Year of the Tiger

I'm still a little congested, but it's slowly receding. My head's still a little achy and my throat's still sore, but otherwise, I'm perfectly fine. I spent the morning refilling the cookie tin with Cranberry Whole Wheat Bars and watching Monkees second season episodes.

(I'm one of the few people who seem to like the second season better than the first. The first season was fun, but sometimes a bit conventional. The second season can be really strange, but the show's the better for it. My favorite episodes are from the second season - "The Devil and Michael Nesmith" and the infamous "Fairy Tale." Yes, I know the guys were probably on a couple of weird substances, but so were a lot of people in the 60s.)

It was absolutely gorgeous, if windy, today, into the lower 40s. Everything's slowly melting. The snow is half-gone from my porch now. There's still a lot of snow on the ground, though, and unless we get another warm rain like on Christmas Day, those ice piles will be around forever. I was able to ride to work; it was a bit nerve-wracking, thanks to riding on the Black Horse Pike during rush hour both ways.

It's a good thing I am feeling better. The Acme was really busy for the first time in over a week today. We had long lines all day and had to call for extra help. This wasn't helped by a lot of cranky customers, too. Maybe everyone's just annoyed that the next major holiday isn't until Easter...and some folks won't be getting time off until Memorial Day.

Thankfully, my relief was on time, allowing me to get my own grocery shopping in. I had a lot of it after being home constantly for two weeks, too - grapefruit, bananas, apples, collard greens, chicken breasts, packs of fish, yogurt (Yoplait has a new light flavor, Red Velvet Cake, that I'm dying to try), brown eggs, more salt (I'm half-done with the container I bought last week), gourmet chocolate chips (Acme's put it's now-largely-defunct Essentia brands on clearance), and things for my Chinese-themed dinner tonight - canned sliced water chestnuts, plum sauce, and horseradish.

My dinner tonight came out very well. I made a variation on Chinese Chicken Wings from the Family Weeknight Suppers cookbook Linda Young gave me for Christmas. I'm not a big wings fan, so I brushed the plum-horseradish-soy sauce over chicken legs instead. (The sauce originally called for a few drops of hot sauce, but I omitted it. I'm not a big fan of spicy food.) I also threw together a stir-fry of water chestnuts, collard greens, mushrooms, onions, carrots, and celery and ate it over brown rice. It's my make-up dinner for missing Chinese New Year (which I think was the 14th, same as Valentine's Day), and it came out very well, tasty and spicy without being too bad.