Too Snarky For Her Own Good

Shhhh...

2011-01-10T03:40:00.000-08:00

...Don't tell anyone, but I'm creeping back into the blogsphere. I think. I know, I've been gone forever, and I haven't kept up with anything or anyone, but I want to try this again.

So, while I was gone, I see that canning has become the new knitting. Blog-wise, I mean. Canning blogs are everywhere!

So does this mean there are fewer knitting blogs now? Or are people (let's face it, women, not "people,") getting better at multitasking?

The prairie dogs at the SF zoo are scary. . .

2009-07-19T12:32:00.001-07:00

Apparently they ate an entire cow!

Q: What happens if you take my mom to the Huntington gardens?

2009-04-25T23:38:00.001-07:00

A: You drive back to San Diego with a trunkful of rose bushes.

Everything else in the window box is dead. . .

2009-04-25T09:49:00.001-07:00

. . . But the Amaryllis gets nicer every year. (Small brown cat included for scale purposes.)

Awww. . .

2009-04-12T11:15:00.001-07:00

Each of these wee cabbages is about the size of a tennis ball. Perfect for vegan Easter egg hunts!

2009-04-12T11:09:00.001-07:00

Savoy cabbage in the sunshine at the farmers market this morning. Happy spring!

"Tis the season...

2008-12-09T23:44:00.000-08:00

No, actually, 'tisn't. Or at least 'tis, but just a bit longer.

Yes, pomegranate season has come and is now on its way out. I've celebrated as much as I can without making myself physically ill. See?

You know the secret to getting the seeds out without turning yourself all purpley, yes? The thing with the bowl of water? It really is a clever, magic way to mine all the nooks and crannies without looking like you've just left a crime scene.

Many of my friends know about my seasonal pomegranate obsession. Some have even seen me all hopped up on pomegranate-related enthusiasm at the farmers market, even before I've had coffee! That being said, I have no idea who left this on my porch today:

Anyone with clues about my mysterious benefactor is encouraged to share them so I can express my gratitude. In the meantime, I think I can come up with some way to dispose of these. Thank you pomegranate fairy!

YES WE CAN HAS

2008-11-05T10:13:00.000-08:00

Plus, I'm leaving the HOPE sticker up in my car for a while to celebrate the good news.

Don't bet against the mouse...

2008-10-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

... because the mouse always wins!

Okay, not always. But this time it did. Valerie and another coworker and I put together an entry for our department's (faux) pumpkin carving contest and we won in a landslide. Almost half the total votes! Go Team Slow Loris! Er, I mean, Team Mouse House!

(We totally thought this cool, creepy Medusa pumpkin would win. You have no idea how bouncy we were when we found out we were wrong.)

I did the windows you can see here, plus the little mice made out of Sculpey.* Check out my curtains. Not bad for someone who can't sew a straight hem, huh? Our coworker did the door with the cute little wreath.

* Or, as a (different) coworker said, "polymer modeling clay." I guess that's why she's the Executive Director and I'm, uh, not. (Hint: It's because I am way, way less detail-oriented. And stuff.)

Check out Valerie's adorable Venetian blinds! And the plaid awning!! Go ahead and admit you're about to keel over from the cuteness.

Anyone remember Flash Gordon?

2008-09-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

These would have been perfect for that movie. I'm having a hard time coming up with another set of surroundings in which they'd fit right in, however. Barbarella's space opera too, so I'm not sure that's all that different. The opening of really posh swamp-themed museum?

Rube Goldberg would be proud...

2008-09-09T20:46:00.000-07:00

... and should be awarded posthumous honorary Dutch* citizenship.

Click this link but once the page has loaded, just watch. I know it's full of pretty colors and you want to click, but restrain yourself. Trust me, you'll be happy you did.

Turning your sound up is good too.

* Still the funniest language** ever!

** I know, I know, I said Flemish was the funniest language ever, but Flemish and Dutch*** are practically the same. Honest.

*** Tompouce! Feestvlaggetjes!! Mooi!!! The Dutch word for "good looking" is mooi!****

**** And apparently, in Swedish, it's "snyggt"

I am overcome. I think I need to go lie down.

Spam Haiku

2008-09-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Inspired by a suggestion (or dare? You decide) from Mr. Elinoire, I have unleashed my poetic soul. The first one is more an interpretation than a direct reference, but it's based on my favorite one of these so I had to work it in somewhere. Click the links for more.

