Josceline's · Bower

In the "Taste" section of Friday's paper, there was an article, complete with recipe, about the addictive tapioca muffins served at The Cabana Room (and Samba Brazillian Steakhouse upstairs).  For the benefit of my friends who can cook (and may not have seen the paper), here it is:
http://host.madison.com/entertainment/dining/article_c436fb13-e02c-5e79-ba15-5e7c487d8d6e.html

I will definitely have to go see this movie in June.


The word is that Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz have cameos, but Mr. T will not appear.  He must be too busy hawking World of Warcraft. Still, I'm glad he's still getting work these days.

While making travel arrangements for Nordskogen 12th Night, I looked at the Google map of the site and the hotel.  I realized that it isn't too far from St. Anthony, where my great grandparents lived when I was a kid.  We used to visit for about four days every year in January (when my father would have free time due to seasonal lay-offs at the trucking company that employed him).  Our last visit there was in 1985.

In an attempt to locate their old house on the map, I looked up the Apache Plaza shopping center (which was near their house). Alas, the mall was demolished in 2004. There is actually a tribute website. I did not know this, but the Apache Plaza was only the second enclosed, climate-controlled mall in Minnesota (after the nation's first -- Southdale), when it was built in the early 60s.  I never realized that the Twin Cities suburbs played such an important role in the history of shopping malls even before the Mall of America was built.

The Apache Plaza was replaced by condos and a "lifestyle center" of unrelated retail establishments.  I learned this from a blog devoted to dumpy strip malls in the Twin Cities area (it's amazing what one finds on the Interwebs).

I think I finally located the house, or perhaps that's the one that used to be next door. My great-grandparents' house may have been torn down to make room for a bigger parking lot for the church on the other side of the property.

Chris had to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  On Thursday, I wrapped some gifts, did some household chores and then went to rezansky  and tcsumner 's open house for yummy snacks and good company.

On Friday, I wrapped more gifts and did some more housework, then went to my parents' place in the late afternoon. My cousins and their rambunctious little boys were not there this year, so it was a quiet gathering. Chris joined us after work.  We exchanged some gifts (which everyone liked) and ate too much. My mom brought out some old pictures, including some of my elementary school pictures. Chris begged to borrow them so he can scan them and post them on facebook, so I have that to look forward to.

Mom also had a box full of old pictures that my grandmother had kept of her relatives in Iowa. Some were of her as a little girl, as well as pictures of her mother (who died when I was 10) and grandmother. Most were of aunts, uncles and cousins whom I and my mother had never met. Many were completely unidentified. There were grim pictures of tar-paper shacks and scary-looking people wearing overalls (one bore a disturbing resemblance to Junior Samples). There was one 50-something woman who was built like an NFL linebacker. It made for a real white trash Christmas.

Today I need to do more laundry and shovel a bit more snow. Then I may do some recreational shopping.

I went out to shovel the ice-covered slush covering our sidewalk this morning, and my ergonomic shovel broke.  I had to finish the sidewalk with the straight-handled shovel, and my back did not appreciate it :-(

Fortunately, our neighborhood hardware store was open until 4:00 today, and they had plenty of ergonomic shovels in stock (I even had two different models to choose from).  I also went to Copp's and picked up a nice-looking poinsettia for my mother (I always wait until the last minute, to decrease the likelihood that it will wither and die before it leaves my house).

I'm about to start my second load of laundry, then wrap some gifts while my hubby is at work.

Since dread_ex  started it...



For some reason, the video does not appear on my friends page, but if you click on the entry, it does.

I had a fun time decorating cookies yesterday. Thanks to my hosts for being so hospitable and fun. There were semi-obscene Christmas angels (thanks to dread_ex ) and Chanukkah blasphemy (bacon-wrapped shrimp cooked up by doc_jock ), and a sitcom-worthy Christmas display (thanks to the neighbor across the street). ego_id_non_feci is turning into a formidable hostess -- she may one day give the Barony's own Martha Stewart a run for her money.

There's a new rum in town. Local distiller Yahara Bay is making "Mad Bird Rum" -- which feature's Madison's official city bird, the pink plastic flamingo, on the label. I may have to check it out.

Johnny Depp is jumping on the vampire bandwagon. He will star in a Tim Burton-directed movie based on the old "Dark Shadows" soap opera.

Design Toscano is jumping on the tacky Obama merchandise bandwagon. Good grief! Actually, I suspect it's left over from last year. Can't imagine why they didn't sell out...

...is that it's hard to find somewhere to put it all. The snow banks got so high that it was difficult for short little me to fling more snow on top of them. I can deal with 5 or 6 inches of snow at once without much problem anymore (the last two winters toughened me up), but 14" is hard, even with another person to help. I've never seen so much wet, heavy snow at once. Usually, on those rare occasions when we get more than a foot of snow, it's light and fluffy. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come for this winter. NOAA said that El Nino should give us a milder-than-usual winter in the upper midwest.

