Having an odd damn day

It was a good thing I left the condo today or I would have missed out on that whole daylight savings time change. I was sorely confused at 4:10pm when I thought we were still working through the 3 o'clock hour, but things are fine. I did sleep for at least 12 hours on friday and saturday night and am tired enough to sleep now, so hopefully I'll actually sleep and not just lay there thinking odd thoughts.

Because I had some odd thoughts last night/earlier today. The wacky dream started with the premise that the Irish celebrate St. Patty's day by taking cash to tax-free Caribbean islands to put in numbered accounts. That might have something to do with my recent re-watching of The Bourne Identity. Somehow in this dream I found some cash of my own to withdraw, convinced a friend to come with me and stayed at some wacky, hard to find hostel down a scary-steep road. Then I got distracted by the offer of a free hand-made purse. Mercifully, I didn't have to crawl through any small doors or hatches or tunnels, but it was still a pretty strange dream. I had thought recently that my dream frequency had fallen off, but both this weekend and last weekend had some pretty elaborate ones.

I tried again today to make beef stew. The cooks illustrated version had some good things going for it, but it cost too much, and I didn't really like olives in my stew. I found a similar recipe at the doctor's office, of all places, in the WebMD magazine they had a billion copies of in the waiting room. I risked the germs and brought a copy home and cut out the recipes. I might show some pictures of it tomorrow if I feel inspired, but it looked a lot like the other stew. The key difference was cost and beans. Instead of 3 pounds of meat, it took 1 and two cans of beans (kidney and black - I used "white kidney" beans). It didn't call for $8 mushrooms, or mushrooms of any sort for that matter, but I like them and added half a $3 box. It called for a cup of wine instead of a bottle, but I went with 2 cups and then doubled the broth too, only I used chicken instead of beef because the ethnic stores across the street do sell carrots and chicken stock, but no beef products. I followed the CI assembly order, added in their flour and orange zest, and it worked pretty well, but needed to cook a LOT longer than 90 minutes in the oven, even though it turns out my big oven overtemps by about 20 degrees. Anyway, I can buy the meat pre-cut, I like the beans better than olives, and it was $15 plus wine, not $40. So if I can handle the leftovers, it's a keeper.

Lastly, I stopped in at an open house in my complex today and talked to the realtor there (which is when I found out about the time reset). The place is the exact layout of mine, only upstairs so it has a vaulted ceiling and gets some light even though it also mostly faces north. And lists for 55% of what my condo cost me. My idea is that I buy a cheap place now (if I can) so I at least have one possible moneymaker while I can still get a good price. This realtor knows a mortgage person who'd be willing to talk to me about this. This could be cool.

Lastly for realzers, Jennifer Crusie's new book Wild Ride comes out on Tuesday, and I'm going to go see Suz Brockmann's play Looking for Billy Haynes in a couple weeks. I might be able to see a friend or several in Phoenix this coming weekend after a work trip. So there's good stuff coming.