egg nog recipe

i finally located and scanned the egg nog recipe i made several batches of during the holiday period. thanks to andy, a LIRR guy i worked with in NYC, for giving me his instructions for making this yummy concoction. now you can make it too!

resolutions?

so i was sitting at the bar chatting with a couple of friends on sat night and someone threw out an unsurprising question with an unusual twist. typically this time of year people ask what your resolutions are and this was the gist of the topic, but although i can't remember exactly how the question was posed, it was qualified somewhat like this, "none of this i want to lose ten pounds bullshit, i'm talking real overarching, big picture, life goals for 2010." not that losing 10 pounds isn't a valid target and informally i had thought about trying to do certain things like read more, exercise more regularly, and re-organize myself and my stuff in 2010, but i actually had to sit there and think for a while about how to answer the question. i tried to articulate some ideas a couple of times with minimal success, until i finally came up with something that made sense. yesterday i actually wrote it down, or typed it, anyway while gchatting with a friend, so i thought i'd put it here (ya know, since publicizing things on the interwebs somehow makes me feel more accountable)... so here goes:

"i was sitting there thinking about it... trying to focus my thoughts on goals for the coming year (since 2009 was loosely about restoring the things in my life that bring me joy, but that wasn't really pre-meditated, it kind of formed as a theme as the year went on). and what i came up with was that i'd like to focus on relationships (friends, family, whatever) that are fruitful, not ones that bring me frustration and angst. and to accept that not all people nor my interactions with them will reach the potential that i'd hope for, but that's not anyone's fault, and it's not something i have to fix."  
and there you have it.

cars (and people) can be a pain in the butt

for the second time in 6 months, i have found my car damaged in some way by an unknown person who caused the wreckage and then up and left without so much as an "i'm sorry" note. the first was my side view mirror, broken by someone tearing up 38th street when my car was parked on the street in front of my house (repair = $270). the neighborhood kids were nice enough to place the mirror on my front step so that i knew something had happened as soon as i got home from work.
the second is a pretty significant scratch/dent in the rear left part of the car, above the back wheel, where i'm guessing someone opened their door into my vehicle (with significant force, enough to impact the metal, not just the piece of crap plastic bumper), while it was parked at the mon wharf. this happened yesterday and it really bummed me out. 
my feelings and conclusions about the whole thing: 

1. people are inconsiderate and don't take responsibility for their actions: maybe you don't have money to pay for my car repair, but i would have appreciated some kind of acknowledgment of remorse for messing up something that belongs to me.
2. i love good public transit: yes, single occupancy vehicles make life convenient in some ways, but the cost of gas, insurance, etc.  not to mention the hassle of maintenance and repairs really tip the cost-benefit scales for me... none of this was part of my world when i lived in a place that had trains and buses to take me from virtually any point A to point B to meet my quotidian needs in a relatively timely fashion.  those were the days...
   
3. i always blame myself for things that are not my fault: all that went through my head after seeing the damage was "i shouldn't be driving to work," and "i shouldn't have parked at the wharf," or "did *i* hit something?" why the heck do i always want to point the finger at me?
   
4. hardship is relative: after considering the financial impact and how i might have to adjust my budget for other things in the coming months and how annoying that is, i thought about the earthquake in haiti and how i should count my lucky stars i'm alive and healthy, able to get from one place to another at all.
   

so i'm just going to file a claim with my insurance company and stop feeling bad about my life's woes.

2009 in fortune cookies

i found a bunch of fortunes collected from fortune cookies last year and saved in various places (on the fridge, at my desk at work, in the change purse of my wallet, etc.). presumably if i kept them, i thought they were relevant to my life in some way, so i thought i'd summarize them in a sort of retrospective of 2009. fortunes and captions can be found here.