LadyGypsy.net – the blog of Kimberly Dowd of New Jersey

Today I am 37 and a half years old. Or would that be 37 and a half year old? Eh. Year 37′s 6-month evaluation came back positive with some room for improvement.

It’s time for the Friday Five and I’m not even stuck in a writer’s block. (On this blog, anyway. On the World of Warcraft blog I’m completely stuck. Maybe because I’m frustrated with it.) This week’s topic is Staples. Let’s get cracking!

1. Of all the hundreds of sizes and shapes bread seems to come in, what is your favorite?
Round loaves! One of my favorite San Francisco memories was the morning we took the bus tour to the redwood forest and wineries. While waiting for the bus to depart the station, Kristen and I ran across the street to a bakery and bought little round sourdough breads to nosh on.

I have to get back to San Francisco someday. (sigh)

Anyway, whenever this miserable diet ends, I’m going to learn to make my own sourdough bread.

2. What’s your favorite thing to eat with rice?
Chicken with Garlic sauce. And heaps of potstickers.

mmmmm…

3. What are your feelings about milk?
Unless it’s chocolate-flavored or is served with Oreos, I can do without.

4. What was wrapped in the tortilla you most recently ate?
My 1-point corn tortilla contained a smattering of ground beef, a few Bacos and a splash of light ranch dressing. We were going for a ranch gordita flavor.

(noshes on a rice cake to stop the drooling)

5. How many staplers are there in your house and where are they?
We have one large Swingline stapler in the console between our two desks. We MAY have a mini Swingline (always Swingline, they don’t bind up as much) in with the rest of our office supplies.

Finally fall weather has arrived. Just in time for the Haddonfield Fall festival yesterday. You’ll note the bag of Kettle Korn in my purse.

On Friday night, I met a bunch of old and dear friends from High School – some of whom I hadn’t seen in 18 years! We ate at the Continental in Olde City. We had a great time catching up, and I don’t want 18 more years to pass before we do it again. How did we find each other? Facebook!!

I have gravy in the crock pot simmering for a tray of lasagna that I’m about to put together and a loaf of pumpkin bread in the breadmaker. I’m a huge fan of summer, but autumn’s not so bad either.

Leaves photo by kbw361 via stock.xchng Our photos were taken outside of Hugh’s Clock Shop

The adventures of the veggie cheesesteak bumped out the usual Friday Five post. And since I’m in a writing slump lately, I have to ration out the content a bit to avoid long periods of nothinginess.

So without further ado, Friday Five: Bad Food

1. What was the last meal that caused you to be ill?
The weekend of July 4th, WM whipped up a chicken salad using Betty Crocker’s “Suddenly Salad!” meal “kit.” Blech. We both were ill (not seriously, but inconveniently) for the next day or so and found quite a few S-words that could fill in this blank: “Suddenly _____!”

2. Are there any places you never dine anymore because of a bad experience hours after the meal?
Ages ago, BVP (he’s doing well, thanks!) and I got the stomach flu the day after we ate at Red Lobster. Red Lobster didn’t cause it, but the reappearance of the prior night’s dinner soured us on Red Lobster for a long time. Despite the decadent cheesy biscuits there, I’m still reluctant to go back.

3. What’s your prescription for dealing with a food-caused illness?
Water.

4. When friends tell you about coming down with food-caused illnesses, do you avoid the places they name, or do you figure it’s a dice-roll wherever you go?
I figure it’s a dice-roll. I mean, look at the whole tomato/salmonella controversy. The government was convinced that the sickened people were sickened because of tomatoes. People changed their diets. Restaurants changed their menus. Tomato growers recorded huge losses. Then, all of a sudden, it’s okay again to eat them again. Nothing was proven. But there remains a tepid warning against jalapeno peppers. People get sick. Sometimes it can’t be explained.

5. After numerous citations, a very, very popular restaurant that you’re quite fond of is shut down by the health department until it can get everything up to code. When the health department gives the restaurant the o.k. to reopen, do you go?

Of course. If I was eating there when it was not up to code and lived, eating there right after the OK is probably the best time to eat there!

***
Firefox 3 slow?
I was up late last night doing a System Restore on my PC. Ever since I installed Firefox 3, my system just dragged. I did Virus scans and malware scans, but nothing turned up. Finally, after waiting five minutes tonight for Firefox to start after I double clicked the icon, I rolled the system back to June 16. I reinstalled Firefox 2.0.0.16 and it’s all zippy again. The downside is that I have to reinstall the last few World of Warcraft patches.