Lamest Update EVER.

Oh, hey! Hi! Sorry, I've been... kinda busy...with stuff...

Okay, I always have stuff to say, but I haven't been saying it on this blog lately. Sorry for all you regular blog-checkers.

Watching:
Sex and the City. I went in with low expectations, and I was still disappointed. Everything was just off. The pacing was terrible, the writing was worse, for every wonderful, inspired outfit, there was a high-priced trainwreck, and there was the slight problem of Carrie being referred to as 40, after a decade with Big. If I remember correctly, they celebrated her 34th birthday in the first season, also the season she met him, so she should be...44, right? She mysteriously did not manage to age for nearly half the decade. I am sure that there is deeper meaning in that statement, but I can't be bothered. I can't because I have to talk about the happy ending bullshit. Are we still buying the myth that the path to happiness is paved with goddamn diamond rings? I call shenanigans. I don't even want to talk about it anymore.

Also featuring Sarah Jessica Parker, Ed Wood. Tim Burton is a magnificent freak.

Listening:
Lipstick pop-punk heroes The Dollyrots and Go Betty Go. Sometimes a girl just needs a hook, y'know?

Reading:
When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris. This is self-explanatory, right? Everyone already knows? It's funny. zs

I'm also rereading the 7th Harry Potter book, but just on and off because it happens to be laying next to my bed.

Eating:
Cherries. Piles of them. Rainier ones.



Finally, I always show pictures of Miss Thing, because she is slow enough to capture with a camera. Cap'n Jack, not so much. Nearly every shot of him is blurred and out of focus. But I managed to get a pretty great one of him in Juneau. It makes me sad, though, because it's one of those pictures that shows the future.

I always spoil everything.

*SPOILERALERTSPOILERALERTSPOILERALERT*

If for some unfathomable reason, you have been even lamer than me and have yet to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Motherfucking Alien Magnetic Crystal ESP Skull, please feel free to skip this post. Oops, I just spoiled everything.

AREA 51? Steven Spielberg, are you OFF your NUT? I know that there is no hope for George Lucas - JarJar Binks clinched that one for me - but come ON. I can forgive you cracking wise about Indy's age. I can forgive the clumsy and unnecessary love story, because they all have clumsy and unnecessary love stories. I can even forgive you trying to pass Shia "call me Stanley Yelnats" LaBeouf off as a Marlon Brando embracing greaser of a tough, clumsy and unnecessary James Dean biker cap notwithstanding. But interdimensional aliens? Roswell AND the Lines of Nazca? Jesus wept, man. No. No, no, no. I bought your undead, 800 year old Knights Templar and James Bond as Han Solo's dad. I will not have you heap the X-Files on my ever-loving, unsuspecting noggin.

Here are some other places you could have visited: Angkor Wat. Stonehenge. The Buddhas of Bamyan. Atlantis.

And just a couple more points, real quick: 1) I don't believe for a second that a piece of quartz half the size of Harrison Ford's torso could be toted around with such impunity in John Hurt's left hand, which leads me to believe that the inclusions that look like crumpled Saran Wrap are indeed, crumpled Saran Wrap and 2) Indy says with a sense of wonderment about the tourists from the 4th dimension, "They were archaelogists!" No. All those artifacts you found down there were supposed to be contemporary to the period in which our pointy headed friends visited South America. If they were collecting them from study, that would make the aliens ethnologists. If they were just collecting them because, well, you have to bring something back for the girls at the office, because if you don't, that's just rude, then the visitors were morons and the ancient and priceless artifacts were tchotkes.

The fistfight were too much, except the impromptu malt shop rumble, but Cate Blanchett LOVES her job, and Harrison Ford still does most of his own stunts. Damn. Also, props for the age-appropriate love interest, even if it was clumsy and unnecessary. Ditto for the well-groomed pomp on Mutt.

If you are the debunking type, which I (ahem) am, here's interesting reading. And if you are just sad because the mileage included a few too many miles of bad road, here's Indiana Jones like you remember him:

Annie are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay, Annie?

This is the best thing that has happened to me on a Sunday morning in a long, long time.



You're welcome.

(oh, and thanks, Neatorama!)

Come Follow Me

There are a few things which you should not be able to beg, borrow, steal, or purchase. Mostly they are the sorts of things you can't touch. Love, revenge, peace. You know. And for the most part, you can still purchase them or some facsimile. One of the things that seems as though it shouldn't be available for purchase is nostalgia. It is, though, at the bargain price of two not so shiny quarters.

For anyone who doesn't know - if you have lived here in Sitka, you certainly do - there is some sort of dimensional rift in our local thrift store. In among the eleven year old t-shirts smelling faintly of litterbox and the spaghetti stained polyvinyl kitchen implements, I have found pristine 50 year old vintage dresses and brand-new Calvin Klein jeans in my size. Once, I was making a set of hoops for a costume and went in search of a length of heavy cotton. I found three yards of sailmakers' canvas, the ideal fabric for my purpose, within moments of being there. I have purchased an elderly typerwriter, several sets of hot rollers, porcelain teapots, my favorite cowboy boots, and on one memorable occasion, a sweater belonging to me that my ex gave away without my consent. Today, though, takes the cake. I went in looking for a book to while away the Saturday afternoon, and found a piece of my childhood.

