It’s that time again – Time for the Big Game !  The Game to end all Games !

That’s right, I’m talking Puppy Bowl VII.

The perfect paws between the Eukanuba Nationals and the upcoming Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show this Valentine’s day, Feb 14th & 15th.

And don’t imagine you can go to the kitchen after the second quarter, or you’ll miss the Kitten Halftime Show.

I dunno about you, but since the Seattle Seahawks aren’t in the other big game on Sunday, you’ll find me watching Puppy Bowl VII.

Happens every year, ‘round this time. Usually in February, so maybe I’m a little early this time.

The holidays are over, we only have one more coming up, in February, President’s Day, which is no big thrill but it’s a three-day weekend. So there’s nothing really to look forward to now except for Spring, and sadly, that’s a ways off still.

So it’s pointless. It’ll be another few months in coming, but still I’ll spend the time wandering around saying “I’m ready for Spring, dammit.”  Which won’t bring it along any quicker.  It’ll drive everyone around me nuts, though. I guess there’s that to look forward to.

We had snow, a whole whopping 4 inches, 10 in some places. It lasted an entire 12 hours!

Seriously. It was awesome.  Didn’t start falling from the sky until after dark, then when I got up to go to work, there were 4” on the ground, 6” in some spots, and it was raining.  The Beetle never would have made it off the hill, so I drove the Beast, and damn that was fun, I gotta say.  It was my first time driving a 4-wheel drive SUV through piles of snow, and I was grinnin’ like an idiot the entire way to work.

I tell ya, that SUV paid for itself in that one morning commute.  I’ll never stress out about snow driving again. No more sitting up nights, worried that I can’t get the car out of the alley. I won’t nearly wet myself slipping and sliding that Beetle down the snow route to the bay, being driven by other people’s tracks and turning the car into a snow plow whenever more than 3 inches fell.  You wouldn’t believe how low-riding those Beetles are.  You don’t notice it until snow falls, and you’re pushing through it instead of driving over it like everyone else.

Anyway, that was fun, for those 12 hours.  By the time I got off work that day, it was all gone. Turned to rain that became floods and mudslides everywhere, but that never affects my neighborhood. I live on the top of a hill, overlooking the bay, not one of those steep banks that slide INTO the bay.

So now that’s all we have to look forward to till July 5th. Rain, the occasional sun break, and more rain.  Which I love, don’t get me wrong. I was born here, and I love the rain and grey skies that match the grey water.  It’s all worthwhile when those sun breaks come along, trust me.

The only bit I get bored with is the ugly. Stuff that changes colors in the fall is now brown and soggy. There’s mud everywhere. Everything’s soggy.  It makes you yearn for Spring flowers, and the anticipation of a new season.

I love the seasons, and thankfully we get all four here. The transitions are the best, when Spring is just coming, or Summer is just getting started, and when Autumn becomes Fall, then Winter is creeping up.

You watch, though. Summer will get here when it gets here, and halfway into it, I’ll be whining about the heat, and begging for Fall.

But right now, I’m ready for Spring, dammit.

If you know me, you know I’m Lactose Intolerant.

I’m SO lactose intolerant, I’ve been known to swear at cows. It’s has been an issue with me since I was 20, and without letting on how old I am, let’s just say I’ve learned to live with for some time now.

People like me can eat anything Vegan, thankfully that’s pretty popular around the Pacific Northwest. Also anything Kosher listed as Parve. There’s a great market in Poulsbo that has nice Vegan and Kosher sections.

Over the years, the soy world has made great strides, and you can get amazing soy products beyond just soy milk that taste (to me) just like the real thing. Granted, I haven’t tasted the real thing in so long, I’m probably not the best judge of that.

But I’m talkin’ really good soy milk, soy ice cream, soy cream cheese, soy sour cream, soy cheese. There’s even a German product that’s soy whipped cream, in the fancy dispenser squirty can just like the real thing. They even make a really good soy yogurt that — while no more than about five flavors — at least taste really good.  Sure, you have to stir them up to make sure there aren’t any tofu clumps that might turn you off, but that’s fine. Tofu has no taste, you understand, so if there are clumps it’s just your own mental state that might take issue. Since I have serious texture issues with things like Tapioca or Rice Pudding, I stir the yogurt.

For the most part, I don’t miss all the old dairy stuff.  Milk, ice cream, milk-chocolate, cheese . . . Okay, the cheese is an issue when eating out, but you just deal with it and find other menu items to enjoy.  (And can I just add – seriously, people, you don’t need a pizza with extra cheese, with more cheese stuffed in the crust. You may never poop again) But I can order a take-and-bake pizza (Papa Murphy, I adore you) sans cheese, bring it home and add soy cheese, and enjoy a great pizza.  The teenagers behind the counter have even stopped gaping at me when I order a large Canadian bacon and tomato, no cheese.

