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[Jul. 18th, 2008|09:05 pm] |
Tonight I made a trial run of a possible dessert for the Theatre@First one-acts: strawberries with the center hollowed out and then filled with cheesecake batter. For the actual event I'll dip them in chocolate, too, but tonight I mostly just wanted to see how easy it would be to carve them and stuff them, and how they'd taste.
As it happens, they taste VERY good. :) |
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[Jul. 17th, 2008|10:38 pm] |
My hometown's having it's "World's Fair" this weekend.
The events include a pig scramble, a skillet throw contest, an Oreo cookie stack contest, a potato salad stir-off, and "the tractor back seat driver contest, where one blindfolded child drives while another sitting behind him calls out directions."
I see no way that this will not end well.
P.S. Oh! Bonus! The fairground is on the steepest hill in town! |
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[Jul. 15th, 2008|09:08 am] |
True fact: I love killdeer.
I grant, this might partly be because when I saw them this morning we'd already had breakfast and coffee at my local coffeeshop's outdoor table, complete with a server coming around with samples of their new mango-banana smoothie and coupons for a free one. So with that AND a caffeine high under my belt AND the fact that I was walking along the river watching crew boats paddle past instead of being in a car stuck in the rotary where four lanes were trying to merge down to 1...suffice it to say that I was feeling love and goodwill (and schadenfreude) towards all creatures furred and feathered.
Apart from that, though, killdeer are awesome.( Read more... ) |
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[Jul. 14th, 2008|10:53 am] |
Oh, Stillman Farms. I want to love them, I really do. I love the thought of just going to the farmer's market each week, buying some local organic meat, and eating some local organic meat.
There's just one problem, and it's this: I seem to be totally unable to try to buy something from them without it turning into Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch.
Here's how events transpired this Saturday. I went up to their booth. Before I did, I (remembering other occasions) took the time to study their hand-written sign. I repeat: hand-written, looked like it had been drawn up fresh that day. It listed about a dozen different types of meat. This gave me false hope.
ME: Hello. I would like some ham steaks, please.
CLERK: Sorry, we don't have those today.
ME: Ah. Bacon?
CLERK: Nope, all our smoked meat is in New York. Mostly what we have today is sausage.
(A-ha, thinks I. A Clue.)
ME: Great! I'll have some of your Italian sweet sausage.
(Pause while they rummage in the cooler)
CLERK: Nope, we're out.
It's at this point that the balalaika music begins playing in my head.
CLERK: We do have hot sausage! (handing me some)
ME: (handing it back) Thanks, but no.
CLERK: Kielbasa?
ME: Yes. YES. Just...yes. God yes.
If all my food purchases went like this, I'd be 75 pounds lighter. Or dead. |
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[Jul. 9th, 2008|01:29 pm] |
Ohhhhh man, it's a rocky day today. I was up all night because I, of all things, *ate ice cream* before bed. For future reference, when the carton says 'Mocha Java' the key word is java, as in coffee, as in BIRDS? SHUT UP BIRDS ITS TOO EARLY I HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED TO FEEL TIRED YET AAAAA I STEPPED IN THE DOG'S WATER DISH AGAIN.
So um where was I?
Rocky. Yes. That's it.
Fortunately, I guess, it's slow at work. My big project today is learning all the lyrics to "Put On Your Sunday Clothes". It's been stuck in my head since we saw WALL-E on Friday, and the only thing worse than a normal earworm is an earworm where you don't know a single word, no not one, and no matter how loving and tolerant your spouse is, listening to you scat sing it over and over, not even aware you're doing it, OH how that can test a marriage.
In fact, come to think of it, it's been since I started doing it that the waterbowl's started to migrate at night.
Nahhh. Coincidence.
Oh! Have I mentioned that Toby's intestinal whatsit has blown over, and he's back to whatever passes for normal? It's true! I could go on for about 2000 words about how happy his poo makes me these days, but even in my condition of total sleep-dep I still can recognize that as a bad idea. And now D and I, against all logic, are thinking of the imaginary money we didn't spend at the vet as 'found money'. Like, "let's celebrate by buying $3000 worth of pie and clean socks!" found money. This is a dangerous time, financially.