It's time to Refill

Sad armadillo.

He takes unleaded.

Bad bunny, bad bad

bad bunny. Guess who?

Your dog will love it

They like to take turns
You have received a postcard!
HELLO ME NOT DEAD

Yes, I'm going straight to hell.

Holy cats!

2008-08-31T14:38:00.000-07:00

If you're anything like me, the first few minutes of this will have you thinking "why would anyone watch this, much less link to it in their blog? It's an insipid song by a woman who, while Asian, dances more like I white girl than I do."*

But then she bops on over to a table and things begin to look up.

@ Yahoo! Video

Watching her dance is vastly more entertaining when she's got a supporting chorus line, yes? Yes.

* If you're a halfway decent dancer, this bit of the thought above may not go through your head. I am an enthusiastic but terrible dancer.

Don't be alarmed

2008-08-30T23:55:00.001-07:00

... but there is a terrifying monster lurking in the inky depths of my linen closet. Looks innocent enough, right?

Look again!

Don't say I didn't warn you.

The Wild Bunch

2008-08-23T02:18:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else think these adorable (not that I'd bruise their adolescent root veggie egos by using that particular adjective when they could hear me) punked out purple guys look like they're going to make a break for it? They look ready to bust out of their baskets, knock a little old lady down and appropriate her wheeled shopping cart to go joyriding around the farmers market while taunting the more domesticated produce.

Gasp!

2008-08-12T00:45:00.000-07:00

I am keeling over from the cuteness! I think I may need to move to Japan.

Think you can take more? We'll see about that, mister. Try looking at THIS! (But you might want to hit the mute button first.)

My Evening, in Three Parts

2008-08-11T23:38:00.000-07:00

Part One, in which Mr. Elinoire realizes it's garden spider season again.

Mr. Elinoire, just after walking through the gate towards our cottage and, immediately after, through a Very Large spiderweb: "... so tomorrow we need to BLEEEAAARGH!!"

Me: "What?! What?! [Sees outraged spider climbing away] Oh."

Mr. Elinoire: "Ugh, yeah, watch out for... [turns back towards house and takes another step] BLEEEAAARGH!!"

Me: [Watching second spider climb away in a huff] "..."

Part Two, in which we are all about the opposable thumbs.

We met friends at the San Diego Zoo after work today. The zoo stays open until 9pm in July and August but sometimes we miss that window and then I'm sad because I missed my chance to see the slow loris and Mr. Elinoire is sad because he has to listen to me whine about it for the next ten months.*

* The slow loris** is still there and still as awesome as ever! Team Slow Loris! Yeah! Let's hear it for venomous elbows and GIANT BEADY EYES.

** Who should really be called the Deliberate Loris because that's what he is, not slow.

Before the slow loris, we checked in on these guys.

Mom was hanging out on her rock and that black and white checked hammock you see there was suspiciously heavy-looking. But then a little foot stuck out from the edge, and then another foot, and then Mom said "this is boring and you are way too slow" and unceremoniously pulled the edge of the hammock down so the baby flopped out, catching a branch on the way down, and did a forward sommersault around the branch and landed in Mom's arms.

Mr. Elinoire: "I think it's actually a really drunk little kid in a panda suit."

Part Three, in which we go for Italian instead, thanks.

After the zoo, we had dinner with our friends in Little Italy. This is the window of a restaurant we chose not to dine in.

Dog is my copilot

2008-07-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

My dad got a puppy a few weeks ago. There is almost nothing better than visiting a puppy that is excited to see you but remains someone else's responsibility. My dad is one of those people who need to get to know a pet before giving them a name,* so we were all saying "the puppy" for a few days.

* I am too, though that's only been for the last couple pets. I used to choose the name before I knew the animal, but now I know better.

He was a stray in Baja California (Mexico) and was brought up to a San Diego shelter by an organization that does that, which is where my dad met him. We have NO IDEA what went into his mix... some Great Dane, maybe? He's long-legged and surprisingly mellow. Aussie? He's got that blue merle pattern going on, but with the wrong kind of fur. Terrier? He's got the whiskers and the love for digging, but like I said, he's mellow, not terrieresque. He's 100% Mystery Dog is what he is.

