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best thing I've ever eaten
Tuesday, January 9 2018
Today felt like spring time in comparison to recent weeks, though the high and low today were only four or five degrees above average for this time of year. Still, that meant temperatures above the melting point of water, perhaps for the first time since Christmas. I celebrated (in part) by making my first visit to the brownhouse in all that time.
Using the pressure cooker, today Gretchen made a black bean soup mostly to take over to the Woodstock Farm Sanctuary for one of the volunteers there. It's been a rough several weeks at farm sanctuaries, where the cold has made everybody miserable. After Gretchen left with the soup, I had some she'd left behind, and Jesus H. Christ, it was probably the best thing I have ever eaten. I don't know how to describe what made it so great, but it had something to the do with the balance and complexity of the flavors. There was lemon in there, but not enough to make it sour. There was something unidentifiably cheeselike, but it wasn't overpowering. And through it all was a strong savory note of umami. If all I had to eat for the rest of my life were that soup, I would be a very happy man.
In the middle of an ad hoc workplace videoconference, I looked up to see Neville coming into the laboratory. He'd broken out of his recuperation fort yet again. I kept him in the laboratory (where he snuggled with Ramona on the Ottoman) until the end of the videoconference and then carried him back to his fort. Using some thick (12 gauge) copper wire (the sort leftover from household wiring), I made it so two of the piece of plywood blocking access to the coffee table could no longer be wedged apart. I also laced some cordage back and forth between a tall piece of plywood and a gate to block escape over a low spot. Hopefully these were the last remaining avenues of escape. Neville is not supposed to be going up stairs (or, for that matter, climbing up on coffee tables). So far his prison breaks have not led to any obvious problems with his knees, but that surgery was expensive and we don't want to be taking the risk of ruining his still-healing knees.
I had a shitty, unproductive workday after that. I couldn't focus on my work in my laboratory because I was worried about Neville breaking out, and I couldn't do much with a laptop in the recuperation fort because it's awkward to work with such diminished screen real estate. Also became aware that some of the user interfaces I've created are really hard to interact with on a small screen. I wanted to fix that.
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http://asecular.com/blog.php?180109 feedback
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