Okay. Back to lyrics and googling for tattoo ideas. |
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| An Open Letter |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|10:46 am] |
Dear Hollywood Folks Who Make These Decisions,
Please be advised, when you issue DVD collections of TV comedy series, that I would happily pay an extra $5 for the option to turn the laugh track off.
Dear Folks Issuing the Muppet Show Collections,
Make it $20. |
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[Jul. 3rd, 2008|11:02 am] |
Today on Flickr I found pictures of Portland, Maine's Third Annual Zombie Kickball event.
No, seriously.
My heart is full of love. |
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| Squee, I sez. Also, kawaii. |
[Jul. 2nd, 2008|03:07 pm] |
Audible.com has an audiobook of Hugh Laurie reading Finn Family Moomintroll.
HUGH LAURIE. FINN FAMILY MOOMINTROLL.
Oh my. |
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[Jul. 2nd, 2008|09:51 am] |
Last night all 8 of the short play groups who're part of the Theatre@First Summer Festival got together to perform in front of each other for the first time. It was so good! I LOVE everyone in my crew and think we have a great energy together (and I'm proud to report that after hard work and hours of practice, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) brief_life and I were able to successfully do a fist bump. Yes, we are JUST THAT WHITE).
It was also really fascinating seeing all the plays as a group, both for the enjoyment factor (I need to pause and note that I had no idea that urban_faerie_ was so good at physical comedy) and for the insights it gave--you can't watch 8 pieces by the same writer without coming away with a better sense of how his mind works. (Or hearing surrealestate's voice in your head. Same thing, nearly.)
Speaking of how minds do and don't work, in real life I have almost no connection with Brandeis University. So why was my dream last night like a recruitment ad for it? First there were the flamingo flocks I walked through in the parking lot, then the floating mountains connected by rope bridges where the classes were held, and then when I went into the coffeeshop everyone yelled my name like I was Norm from 'Cheers'.
I remember blurting out "Wow! I feel like Doctor Who!" I have NO IDEA what I meant. |
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| Weekend, part II: The Bad |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|02:31 pm] |
Yeah, the weekend's low points: let's just say I've spent much, MUCH more time contemplating every step of my dog's digestive system than I ever wanted to. For a very scary 24-hour period, he wasn't holding food down for more than an hour and spent all his time outside eating grass.
One thing that's really helped keep us from utterly losing our minds is the fact that he went through the exact same thing at this time last year. That time, D googled his symptoms and reached a diagnosis of E Coli, we took him to the vet, they examined him thoroughly and told us it was a normal thing that'd work its way through his system but just to be on the safe side they should keep him in their overnight facility on an IV drip for a few days, the experience of being in a cage with tubes and a cone and whimpering keening dogs on every side sent him into a state of utter tharn, and long story short in four days all three of us were total wrecks AND we'd spent enough money to pay for a very nice semester at a community college.
So this time we're trying a slightly different approach. Watching him carefully (but not obsessively NO REALLY), keeping his food bland, keeping the apartment cool and crossing our fingers that the humid weather breaks soon.
It should be noted that while something like this is going on, watching House or any other medical show is a BAD IDEA. Any show where there're puzzling symptoms and the possible causes get more strange and elaborate? No. Not unless you LIKE looking at your pet and thinking, "Was he exposed to foxes? Could it be lupus? Maybe he ate an anticid off the street and then got exposed to some moldy cheese? Maybe an MRI..." |
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| This weekend: the good things |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|11:47 am] |
This weekend was...colorful...enough that I feel the need to break it down into two posts! In this one, lucky readers, you get the high points.
On Saturday D and I went down to Plymouth to visit with hazeleyedfae. We wandered along the shore peeking at wee crabs and watching terns hover-hover-hover-DIVE, were appropriately appalled in the giftshops, got to Ye Really Really Olde Cemetary just as the fog rolled in, *and* I found a snack hut which sold stuffed quahogs *and* Moxie.
For the record, stuffed quahogs taste like Stove Top Stuffing. Moxie continues to taste like the lifeblood of aliens.
Also for the record, hazeleyedfae is friendly and cool and extremely fun to hang out with.
