It's a good day. Plasma went well. I'm reading some crap mystery about an alcoholic lawyer defending the impossible client. It's going to take me a few more donations to get through this one, because there are so many other things to look at.

Have tried Blak now. It tastes like that someone took that pot of coffee that's been sitting in the break room since morning -- you know, the dregs of it -- chilled it, and mixed it half-and-half with the Coke that's half real syrup and half artificial sweetener, and then ran it through the carbonation process again just to make sure that it really was fizzy enough. Judging from the ingredients list, that's about exactly what they did.

I have a Cunning Plan to attempt to duplicate or better the recipe when we're out tonight. This depends on a glass of Coke, an empty glass with plenty of ice, and a pot of coffee. Oh, and all the sugar packets on the table.

Ph34r.

Happiness with the whole equinox thing! Yay!

I woke up around eleven-something-ish and did things online. Then I went and gave the plasma. Doing that always invigorates me, because it's doing something good and I get Random Expendable Budget that goes toward writing nights out with the girls, laundry, groceries, fuel, and generally some left over to be completely random with. Like the pastry-oid breakfast for work on Sunday. Dad got paid enough to do impulsive gestures like that on a grander scale (see: "Seismic Salad"), and while I can't do that, I can definitely show the love with bagels, doughnuts, muffins, and Danish.

(I've said it before and I'll likely say it again, but one thing Dad is really good at is figuring out what people really want, and making it happen. Not necessarily their deepest dreams, and he doesn't cheat at cross-ball, but when he can arrange something simple that would bring joy to someone's life, he does.)

I've been reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test while giving plasma for the last couple weeks, because that's the best chance I have to read un-interrupted. It's a fascinating book. I'm sure it was a profoundly weird era to have lived through.

Construction on the Phoenix Metro light rail is intense, especially in the three-mile zig-zag from Bethany Home and 19th Ave down to Camelback, over to Central, and down to Indian School. I love the concept, especially given that I use public transit so much, but I have mixed feelings about driving through all the construction. But it's so exciting to see it in progress!

I wound up in Target. I found a GE telephone headset for a reasonable price. I took a look at the rubber wrist strap jump drives, but I was a good girl. I eyed one of the inexpensive guitars longingly (again), but I was still -- a good girl. I was profoundly shocked and amused to see a $20 cellphone that takes prepaid cards. I guess I've been out of touch with the cellphone market, because the last time I saw disposable cellphones they were in something cyberpunk and then hot girls were walking out of convenience store fabricators. Granted, the $20 cellphone was dinky and played like a really cheap calculator on the display model.

But.
This is science fiction. It was science fiction in 2000. This is 2006. Granted, that was a near-future type story, but it was a 20-years-from-now near-future type story. That's a quarter of the time.

The new headset feels like a work headset, except the microphone seems to be nicer, and the plug doesn't quite fit into the jack just right. And the work headsets have a conventional telephone receiver plug, RJ-11, rather than the teenytiny ones that are measured by inches or centimeters or whatever.

Came home to find that I'd somehow managed to whack the espresso machine on, and it doesn't have a safety cutoff switch. Nothing was on fire, but the box of chocolate covered espresso beans that had been parked on top of it had grown slumped and internally sticky. I switched it off and hoped for the best. I fear it's ruined forever. It has a profound smell of overheated equipment about it. I'm just glad nothing caught on fire.

Then I wound up going over to visit trystan_laryssa and her new computer. Her computer is an Acer, just like Allegra. Well, a couple generations removed from Allegra. It was nice to have brand recognition. Her computer has a 10-key pad. So. Jealous.

Fruits Basket, yay.

Taking trystan_laryssa to school after we wake up -- the matriarch of the household usually does the rides, but as she's got another engagement this morning, she's out of the running, and I'm in.

So, I sleep.

Things I have to deal with on a regular basis:

CIVIL ENGENIOOR BUILDING HOUSE'S
THEY NEED TO ADUCTED MORE ON A PARTICULA OBSERVATION

I am using Net Send irresponsibly at work to pass
notes to figment0.

Spreadsheets are my friends. So's coffee. I plan to
get home, fall flat on my face, call Darkside, and do
my laundry. I wanna go hooooooome.

Every now and then, the creative urge strikes, and I hit the kitchen. I am not, technically, any kind of trained gourmet cook. What I am is a Lunatic with an appreciation for good food, a knowledge of the basic working principles of cooking (thank you, Mama), and a willingness to experiment, bearing in mind that some of the experiments might not come out so well.

Today, at 11:30 am, the monitors' retirement party for the lady who's retiring in November happens. (It's a surprise. The e-mail said it's a monitor meeting. The paper invitations that got passed out detail that it's actually a party, who it's for, and what to bring.) We were detailed to bring "finger foods" -- and since I don't want to get up early enough to be able to make it to the store, and I have mentioned that I do make these things occasionally to my salivating co-workers, I opted to make truffles.

I've made two kinds. The first kind is the tried-and-true Irish Cream truffle, where the two ingredients are Irish Cream and semi-sweet chocolate chips. I think I didn't add enough Irish Cream this time, because while they're tasty, they're hardly knee-melting. I melt chocolate chips, pour in Irish Cream, and stir until the thing becomes firm. Then I ball up the boozy chocolate, chill it, then dip it in more melted semi-sweet chocolate chips.

The second kind is an experimental coffee liqueur truffle. I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips, mixed in a certain amount of Turkish-ground coffee, then added coffee liqueur. I shaped, chilled, and dipped the centers in the usual manner. They are tasty. I'll have to do this again.

I had some melted chocolate left over, so I broke out the cherries that have been sitting in rum since February. These are the store-bought maraschino cherries rather than my own stock. I discovered that unfortunately the cherry flavor has diminished, and there is too much rum content and not enough sugar. I dipped them anyway, just to see how they'll do. I broke out the tea jug of my cherries, and scooped up some of the sugar sediment to add to the rum cherries. I think what I'm going to do is drain out the cherry-juice rum and stick it in a bottle or something, then add sedimental sugar and the cherry syrup from the cherries I prepared this summer, to see if the rum cherries can't be salvaged. I strained out my prepared cherries from the tea jug and put them in another container to save space now that they've absorbed all the sugar they're going to absorb.

The cherries have shriveled up, raisin-style, almost. I don't think they'll be suitable for the way I usually have been dipping cherries. Now I'm wondering if I can use an ice cube tray to prepare chocolate forms to make cordial cherries. That could be interesting!