“Whaddaya mean, no cheese?”

“I mean please don’t put cheese on the pizza, thank you.”

“But I don’t . . .I mean, it’s pizza.”

And I can use soy ingredients to make my own version of Ranch salad dressing, my favorite. Soy milk can be substituted for regular milk straight across in any recipe, and there’s even a to-die-for soy pudding now.

The one thing I’ve been really frustrated with are those Yoplait Light Yogurt commercials, where the woman is telling her friend all the wonderful things she’s eating and still losing weight. Yogurts that taste like Lemon Meringue Pie, Boston Cream Pie, Red Velvet Cake, Raspberry Cheesecake.

Soy yogurts don’t come in those flavors.

Well during my internet travels, I’ve come upon several cow-swearing sites that claim we can eat regular yogurt, so long as it contains Active Live Cultures – because those little buggers are digesting the lactose for you. Plus, like cheese, during the creation of the yogurt, the lactase enzyme is removed, only unlike cheese, they don’t put it back in.

Unwilling to risk it, I got my sister to try a regular yogurt, she’s intolerant too but she has a higher threshold than I do.

And she really misses yogurt !

So she did.  She ate one, and we waited.

And waited a bit more.

The next day, she ate another, and we waited.

We did this for a week, she’d have a regular yogurt once a day, and low and behold she didn’t get sick!

So I decided to give it a shot, and while it still surprises me, I didn’t get sick.

Now we’re buying those Yoplait Light flavors every week, having one a day (occasionally a second one as an evening snack, since hell, they’re only 100 calories) and neither of us has gotten sick.

And damn, these things are great!  They seriously do taste exactly how they claim, which is probably all due to chemistry and science, but who the hell cares, they’re Yummy!

Now if only I could figure out a really tasty milk-free fudge. . .

RIP Leslie Nielsen.

Amazing, talented, wacky man. You probably think of Airplane, or Naked Gun, but for me, Forbidden Planet is the first thing to come to mind.  If you’ve never seen that, get over to Netflix and order it right now.

I’ll wait.

So, I thought ahead and took this week off from work – which was actually only 3 days of annual, because we get Thanksgiving and the day after anyway, but I had time to use up and I though “Hey, this’ll be fun. I’ll take this week off, and we can play and have fun before Thanksgiving.”

Monday, it started to snow – no big deal, we had the new SUV, we’d be set.

Monday afternoon, the wind started to blow.  And I don’t mean it was breezy – I mean we had gusts up to 70mph and below freezing temps. We got home from our appointments and errands, thankfully we were hungry enough to make dinner early – just got comfy on the couch to listen to the massive gusts of wind when . . .

The power went out.

Now, it’s not that big a deal – our house runs on natural gas, so we had heat, we had hot running water, and we had a stove top to cook food. We were just a tad bored because no matter how many (battery operated) candles we turned on, it wasn’t enough to read comfortably by, and in the dark I couldn’t write, so we turned on the transistor radio until we were bored enough to just call it quits and go to bed.

The wind continued – gusting so violently it was beginning to get nerve wracking.  Then, at midnight, the power came back on !  Oh happy – BOOM!  Just as we were looking out the back window, the fuse box on the pole behind our house exploded violently (although I’m not sure an explosion can be non-violent)  I was sure I could see a tree branch on the wires coming/going from that pole, and there were sparks and cinders coming off.

So like a good (read: scared) citizen, I called the power company, waited on hold for ten minutes, then told the operator what I’d seen.  About ten minutes later, we decided we should call the fire department, since these cinders were massive and glowing and floating away on the wind.  My sister called 911 and we told them what we could see. Thirty minutes later, the power went off again, but during the night I saw a fire truck come down with a spotlight and look at the branch. Apparently they determined it was no immediate threat, because nothing was done. They drove off and the wind continued to blow.

By morning, the wind had stopped, and by the light of the day, this is what we found.

The house behind ours is a rental, and the occupant is on vacation.  We spent all day Tuesday without power, and then after dark we noticed crews pulling up with massive trucks. My sister and I pulled two dining room chairs into the kitchen in front of the large windows, got comfortable with some hot tea and munchies, and watched the men work for three and a half hours. It was entertaining, although since we couldn’t hear what they were saying, we had to make up our own dialog.

We called the kitchen windows our Flat Screen, dubbed the dialog of all the men working, even added some sound effects, a plot, a few sub plots…. after they finished, we went to bed and they drove a block down to the next tree down.

By 5 am, we had power again!

And that is my Thanksgiving Story for 2010.  Hope you have a happy one, too.