Sunday morning I ran in my second-ever 5K! ("Ran" being a very loose, general term that encompasses jogging, shuffling, wheezing, sidling and very small amounts of cantering.) It was the New Charles River Run (there's that word again), which had several things going for it: it was close to home, it was flat, it was along the river, and it was early in the day. So afterwards I didn't spend 12 hours sitting in front of a fan and a TV, wheezing and slowly drinking juice, because I was a lazy slug, no no noooooo, I only did it because I was recuperating from my 5K.
That is my story, and I'm sticking to it. |
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[Jun. 27th, 2008|09:55 am] |
You might think that the best sort of competition is the one where the other player doesn't even know they're playing.
You'd think that...until you consistently realize you're losing.
My sister and I both love birds. It's the one thing that's bred true down four generations of my family. And here's the thing: as sure as night follows day, whenever I tell my sister about a neat sighting, she comes back with one that totally blows me out of the water.
December.
ME: I saw a bald eagle on the drive up here, no more than fifty feet away, just perched on a branch by the side of I-95!
SISTER: Oh neat! Yeah, we see them sometimes along the river. Hey, notice these tracks in the snow?
ME: The big ones? All over your front yard?
SISTER: Yeah, wild turkeys! They like to come and hang out under the birdfeeder.
May.
ME: Oh hey, check out this blurry picture--there's a pair of orioles living near the house! We think they have a nest over by the geese!
SISTER: Oh, awesome! Hey, speaking of nest, look up.
ME: Are those....robins? Baby robins? In a nest a foot away from your bedroom window?
SISTER: I know! They're so cute!
So now it's June, and thanks to a visitor last week I'm armed with this picture:
And I'm going to send it to her, and I know, I just KNOW when I do I'm going to get a photo back in fifteen minutes of her hand-raising a dodo chick, along with a "Hey, turns out they're not extinct after all! And they can talk! Who knew? LOL! :) " note.
Or maybe I overthink things. |
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| Wow. Also, WoW. |
[Jun. 16th, 2008|03:49 pm] |
First and most importantly, this:
Besides that...oh, wait, hold on-- OMG SO TINY!!! :D...okay, I think I'm under control for a second--any WoWers on Kirin Tor? Now that we have a computer that doesn't emit smoke and die every time there are more than four moving objects onscreen, I'm tentatively poking around Burning Crusade a little.
P.S. TINY!!!! |
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| From Sesame Street to Musical Hell in 1 easy post |
[Jun. 12th, 2008|10:38 am] |
Thank you for all your song suggestions! I've been downloading as fast as I can. :)
I've already had a bad experience, though. I was on iTunes looking for versions of "Put Down the Duckie", the Sesame Street classic. They only had two versions, neither one the official one. There was a ska cover, cool enough. And then there was Bob's Favorite Street Songs, where Bob McGrath, for his sins, was apparently locked in a recording studio and forced to sing all the Sesame Street songs with only a canned synth for accompaniment.
But this was just the herald for the badness yet to come, the Silver Surfer of bad childrens music. For I made the mistake of scrolling down to read the 'Listeners Also Bought' column. And then I not only read the title Lullaby Renditions of U2, but thinking "Oh, surely not..." I clicked on it.
To paraphrase Justice Stewart's quote about hard-core porn, it's hard for me to define obscenity but I know it when I hear it. And I heard it when I listened to the lullaby version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday".
But wait, it got worse. Much, much worse. Because I looked up the people who made this atrocity and it turns out it's an entire genry. For 'alternadads', folks in search of horrifying gag gifts, and people who think muzak is too abrasive and hardcore, Baby Rock Records (www.babyrockrecords.com) has been busily neutering and gutting rock hits since 2006. Coldplay. The Pixies. Nirvana. The fucking RAMONES, and I bet that's how the whole thing started, I bet somewhere in Transylvania someone in a white lab coat with an oversized brain and a collection of fish-men in the basement rubbed his hands together and said "Igor, I have had a diabolical idea! I shall buy the rights to "I Wanna Be Sedated", turn it into a lullaby, and thereby make it an actual sedative! But wait--I shall create a cover with a logo which reads...wait for it...GABBA GABBA GOO GOO! Mwah-ha! Mu-hu-ha-haaa!! MWU-HU-HA-HAAAA!!!"
