Gratuitous Fruit Post

I had a horrible craving for ginger lemonade last week. Somehow, a simple grocery trip for lemons ended up with a bountiful harvest of fruit (10 lemons + 3 I had bought previously, 4 apples, 4 oranges, 2 limes, 1 pineapple, and 1 gigantic ginger root [okay, so ginger isn’t a fruit. I does go very well with fruit]). With the ingredients I needed at hand, I proceeded to make ginger lemonade.

There were a few things I didn’t count on. First: juicing one or two lemons without a juicer isn’t bad. Juicing ten lemons is. Second: my mild mannered eczema flares up when it’s cold and I get small cracks in my hands that I can’t see… but lemon juice can find every single one. Third: my fancy new pitcher is only about half the size of the one I had been using. Therefore, the mixture doesn’t get watered down as much as it needs to be, making it amazingly strong. I had to mix the first few glasses with water, then fill the pitcher back up. It’s at a good balance now, when I strain it. So I may buy a juicer or steal one from home. I make this stuff enough in the summer enough to make it worthwhile.

Our dear friend Jillian who went to New York had started crocheting doilies before she left. While flipping through her patterns, I spotted one named “Romantic Pineapples.” I was highly amused by the name, and she threatened to make me some for my apartment. I received a package yesterday wrapped in brown paper and duct tape from New York. After successfully destroying everything but the duct tape, I found a card, a bar of fancy chocolate, and a pair of romantic pineapples. And I knew immediately that I had to take a picture of my recently-purchased pineapple on the doily. (I really need to figure out how to eat this pineapple. Cut up raw? In a stir fry? Gratineed?) Now lilies are sitting on the doilies, looking pretty.

I’m not doing too badly with the apartment. Sometimes it feels like I’m barely here because I’m running around [especially last week when Mom and I were going out all the time, trying to figure out new cell phones. We’ve ended up with Crackberries [Curve 8330s, if anyone’s that interested]) and an unlimited data plan, so I have, unfortunately enough, started text messaging. I’ve picked up an adapter that lets me turn my TV into another screen for my MacBook. Not practical for regular web usage, but nice when I’m watching shows from Hulu or on DVD (though the TVs age and issues are showing when I see what’s on the TV compared to what’s on the laptop). I still haven’t thrown a proper housewarming party yet; I should get going on that, considering I’ve been here for over a month now. I’m hoping to hang up pictures in the next couple of weeks (although I still need frames for at least three of them). Of course, I’ve been saying something similar to this for the last few years. I’m going to try to make it happen now. I still have a mountain of boxes sitting in front of my fireplace. I haven’t set off the fire alarm in a while. So, all in all, I’m not doing too badly living on my own.