The temperature has been above freezing for most of the day. That, coupled with intense sunshine, has produced a lovely thaw and water is running freely off buildings, down roads and most importantly, off sidewalks. I took the opportunity to walk for about an hour, taking the long way to the embassy. Once I arrived I knew something was up since they made me show them my badge and they compared it to names on a list. I was allowed in and the first thing I saw was a parked motorcade of about 25 vehicles, mostly SUVs and Minivans. They had little signs on them with the emblem of the Vice-President of the USA, and then I remembered that Biden was going to be here for a few days visiting with Medvedev and Putin and others.
The embassy was jumping with lots of press people, tons of secret service agents, many people from the VP’s staff and all of them on their cell phones. I went into the Liberty Store and did my modest shopping only to end up behind a line of about twelve secret service guys, all purchasing lots of hard liquor and candy bars. Nothing makes me feel better than to know that the secret service lives on booze and candy bars and that my tax dollars go towards them taking cases of booze back to Washington on Air Force Two.
The morning was spent doing lots of little chores that had accumulated while I was gone. Cleaning filters, washing and filling humidifiers, doing a few loads of laundry and trying to catch up on email and work related odds and ends on the computer. I put the treadmill through its paces this morning and it works a lot better than I do. I was tired after only seven minutes but I’m motivated to use it every day and shed a few pounds. The bench part of it is very nice but since we have no room I can’t use the bench for any exercising since my arms keep hitting the wall.
Last night I was too tired to go to the store to shop so I looked in the fridge and found some nice frozen tuna fillets. I defrosted them in warm water - they are vacuumed packed which makes that task easy - and set them in a shallow bowl of lemon juice. While they ‘cooked’ in the juice, I cut up carrots, onions, garlic, red pepper and zucchini and got them ready to stir-fry in the wok. I cut up some potatoes and placed them in a saucepan ready to boil. About twenty minutes before we were ready to eat, I cooked the potatoes and started stir-frying the vegetables. I seasoned them with turmeric, chili peppers, curry, and salt and pepper. Just before they were ready I added about a quarter of a cup of Jamaican jerk marinade and stirred things up before transferring them to a serving bowl. The potatoes were done so I drained them and added a mixture I had made earlier of finely chopped parsley, garlic and black pepper to the saucepan until the garlic was lightly browned. For the tuna, I got the wok very hot and threw in the fillets for about two minutes on each side and brought them hot and tasty to the table. It was fun to cook for Cindy and to just have time to sit and enjoy one another again.
Ciao for now, Cindy and Wm
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