(Seriously. http://www.rockabyebabymusic.com/web/mp3/9622/Track02_I%20Wanna%20Be%20Sedated.mp3)
WHAT THEY SAY: "Rockabye Baby! transforms timeless rock songs into beautiful instrumental lullabies. The soothing sounds of the glockenspiel, vibraphone, melltoron and other instruments will lull your baby into a sweet slumber."
WHAT THEY MEAN: "Hey musicians! Every performance you do for two drunks in a dive bar, every road trip in a crappy van that smells like burritos, every time an audience throws a bottle at you or turns their back on you to watch a pool game or vomit on your amps, just remember IT COULD BE SO MUCH WORSE. Because we're out there. Oh yes. Every hour you're practicing in your garage, every hour when you're watching that Eddie Van Halen video in slo-mo trying to figure out how the hell he does those tapping harmonics is an hour you're not spent chained to a glockenspiel in our basement trying to suck all the life and emotion out of a Kurt Cobain song! There IS a Hell for Musicians, and we're it!" |
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| Question for you |
[Jun. 11th, 2008|03:06 pm] |
I've been trying to broaden my musical horizons and make my iPod more interesting. My first idea was to go to the '500 Greatest Albums of All Time' list that Rolling Stone magazine put out, which wasn't a bad idea except that, well, it was put out by Rolling Stone magazine.
And then it hit me: you're smart, creative people. And you friended me, so we must have *something* in common. And your combined musical knowledge is a force to be reckoned with! So, dear friend list:
What 1 song do you recommend I load into my iPod, and why?
P.S. Stand-up comedy routines are also acceptable. |
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| Notes from a Graduation |
[Jun. 10th, 2008|10:08 pm] |
My nephew graduated this weekend from Fryeburg Academy. It was held indoors, in their new gym, and the AC gave up about 30 minutes into the two hour ceremony. I took notes for this post as the proceedings droned on, as a way to keep myself from passing out.
Note 1: 'Pomp and Circumstance' is being played by a single pianist?!? WTF? The whole POINT of having a concert band is so you can chain them into their seats and force them to play the damn thing for the first three years of their high school career.
Not that I'm still bitter.
And not that the 2nd flute part is one of the most boring pieces of music ever inflicted on woodwind players or anything. Though it is. "Duh duh duuuuuuuh, fuh fuh fuhhhhhhh, duhhhhh duhhhhh fuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh".
Note 2: There are awkward first names to have in a small Maine town, and then there's "Jihad". Oh wow. Good luck in life, Jihad Hasan. Ordinarily I'd save my WTF moment for whoever named their child "Talon", but you're head and shoulders beyond that.
Note 3: No commencement speaker. Huh. Instead they have 3 "Class Speakers", graduating seniors.
Oh boy, they're communicating entirely through in-jokes and shout-outs to their friends. Speaker A: "I promise, this speech is gonna be shorter than Nathan Richardson!" THIS won't get old.
Speaker B:"...and I also want to salute Mr. Otrowski, who had a Simpsons quote for every occasion..." Ohmigod, I might have been wrong.
Speaker C: "...and I look forward to going to Broadway and seeing Jen Greer on stage, while Billy Hsu plays in the band..." GAAAH MAKE THEM STOP MAKE THEM STOP
Note 3: Just past the one hour mark. I think the temperature in the room just hit 100. Oh goodie, awards. This'll be brief. They can't have more than what, five?
Note 3a: Uh-oh, they're bringing up the head of the board of trustees to announce a new award. It's for alumni blahblah...wait, what? Living and DEAD?
Note 3b: 1000 PEOPLE TRAPPED IN AN OVEN AND YOU'RE GIVING OUT AWARDS TO DEAD PEOPLE? You know what's nice about giving out awards to dead people? THEY DON'T MIND IF YOU WAIT FOR A YEAR WITH LOW TEMPERATURES!