My mother bought me several books about fairies and the like when I was a child. To this day she tells me of "my" obsession with them. (It's kind of like "Miss Thing's" obsession with pink.) We had the Brian Froud book, Faeries. Our version was the pop-up book. It was notable mostly because it was filled with brilliantly frightening illustrations of kelpies and pooka, and Green Jenny, who was a hag that lived in the water and had an enormous maw that consumed unwary children. We also owned Wil Huygen's Gnomes, which featured an interior view of a typical dwelling, complete with donut rack. But Come Follow me was not filled with field guide precision or tongue in cheek natural history. It was a gentle anthology of decent children's poetry and stories, with big-headed Japanese watercolor illustrations. I adored it, especially the story about the little girl who loses her red ribbon and has it returned months later by her fairy friend, who finds it tied to a wandering mouse's tail. It still holds a fair amount of pathos for me. When I read it just moments ago, I was overcome with the anxiety of my 4 year old self when Mary cries over her lost hair ribbon, and incredibly relieved when it makes its reappearance. Now to go reread the poem about how to tell an elf from a troll. I think if you can catch them young enough, it has to do with trying to eat their own feet.

MixtapeMixtapeMixtape!

Okay, so this version of Mixtape (does anyone else think this looks like the name of an ancient Aztec city?) is a little different. No theme; instead it's Song Association Mixtape! I'm gonna think of a song, and then one of you guys will post the very first song that comes to mind spurred on by my suggestion, and then somebody else will comment on song #2, and so on and so forth. It'll be fun! C'mon, stop whining. You know this has got to be better than typing random phrases into Wikipedia. Some ground rules: no repeats, since this is hypothetically going to have to listenable, and the songs have to be popular/well-known/recognizable enough that the next person in line can relate to them in some way, shape or form. Otherwise, we stall out, right? Also, I'm naming names: Lacy and Daisy, you guys have to come up with SOMETHING, just cuz I love you and I'm making you do it.


Ready for my first song?


Ready?



Okay, here we go:


Hold On by Wilson Phillips



Three things about this song:
1) Daisy and I listened to this song A LOT in the summer of 1990.
2) I used to really,really, really want to look like Wendy Wilson
3) Chynna Phillips looks like Tasha Yar, which I never noticed until watching this video. And that is your unnecessary ST:TNG reference for today.
I thought she died on Vagra II! My mistake, she went on to a mildly successful singing career!

Last night's dinner

The light in my kitchen was really good yesterday, which means that my pictures looked halfway decent for a change. I shot my dinner because of it, and just glancing at them to get them uploaded is making me kinda hungry. The main course (hah!) was gemelli - crazy twisty pasta - tossed with a little bit of the olive oil/butter/garlic mixture that went on the garlic bread, a little Meyer lemon-scented olive oil, a generous handful of grated Parmesan cheese, and a lot of black pepper. It's in my new bowl that I bought online from Anthropologie. My mother adores Fiestaware, and so that is what we have a cupboard full of. All their bowls, though, are shallow and flat-bottomed, which is useless for everything except salad, so I bought a couple of lovely, bright yellow porcelain bowl with fuschia-colored roses and gilded edges. I lurve them.
I also made some browned garlic spinach by sauteeing three cloves of garlic in 2 T olive oil and 1 T butter. I brushed my little loaf of French bread (over on the left, there) with a bunch of it and then drained the rest of the oil and butter in to the pasta, leaving a little sheen on the pan and all the garlic in the bottom. I threw three good handfuls of baby spinach on top and stirred until the spinach was wilty. Then I sprinkled it with sea salt. It smelled so good that instead of putting it in a bowl and eating it as the same time as the pasta , like a normal grownup, I just ate it right out of the pan. It was heavenly.
And this is a picture that Bea took of me at breakfast this morning. She's still getting the hang if this picture-taking stuff. Plus, she's short.

I Think This May Be a Regular Feature

Watching: BSG. Still. Yeah, it's pretty good. Like, can't peel my eyes away. Also, Girls Rock! Shane and Arne have put together a really good movie, and I have to commend them for being so sensitive and honest with the subject matter.

Listening: Janet Klein and Her Parlor Boys. Naughty 20's ukulele jazz. AKA: my next career move.

Eating: This morning, cheesy garlic biscuits and hardboiled eggs with iced coffee and orange juice.

1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 T. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. cold butter, in chunks
3/4 c. grated sharp cheese
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 T. parsley
3/4 - 1 c. buttermilk or skim milk

In a food processor, add all dry ingredients except parsley. Pulse to combine. Sprinkle with butter. Process until pea-size bits form. Add cheese. Pulse briefly to combine. With processor running, slowly add milk until dough comes together. Bake at 400 F for 20-25 minutes. Eat warm.