almost to the ground. This bouquet on the dining room table fills the whole house with its sweet, heady fragrance.

The past couple of weeks have been a bit stressful as it's been rainy almost every day or night, and Mike doesn't have work when it rains, or even when the ground's gotten soaked. I remember June being a rainy month when I was a kid, or at least it seemed that way. We'd usually get out of school shortly after Memorial Day, and just as we achieved freedom, a streak of gloomy rainy days would begin and last until my birthday at the end of the month. It was only as an adult that I recognized that dusty, thick smell of impending rainfall as a weather-related phenomenon - when I was a kid I always thought it was the smell of dust on the window sills, since that's where my nose would be planted as I stared out in hopes of a glimpse of sun.

Saturday night we went to bed without knowing that a storm was coming. We fell asleep with the windows closed and the air conditioning on, but at about two thirty in the morning I woke to a rather faint sound of a siren. I tried to rouse Mike: "Is that the tornado siren?" He said calmly, "No, no...." I prodded him, "I think it is." He replied confidently, "No, it's just... part of the promotion." "Hon," I told him, "I think you're dreaming." He claimed he wasn't, but the siren pealed again and I got out of bed - "Okay, that IS definitely a siren." Finally he woke up and realized what was going on.

I scrambled in the dark to put on sweatpants and a hoodie since it would be cold in the basement, and the three of us - dog included - went down to the half bath (aka Man Cave) underground, grabbing a boombox on the way down. Mike had to briefly resurface to grab a flashlight from the kitchen and reported that it was "crazy" outside. We sat down in the bathroom - me in a collapsible camping chair, Mike & Russell on the floor - and listened to AM radio. The storm and possible tornado was moving right through Central Omaha. Power was out in parts of the city, but not for us. Safe in the basement, I worried slightly about our cars, which we only put in the garage if we know there's a storm coming, and we hadn't... mine in particular was sitting directly under the large maple tree in our front yard.

The tornado warning ended at three a.m. and we went back to bed under calm skies. In the morning, despite some downed trees and a few cases of property damage in the city, our neighborhood appeared unscathed. Even my spindly tomato plants made it through intact.

On the local news last night they said that a lot of people slept through the siren and that it's really only meant to alert people who are outside at the time of a tornado. Who knew? They don't give you an instruction manual when you move to tornado alley. Apparently we're all supposed to buy emergency weather alert radios. The funny thing is I had always worried about sleeping through a tornado siren and Mike swore he would definitely wake up if he went off... yet he was the one who thought it was "just part of the promotion," haha. And I, normally a corpselike sleeper, saved our lives. That's right... he owes me bigtime.

Shrimp for two.

Like this bouquet of hydrangeas? I hope so, because we spent $15 on it while laughing in the face of a nationwide recession. Haha! Now that we're official lifetime residents of Benson we're supporting local businesses whenever possible, which this weekend included these flowers and a half dozen dinner rolls at a new bakery that just opened on Maple Street called Sweet Georgine's. And really, thems are some pretty hydrangeas.

Mike and I had a little cocktail party to go to hosted by someone who worked with me in faux finishing but is leaving the business. You can be sure you enjoyed a party when all your laughing muscles hurt by the time you leave. We made our exit around 8 pm and were famished, but didn't know where/what to eat, so we just headed downtown. By the time we found a parking space we were starving and it was raining hard, so we literally dashed across the street to the nearest restaurant, which happened to be Vincenzo's in the Old Market.

Apparently it was prom night, because half the tables were taken by young ladies and gents in formal wear, which of course prompted much reminiscing about high school and how lame our proms were etc. Mike ordered Shrimp Scampi with angel hair and I ordered the Shrimp Trittata with bow tie pasta. I never prepare seafood at home but it's often an indulgence for when we eat out and have limited vegetarian options (or particularly appealing seafood options). We were served warm rolls (fine, not great) and house salads (ditto). I thought the pasta and sauce were fairly good, but the shrimp was quite tough and had very little flavor. Overall it was a pleasant enough meal but I don't think it will make the list for a return trip... there are far too many other restaurants we'd like to try before we'd even think about going back to Vincenzo's I'm afraid.

When we got home Mike brought out our high school yearbooks and we played a little game called "guess which people were my friends." Mike did pretty well. I badly misjudged the girls in his class - all the girls I picked as the pretty, popular ones were actually outcast, cigarette-puffing headbangers who hung out by the auto shop. I say he missed out, lucky for me perhaps.

Weekend Update.

We closed on the house on Friday! We were on tenterhooks until the last minute. Our real estate agent called as almost as we were walking out the door to tell us that the roofer still wasn't finished putting on the new roof (!) and we couldn't close until that was done and the house was reassessed, hopefully that afternoon. Then we got a call at 1:15 from our loan officer who said, "Oh, closing's at 1:30, didn't you know that?" So we raced to the bank and signed forty bajillion scary documents and the house is officially ours.

Our agent, Kit, gave us a thank you card that included a membership to Passport (like a diner's club) and promised to stop by the house in a week or so with a bottle of wine to toast to our new home. We loved working with Kit, who was fun and helpful and attentive all the way through the process, so if you want to join us in the joys of Omaha homeownership, we highly recommend Kit Pflaum of CBSHome.

