Weekend Minutiae

Not a lot going on, just some updates on what's going on here at Chez J+J:

• We decided that we're going to get another dog. Soon. Here is a picture of the guy we have our eye on:
  
  
  
  His name is Bear right now (that's what the Rescue Org named him - he was a stray). We think we might name him Dmitri (Dima for short) to go along with Kira and the Russian-inspired names.
  
  As of right now there are 2 major roadblocks. First, we need to find out if our landlord will let us have a second dog. The second roadblock is my own idiocy. We were supposed to meet the dog we had our eye on this weekend at an event held by Shorewood Cocker Rescue. I thought it was on Sunday from noon to 3, but we discovered at around 3:30 PM on Saturday that it was in fact on SATURDAY from noon to 3 (plus, it was in Lake Geneva, which is 2 hours away, so it's not like we could have zipped over there and caught them).
  
  As I wrote this, I discovered a third roadblock - he got adopted this weekend. Dammit. So that's that. It's kind of cast a pallor over the weekend :(
  



• We saw Kids in the Hall: Live as We'll Ever Be at the Barrymore on Friday night with our friend Brian. It was hilarious, as expected. Jennie and I both admitted to each other a day or so before the show that Kevin was now our favorite member of the troupe (Dave held the top spot for quite some time). Lots of great sketches - the best of which was one where Dave was confiding his worry that his imaginary girlfriend might be cheating on him to Kevin, only to discover that Kevin had been imagining that she was having an affair with him. Shenanigans ensued.



• We went to the Farmers Market on a windy Satudray morning. Most of the vendors who actually put their awnings up spent a majority of the time holding on to the frames to prevent the wind from knocking them over. We got a pretty good haul - more delicious tomatoes and italian sausage (like last week), some good onions, spinach, cheese, pearl onions, eggs, applesauce, and some spring garlic. I added the spring garlic to my potato soup recipe last night, with some good results. It gave it a little more zest, even tastier than usual. My only disappointment was actually with a purchase from last week. I was excited for the market to be starting again, because one of hte stands makes amazing bacon. This time, when I went to get some they had options - hickory smoked or nitrite-free. I sprung for the nitrite-free bacon (it's what I've been buying at Woodman's and was pretty good). Big mistake - I didn't realize that it was uncured bacon. It tasted like fatty rubber. Super gross.



• I'm almost done with Series of Unfortunate Events - I'll write my review when I finish it. I just finished The Grim Grotto - the eleventh book of the series. It was pretty eventful. Jennie said that many loose ends were not tied up at the conclusion of the series, so I'm feeling suspense over what will be explained.



• I hit the bookstore today and picked up the beginnings of some stuff for my goal of learning some Chinese. I got the grammar book mentioned before and a big Chinese-English dictionary, along with How to Learn Any Language (on sale!). I've read the first 20 pages or so of the Language book and it's pretty fun to read so far. His views on language are a little different than mine - he stresses conversation over grammar, which I agree with objectively...but I feel that the structure of grammar is one of the main things that attracts me to language. That could just be because I don't travel very much, nor am I forced to communicate in anything but English...