I survived June’s insanity. Now I get a nice calm three weeks or so before I head off to Japan, unless of course something changes. Poor Ted doesn’t even get a weekend to recover; he’s leaving for Taiwan this weekend, though at least this time he only stays a week.
You can see my trip report from Budapest here; I don’t have the Paris Airshow written up yet, maybe later tonight. The short version is that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, because it’s primarily designed for industry and the period when it’s open for the public feels like sort of an afterthought.
My current annoyances are two: for one, my baby present for my friend C has been stuck in US Customs since May 26. I have just called TNT (who handle the post for the Netherlands) to initiate an investigation, but now they have to send me a form which I have to fill in and mail back. Hello, they have this new Internet thingy? Also, in the usual manner of Dutch “customer service” they charged me €.45 per minute for the call and kept me on hold for a while.
Also, as you may gather from the first paragraph of this entry, Ted and I have not managed to sync our busienss trips this time around. We thought mine would be sooner but I said I’d only leave on July 5 (the 4th being our eighteenth anniversary), but then he moved his trip up and we figured we could both travel that week and celebrate later. Then mine got pushed out to mid-July. We have a week together at home between trips, but it doesn’t include a weekend 🙁
We still haven’t figured out our non-business travel for the rest of the year, though after a conversation with my brother it looks like we should plan to be in Philadelphia in the last half of October. We might factor in a couple of days in NYC; Ted’s never been there, and it’s been a long time for me.
Nothing else major is going onright now. Ysterday I decided not to row because I got out of work late due to attending a retirement party for my department VP. That might have been better if I’d known I’d be one of the most junior people there – the CEO, the whole board, all the VPs, and the rest of senior management were all there and the majority of people in the room were wearing suits. And then there was me, in my fitted black T and cotton printed skirt. Oops. At least I went with dressy heeled sandals with a lot of foot coverage, instead of the more casual ones I’d considered. By the time I stood in line to speak to and congratulate the man who’s retiring and taken the bus home (because Ted had to leave early) it was getting late to leave for rowing. Good thing I decided not to go anyway; the weather looked OK despite predicted thunderstorms, but they came in with full force just as I’d have been on my way back to the boathouse. Ted had left a bit early, so managed to get in a short row and get home just as the first lightning struck. It was a violent storm; this morning I bicycled to work and the bikepath was covered with everything from leaves and twigs on up to entire branches.
ETA: LA has reminded me that I wanted to mention cooking. I think I’ve got my jambalaya more or less down pat now. The version I made Sunday was perfectly seasoned. It wasn’t perfect overall, because I didn’t have any bell pepper (used extra celery) and the only sausage I had was some vegetarian stuff we bought by mistake. It was actually a pretty reasonable substitute, but a bit less strongly flavored and a lot softer than the real thing. And I’d like a bit less chicken and sausage and more shrmp, but it’s hard to add a chicken filet and a half (in the US I might buy chicken tenders) and I wanted to use up the sausage. Otherwise, it was just right – the thing I’d been missing was to add part but not all of a can of tomato sauce. (Also a couple of hot peppers, a fair bit of Worcestershire sauce, a generous shake of Cajun seasoning, a bit of paprika, cayenne, and oregano, and what was left in the bottle of Provence herbs. I didn’t add salt because there was plenty in the chicken broth and the Cajun seasoning.
I’d like to work on a recipe for Hungarian goulash next, but I think I’ll save that until it gets cold again. Still, if anyone knows of a great recipe, please point me to it!