That evening we relaxed at home with a Whole Foods pizza that we got for free. Oh, the Whole Foods pizza... I have to tell the story behind it. So two weeks ago we decided to order a pizza from the grill at Whole Foods while we were doing our regular shopping, and we went to the counter to place an order. The employee there told us that because they'd just gotten a fresh shipment, ALL the pizza dough was totally frozen and it would be at least a 45 minute wait. We said never mind and continued to shop for groceries. Not two minutes later we spotted him making a pie for someone else and were somewhat annoyed but said nothing.

So this week we called ahead for a pie and were told over the phone it would be a 45 minute wait. We arrived at Whole Foods 45 minutes later and the same employee as last time told us he hadn't started our pizza and it would be at least 10 more minutes. We were both irritated by this and wandered off to the wine section to debate canceling the order. I said I'd rather wait the 10 minutes than have to call one in elsewhere and wait 45 more, but Mike wanted to cancel on principle, so that's what we did. Somewhere between the pizza counter and the exit our outrage grew until Mike decided to complain to a manager. We explained to the manager about the two pizza incidents with the same employee. He was sympathetic and apologetic and wanted to give us a free pizza. Mike said that wasn't necessary but I felt it would make the manager feel better to send us away satisfied - and, plus, ummmm free pizza - so we accepted.

The worst part was the pizza was delicious. Spinach mushroom gorgonzola and it was really really good (if a little undercooked, and who could blame them at that point). But we can never order there again, because the same guy works every weekend night shift, and we will always be the jerks who complained to the manager.

Moving right along, on Saturday we decided to celebrate our closing by going to a restaurant I'd been dying to try - Espana, right in downtown Benson. We goofed by not making a reservation, since this is one of the few restaurants in Omaha where one is recommended... but even so we were quickly seated at a table for two. We were immediately pleasantly surprised by the ambience in Espana, which was cozy and relaxing. Most of the places we've gone to eat in town have been harshly lit like fast food joints, even at establishments that were otherwise aiming at a high quality atmosphere. Espana managed to feel both private and romantic, and social and fun. The older lady who was acting as hostess was also visiting some tables and taking ostentatious shots of sangria straight from the bottle to entertain the larger groups of diners. A ten year old kid followed his dad, presumably the owner, around as he ran the show.

Espana has a menu of about 100 hot and cold tapas, plus a selection of paellas that require a 45 minute wait. I was familiar with tapas style eating from a high school exchange trip to Spain, but the waiter also gave us a rundown on how to order. In Spain, tapas are kind of like bar food, but better. Usually a group of friends will go to a tapas bar, order a bunch of food and drinks, and share everything. Tapas are all appetizer-sized dishes; our waiter recommended we order at least 3-4 per person, but we found that 6 total was more than enough to fill us up. Out of such a large menu, I will admit that our choices were rather limited by the need to avoid meat, but even so we had enough good options to make a meal.

We started with a grilled shrimp dish that was full of garlicky flavor. Next came a plate of diver scallop and shrimp ceviche, which was light and tangy with a bit of orange sweetness, served with plaintain chips; crusty bread soaked in olive oil with a plump fresh olive on the side; diced potatoes with spicy tomato sauce that tasted authentically Spanish to me (I remember a kind of tangier ketchup-like sauce that was ubiquitious in Spanish fare). When we were about midway through that selection we got our breaded fried calamari with lemon (good, if not standout), and breaded grilled portabello mushroom with spicy tomato sauce - I used the sauce for calamari as it was quite hot and I felt it smothered the lovely flavors of the mushroom. We also ordered margaritas - admittedly not a truly Spanish drink, but made more so by the substitution of orange juice for lime. All of the food was quite simple, but delicious, and at least going by my decade+ year old memories of Castellon, authentic Spanish cuisine. Two thumb up and we will surely go back again, next time for paella!

We finally took ownership of the house today after giving the sellers the weekend to move out. Mike stopped by before he went to work, and I went in with Russell after my work day was done. I brought over some paint samples and put them up... unfortunately it's a dark rainy day in Omaha and I couldn't see the colors well, but we'll decide another day. The house is... awesome. A little dirty. Needs a good mopping. But it's a great house. Russell ran around sniffing and panting happily, and christened the master bedroom with a puddle of pee, god bless him. The sellers left behind an entertainment center in the basement that I think will do as a temporary unit until we find (and can afford) something we love. We got back some money at closing and are planning a trip to Twin Cities, MN to go to Ikea in two weeks (yes, we are dorks enough to drive 400 miles to hit an Ikea). Aside from repainting most of the interior, we're planning on focusing on one room at a time beginning with the bedroom. Currently we have no bed frame, end tables, or dressers so those are top priorities. Exciting stuff.

Bad Vanity Plates of Nebraska

A note on the sidebar: since moving to Omaha I've noticed there is an unusual prevalence of vanity plates on Nebraskan cars, and also how exceptionally corny most of them are. I've started jotting them down as I drive around, which is a sometimes daunting and potentially hazardous task, since on a typical day I'll see at least four or five without even looking for them. I don't count plates that relate to business, since in my view those are pretty much the only acceptable kind of vanity plate. I also don't count Iowans, although sometimes I wish I did, because theirs are almost as bad.