Note 3c: One hour, 30 minutes. 11 dead people have (somehow) received awards, including the guy who invented Hopalong Cassidy. If I die from the heat, do I qualify for one?
Note 4: The t-shirt of the man in front of me reads "Vegetarian: Old Indian word meaning Bad Hunter". Not Jihad's dad, I'm guessing.
Note 5: If I had one of those Italian Slush pushcarts and wheeled it up and down the aisles right now, I'd be a county-wide hero. And RICH. |
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| Faces of Boston, June |
[Jun. 6th, 2008|09:28 am] |
spookyhandle busking in Quincy Market.
Baby geese taking over the Memorial Drive sidewalk.
Hawk near BU Bridge
Street sign summing up the experience of trying to cross Comm. Ave. |
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[Jun. 1st, 2008|08:11 pm] |
When D and I talk about what we'll do if we win the lottery, some of our ideas are...I won't say diametrically opposed, it's not like she wants to tear the ticket up or donate the money to Al Jihad...but we disagree on a few small points. Once we're past the 1) pay off all our debts and 2) anonymously establish trust funds for a number of friends and family so *they* don't have to worry about money parts, D tends to lean towards 3) establishing a modest trust fund (like 30K a year) apiece and going on working at our jobs as if nothing had happened.
Which is fine, don't get me wrong, except for the very limited amount of money, the continuing to work, and the lack of fun.
And by "fun" I mean "getting a jetpack and flying over the elementary school at recess time dropping hundreds of $5 bills and laughing like a maniac".
Um. To name one, totally random example.
Anyhow, every now and then I need to reassure her that we could, once rich, quit our jobs and still live productive lives. Although I don't think she's so worried about herself, because often in these talks I find myself specifically reassuring her that I could resist buying a television the size of our wall, *every* game console, about 900 DVDs, and spending so much time in front of a screen I develop the pale grey skin usually only seen on the underbellies of cave fish. "No no," I say in response. "You know what I'd do if I never had to work? I'd volunteer. At a no-kill shelter. I'd walk the dogs and play with the kitties." And that ends the conversation because how can someone argue with that? (Especially when I don't mention the part about how the pets who don't get adopted will come hang out on my Nantucket-sized ranch and live their lives in happy comfort because HELLO I'M RICH)
But here's the other path I can see myself getting lured down if independently wealthy, and it's something I've never told anyone:
I could totally be one of those eccentric birdwatchers who get up at dawn and travel around the world just checking out different species.
I like birds. I really do. They're complicated little critters but not TOO complicated, if you get what I mean? Like, I've never walked away from an encounter with a bird going "What the hell was THAT about?"* I have just about enough perception to tell whether your average flock of geese is getting along well or not. Humans are trickier.
Today in the same tree where I saw my first-ever catbird on Friday, I watched two orioles (again, the first I'd ever seen) trying to intimidate a red-tailed hawk off his perch. From the way they were freaking out they must have a nest nearby. The hawk was busy watching the geese down below and didn't seem to care less. Meanwhile the local starling fledglings are at that awkward stage where they've left the nest but still aren't too clear on how to get food besides sitting very still and then freaking out when momma gets close; our local sparrows, a couple steps behind them in the whole process, are doing some amazing mating dances where the male leans forward and hops around the female while he flicks his tail like someone trying to crack an invisible whip, and a killdeer has figured out that the riverbank by the water treatment building and its barbed wire fence is a fairly safe place to build a home. And that's all in three blocks!
So this is my only hint, because D and I have sworn that if we win the lottery we're going to avoid the media and stay completely anonymous: if a trust fund for you appears out of nowhere and I start making lots of entries about whooping crane sightings, you'll know what's up.
*This is possibly because I haven't spent much time with ravens. |
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[May. 27th, 2008|06:36 pm] |
Ow! A glass broke while i was doing dishes, specifically while I was sticking my hand inside, and a nice long tho shallow v-shaped divot got gouged in my index finger. I've wrapped it in gauze, taped it and elevated it, and hopefully that'll be enough. So now I'm typing this one-handed while my other arm is propped on cushions, finger telling the world we're number one.
Sigh.
It would have to be my primary hand.
It would have to be the day before my computer class. |
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