Now his name is "Akimbo" or sometimes just "Kimbo" because it's easier. His elbows, or knees, or whatever, all stick out when he sits or lie down, see? And he's still super uncoordinated? He is the most gangly, akimbo dog I've ever seen and it's adorable. The last time Mr. Elinoire and I were visiting, we watched Akimbo fall off the couch. To us it looked like a train wreck in slow motion (a funny train wreck) but to him it was clearly No Big Deal.

Watching him navigate stairs is still funny, btw. He can do up, but down remains a challenge.

First trip to Dog Beach. He was an easy convert.

Post-beach nap. He's curled up like a cat! Fine, sometimes he doesn't live up to his name.

Oh, and another great thing about the name Akimbo? No one gets it. They say "is that an African name?" and we say "nope." It cracks my dad up.

Okay, this is ridiculous

2008-07-24T19:39:00.001-07:00

I am going to write a sentence a week if it kills me. Which it won't because really? A sentence? How is that lethal?*

Never mind, I don't want to know. But I'm still committing to at least one sentence a week for the rest of the summer. Gotta get out from under this apathy duvet.

That being said, I had a FOUR HOUR root canal today so now I am going to bed at 7pm, eating sorbet and the cinnamon roll I got from Ikea on the way home, and about to read a book with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

* No really, don't tell me. Well, okay, but only if it's funny.

Is it summer yet?

2008-06-01T14:38:00.000-07:00

I still haven't managed to get myself to sit in front of the computer long enough to write a proper posting, but as further proof that I am (still) not dead, here are some garden pictures.

Valerie gave me some lovely seedlings for my birthday, so in addition to the usual cucumbers, arugula, and tomatoes, I've got Alpine strawberries* (AKA fraise des bois in Switzerland), Carmen peppers, and even more tomatoes!

* The last time I had some of these, they expired after an especially long heat wave. (Strawberries to Elinoire: "What part of "Alpine" do you not understand? We don't DO 95+ degrees."**) I am delighted to have them again and I'm keeping my fingers crossed in hopes the weather cooperates this summer.

** Or 35+ degrees Celsius, which is how the strawberries talk about temperature when they're visiting relatives back home in the Alps.

And, bien sur, the garden and I are not the only ones who remain in the land of the living. Proof: a small brown cat lurks behind the cucumbers.

I'm not dead!

2008-05-01T17:22:00.001-07:00

But you'd never know from looking at my blog. :-\

This post is a bit of a cheat -- I'm borrowing a meme -- but hey, it's what it takes to get me unstuck and blogging again.

According to a LibraryThing survey, these 106 works are the ones most often marked as “unread.” That is, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded.

Bold the ones you’ve read, underline the ones read solely as a requirement, italicize the ones you started, but didn’t finish.

Final touch: denote (*) the ones you liked, and would (or did) read again or recommend. Even if you did read them for school in the first place.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell*
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel*
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir

The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

I was going to hit "post" and be done with it, but I have to ask... does anyone seriously put Angels and Demons on their bookshelf in hopes it makes them look smart?! Or well rounded? I have similar feelings about The Mists of Avalon, which I loved as a teenager, but not so much when I went back and reread it as an adult. And don't even get me started about Wicked.

But at least I posted! Next time may even have original content. And be sooner than five months from now.

The Cookie Madness Continues

2007-12-10T16:23:00.000-08:00

Some cookie decoration -- though, sadly, not all -- was accomplished this weekend with the help of Tyee in the moral support department and her lovely daughter in the the sprinkle application department.

Guess what I'm doing every night this week? I may even coopt Mr. Elinoire's time and labor until the Cookie Decoration Push is over.

I wanted to try out some new cookie cutters when I was baking last weekend, but held back because they had lots of little skinny bits. I thought it would be difficult to get the cutter to release the sticky, thick gingerbread dough I was baking.

I tried spraying oil on them cutters and that sorta kinda worked, but what ended up being really successful was just plopping the cutter in a small pile of flour before cutting dough with it. As a bonus, it also left a thin white outline on the rest of the dough and when you're making gingerbread men, you end up with what looks like a carefully documented crime scene with chalk outlines where the bodies were.

Now that I know that flour helps, I'm a little sad that I didn't try all my new cookie cutters. Next time I bake, that adorable castle with all the little fiddly bits is going to get a workout.