I just spent an hour and a half shovelling. The sidewalks are clear (except for the light dusting of snow that fell while I was shovelling), but most of the driveway is still snow covered (except a narrow path from the back door to the front sidewalk).

I didn't look at my watch (it was buried under three layers of clothing), but I knew it was Noon when the church carillon a couple blocks away played a little tune. It also plays at 6:00 p.m. It's very cool being able to measure the day (even a little bit) by the sound of neighborhood church bells.

Going to see 2012 in the theater with one's disaster-movie-loving spouse. Actually, it was more entertaining than I expected. We made snarky comments (kind of like MST3K). There were just a handful of people in the theater, and none of them close enough to overhear us. We decided that the Woody Harrelson part really should have been played by Gary Busey, and that the writers missed a great opportunity to have the President (played by Danny Glover) say "I'm too old for this ship!"

There were multiple humorous references to Wisconsin in the movie. Chris suspects there are multiple versions of the movie, in order to reference the audience's home state. Has anyone seen the movie outside of Wisconsin?

After doing some things around the house, I went to U.S. Cellular around 2:30 this afternoon to pick up some almost-free smart phones for my workplace's employees (they are running a special promotion this weekend). I figured it might be a zoo, and I was not disappointed. The parking lot was full, and cars were parked along the frontage road and on the cross streets (I found a spot on a cross street, a bit behind the building). They had a pretty good queuing procedure set up. The entrance was flanked by two employees with clipboards, one of whom took my name and asked me to wait. After about five minutes, a chair in the waiting area opened up, so I sat down and read the paper.

A lot of people clearly were not prepared for the wait. Several times, they called someone's name with no response. It still took half an hour before they got to me. While I was waiting, I overheard a sales associate talking to another customer, saying that they expected a crowd, but nothing this big.

After that experience, I found the crowds at the mall to be anti-climactic. I needed something at Barnes & Noble, so I decided to take the plunge. It really wasn't bad, and there wasn't much of a line at the check-out. The rest of the mall was populated, but not claustrophobic. No one seemed urgent in their shopping; everyone seemed fairly relaxed. I stopped into Dress Barn, where they were having a buy one get one 50% off sale on everything in the store (except clearance merchandise). There were only a couple other customers in the store. Their merchandise is somewhat overpriced and unfortunately heavy on synthetic fibers (even the blue jeans), which may explain the lack of customers.

I avoided the big box stores. Maybe that's where all the frantic crowds were.

The SCA is not an historical re-enactment organization.  It is a networking organization for people who have an interest in the middle ages and/or renaissance.  It has more in common with the Kalamazoo conference than with Regia Anglorum.

Anyone who has attended or planned an academic or corporate-sponsored conference will know that interspersing serious, educational presentations with fun receptions and silly team-building exercises will increase information retention.

Serious academic researchers need not be embarrassed about being involved with the SCA, so long as they are not trying to pretend it is something that it was never intended to be.

I had a hectic week at work, which fortunately eased up a bit on Friday afternoon.  I made it to SUN about an hour before my first class on Saturday, which left plenty of time to find my classroom, unload my stuff and haul it to the second floor of the library. I brought a bunch of CDs and a boom box for my music appreciation class, and a bunch of books for my Arthurian legends class.  I stuffed most of it into my collapsible cooler on wheels (used in the past as a portable tiki bar), stacked the boom box on top and strolled across Edgewood College's lovely campus (on Wisconsin's most beautiful November day in recent memory).  It worked quite well for hauling, especially since there was an elevator.  I congratulated myself on my cleverness when I saw Master Cadwallon huffing and puffing after climbing the stairs with a box full of books.

The morning class went fairly well. About eight people came in to get an overview of how music sounded and evolved during our period of study. I chose the music selections on the spot, in an attempt to find examples that each attendee's persona might have heard (that's why I brought a big stack of CDs).  That meant I couldn't really give Lady Annetje a discography when she requested one later (she missed the class because it conflicted with another one she wanted to take). I'm going to try to recreate it from memory in an email.

The Laurel Roundtable and the Laurel meeting happened (and finished) on schedule, allowing sufficient time for me to get back to the library building for my afternoon class, on the evolution of the Arthurian legends in period.  That one went a little better, I think. My time management was certainly better; I managed to get to Sir Thomas Malory just before the end of the hour.  I had a request for a handout later on, after I'd already packed everything up and put it in the car. Fortunately, I was able to email it in PDF format today.

Court was momentous, both for the baronial changeover and for rezansky 's vigilling.  I went home, changed out of garb and had a bite to eat, then accompanied my husband to the post-revel.  That was fun.  We left relatively early, but I was too tired to accompany my hubby to the Inferno afterward to celebrate whymc 's birthday. At least I got to see him last weekend at shannongeek 's party.

Today, I did three loads of laundry, unloaded the car and raked some more leaves in the yard.  I expect to sleep well tonight.