In other news.

For our mutual acquaintance aware of the goings-on:

dariodevil won his restraint case against Leechy McRoommate yesterday, huzzah!. So Leechy has to take his mountains of stuff and fuck off.

From the condensed version of the proceedings I got, it seems that for once theory has matched practice--that is, when dealing with a pathological liar like Leechy, all you have to do is stand back & keep your own face clean, and he'll cheerfully hang himself with his own tongue. And the poor widdums is definitely pathological; I've witnessed him lying...and I mean blatant, obvious, pointless lies, like a kitten trying to cover up a pile on a linoleum floor...over the most trivial items that no one gives a great goddamn about. The word that springs to mind is "pathetic", in all of its connotations.

Said pathos does not, of course, mean that I will at all tamp down my feelings of savage glee at Leechy's discomfiture.

The bite-ness of command

As some of the Gentle Readers know, there have been a fair amount of layoffs around these parts in the past week (that's what all my cryptic hand-wringing was about, yes). So the suckage is large and multi-faceted, but another aspect--minor in the grand scheme of things, but of more direct personal application--becoming visible is that I'm now much more likely to miss aikido for reasons of coverage: not just phone coverage in my section, but having someone in Authority around, as class time is roughly when the Office Mom is usually en route, and Brian is usually just waking up. (Mr. Networks is generally in, but if he is at lunch or running errands or whatnot, as today, it is not helpful.)

Experimental kitchen: non-dairy pasta salad

(Yeah, I'm all Posty McPoster today.)

This pasta salad was something Kathryn and I threw together for lunch not long ago, and I just reproduced it for the block party on sweh's street. I am much pleased with it; it's tasty, it's healthy, it's not overgoopy and bloating like so many pasta salads, and Goddamn it's easy to make.

1 lb. box of macaroni, rotini, or the like
1 bag of Trader Joe's frozen sugar snap peas--almost as good as fresh!
1 pint cherry tomatoes
2 ears of corn, or the equivalent in canned/frozen if you must
2-3 T. of cider vinegar
~1c. soy mayonnaise
~3 T. herbs de provence
salt & pepper

Cook the pasta al dente, drain, put in BIG HONKING mixing bowl. Put the frozen peas in and toss--the heat from the pasta will thaw them, and they'll bring down the temperature of the pasta so you don't have to wait around for it to cool.

Boil the ears of corn (this is only a few minutes! Don't overcook, it's unpleasant). When they're done, run them under cold water for a bit so you can cut off the kernels without burning your fingers. Add the kernels and the cherry tomatoes to the pasta, and mix.

At this point, it gets a bit subjective: add the cider vinegar, the soyonnaise, a good whomp of herbs, and salt & pepper, and mix up. Obviously this is all going to be to taste, but the above is a reasonable benchmark. You want it to be creamy but not gloopy; tangy but not acrid, etc.

Cubed cold roast chicken breast makes a nice addition if there are no vegetarians involved.