Saturday

A quiet day. I haven't been out of the house yet, and as things go, I likely won't be.

Instead, I'm sitting here, leafing through things to read, and thinking about emails. I have a fair number of things to read -- I want to look through Baking Boot Camp again (I finished it this morning), for one; I've also got Eternity Road to read, and a Tony Hillerman collection, and the Michaelanglo biography. There's a David Brin science fiction novel, too, and a couple of other books. Also, theres a couple of articles about financial planning, in general, and 401(k)s, in particular, that I've saved; one of the latter is about a month old, and every time I see it, I think 'I really should read that'. Its not particularly lengthy -- it's just a little intimidating.

I dropped notes to the Culinary Institute and to King Arthur Flour, the other day, both relative to the idea of attending a baking course. I'm sure that I could handle a class at KAF, not so sure about CIA, even though, in response to a note, they did say that any skill level is accepted. From the BBC book, it sounds as if that might technically be true, but the people who actually do go are either professionals or might-as-well-be -- the kind that routinely whip out cakes, breads, and pastries from a kitchen with more gadgets per square inch than the real CIA. In other words, out of my league. So I wondered: what's the real ability level that you need to survive there? To that end, I dropped the woman who wrote BBC a line to ask her opinion. I'd like to be able to bake better -- which is to say, I'd like to be able to bake with a high confidence that what I bake will come out well. I don't need to be able to make or bake elegant pastries or stunning cakes -- I simply want to be able to bake well. If they come out elegant or stunning, thats fine, too, but not my goal.

I'm also thinking about the dental cleaning I have on Monday, and the bone graft surgery in about a month. I'll be glad when thats done, even though it will usher in a month to two months of biting very carefully. Lot of soups, things like that, I expect. But if it takes, then the next step is actually doing the implant installations (two sets), and that will be goodness.

So with all of that to do, what am I doing? A little web surfing, and a fair amount of sitting here with my eyes closed, listening to a quiet tape.