Search This Blog

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Too tired to turn on the oven



Emily and I flew to Pittsburgh with Matt to help him move his things from his old condo to his new house. I'm still a little freaked out by the whole trip. I have come to several conclusions. Number one, Delta is short at least one airplane. There are not enough seats on the planes that they have to accommodate their passengers on a given day. The ticketing agents are very skilled with methods of deceit and illusion. "while you were flying in circles around Atlanta, your connecting plane took off" how does that happen? One plane can't land because the weather is so bad, but the other plane can take off? "We are sorry, your plane had mechanical problems, here is a coupon for the airport hotel and a $7 coupon for dinner" Really, mechanical problems, or did the plane never exist. And is there any hotel at a major airport in the US that you can actually purchase dinner for $7? And I eat breakfast. As a nurse, I truly believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. As for that nurse thing, when the pilot asks us to keep our seat belts on because the flight is going to deteriorate, my mind comes up with some pretty scary scenarios. In the medical field, the patient's condition "deteriorating" never ends well. Wipe that verb from your pilot vocabulary.

Number Two. There are slum lords in Pittsburgh. We are paying a lot of money for Matt's house. More than we would if he was living on campus. You would think that if you were paying that much, the place would at least be clean. The following picture is not for the faint of stomach. This is the sink in the kitchen in Matt's house, before his sister spent an hour cleaning it.



Using a potentially toxic combination of cleaning products, she made great improvements. She believes that the previous tenants never cleaned the kitchen. However, on August 3rd the sink was no longer a health hazard. Will it ever get cleaned again? And does Emily win the sister of the century award?

Conclusion Three I am getting old, my feet ache, my hands ache. After spending two days painting, cleaning, moving I could barely carry my suitcase all through the airport looking for the nonexistent flight. I made a list in my head of things to do when I got home. Realizing that I was up at four am, my desire to do anything on the list is waning. I want to bake bread in my clean kitchen. I need to get the starter going, but the couch looks very comfortable.

The shrimp salad is easy, cool and refreshing. Cook some shrimp. I like Ina Garten's way for Roasting Shrimp, peeled, tossed with olive oil and pepper and into a 400 degree oven for 8 minutes. (If I really want to have delicious shrimp, I brine them, but that is another story.) Let shrimp cool. Make a salad with tomatoes, red onion, cilantro, diced avocados, and a dressing with red wine vinegar, lime juice, olive oil. Add the shrimp and toss.

Tomorrow, I may turn the stove on and cook in my kitchen, which is not this kitchen. I may use some of the spices that I picked up at Penzey's on the strip.


4 comments:

  1. That sink won't be so clean again ... until the next sister visit ;) at least those are the best odds in my experience.
    There was nothing so interesting in our kitchen to fix as your shrimp salad when we got home.
    Airline travel is not so many things: when it's uneventful it's at it's best.
    'deteriorating'... yes that can be a word with many experiences in our history. Early in my nursing I said something about some monitor "blowing up". I was very lucky, the father was very kind and an hour or so later suggested I might want to not use that particular phrase around parents with a baby on that monitor. I was mortified and then very grateful. Youth. And how easily we forget what we didn't know.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You brave ladies..Kudos to both of you. Matt is a lucky young man to have such great helpers.

    That sink..YUCK! It makes one wonder, "Did they ever 'think' to clean? And...what did the rest of the home look like?"....oh, horror of horrors.

    The salad is beautiful and sounds so yummy for the tummy.

    Thanks for visiting my blog...I think you came while I was updating/editing. I hope the glitch is fixed. (Come and visit again, too.) :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I made your shrimp salad for dinner the other night. We loved it! Jason says this recipe is a keeper. I'm very curious about the brining of the shrimp. Please tell that story someday :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Kim. Alton Brown did a show on shrimp, if I am going to make shrimp cocktail, I follow his recipe
    Google Alton Brown brine shrimp

    ReplyDelete