Despite all my whining here, I will probably make yet more cookies once my sister's in town. Our mother was hoping we'd have an evening of springerle baking, but she didn't take the time lag into account. You need to make these cookies at least two weeks before you eat them (or they are even more like cardboard* than they are when they're "edible") and my sister won't be here until the 21st.

We might try a different dough or maybe marzipan with the springerle molds, but we will definitely attempt Finnish spoon cookies, AKA Lusikkaleivat (<--- note lack of link: I have discovered something that is not in wikipedia!). The recipe calls for browning butter, hours of molding cookie dough into teaspoons, and a "tart jam" for the filling. The high maintenance cookie production process is why this is going to be a group effort, but I will be supplying the jammy goodness. (If there's one thing I've got in abundance this year, it's tart jam.) Stay tuned for updates.

Oh, and also? My cookie production levels are nothing compared to my in-laws. Check out the bounty from Mr. Elinoire's family Annual Post-Thanksgiving Bake-a-Thon. Holy Cow! (Or Hellig kua! in Norwegian, which is what most of these cookies are.)

(The krumkagas have the funniest name but the peppernodders are the tastiest.)

*When I ate springerle (from a bakery) in Switzerland, they were terrific, though you have to appreciate anise or you will disagree with me, possibly (but hopefully not) violently.** The ones created by regular folks like you and me and my mother, however, were much more fun to look at than attempt to eat.

** I have noticed that some people have strong feelings about anise.

That's MISS Snottybottom to you, buddy

2007-12-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

My friend Sandy (AKA Crabbygloom Rottenshorts, but only (let's hope) seasonally) sent me this link so I could find my Grinch Name. You may address me as Woefulwhiner Snottybottom,* thank you very much.

(I think the last name is funny but I worry that the first is a little too close to home.)

In other news, here's a picture of a relatively new installation at the Getty Center in LA. It's a reproduction of one of my favorite pieces of theirs -- a watercolor of a stag beetle by Albrecht Dürer.

The original work is maybe as big as your hand, but if you use the top of ~~Mr Elinoire's~~ Mr Snottybottom's wee little head at the bottom of the picture for scale purposes,** you will note the reproduction is much, much larger. Plus there's the addition of the mounting pin. That's a recent addition is what that is.

(I am not a huge fan of insects when they're up close and personal, but I am all about seeing them in art.)

In holiday baking news, I baked several batches of gingerbread cookies last weekend in my parents' kitchen, and the plan for this weekend is to join Tyee at her house and ice cookies like a madwoman while she starts her holiday baking. Wish us luck! Hopefully by Sunday I'll have pictures. Or a wicked sugar hangover. Or both!

* But only via this blog. And please stop after the end of December.
** Sorry, the small brown cat did not volunteer to join us at the museum in order to be on hand for scale purposes or any other reason.

Bleeeeaaaarrrrgh

2007-11-27T23:12:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. I'm a terrible blogger. I have the best of intentions and the worst of the, uh, follow-throughs. (Is there a (plural) opposite of "intentions"?) Plus I think Blogger and Safari had a falling out on the playground or something because they won't play nicely together right now.

What can I say? I'm easily distractible. Possibly (but not very probably) even more so than a certain small brown cat. And speaking of said cat, here she is, for scale purposes of course, helping me show off my ~~dorky~~ fabulous new hat.

And here is the ever-patient Mr. Elinoire being suspiciously investigated.

We went to the Getty Villa the weekend before last. You can tell the hat is from that trip because it's so classical. I'm pretty sure it won't turn anyone to stone, though, so no worries there.

Things that are Halloweeny

2007-10-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

Since this is my blog, I'm going to brag about something I did, okay? Okay. Here it is: I made an AMAZING pomegranate sorbet that pretty much blew everyone away. No, seriously, it was THAT good. So do I have pictures of it to show you?

Sadly, I do not.

In lieu of pictures, please accept the following background information.

A few weeks ago, I became sad when I looked around the farmers market and realized that Summer Fruit Season had ended (it trails on a while in San Diego but the peaches of October are hard to eat after being spoiled by the peaches of August). On Sunday, I took another look around and quickly got over my melancholy as I realized that Autumn Fruit Season is here. Woohoo!

I zoomed from stall to stall, grabbing bosc pears and the first of the tangerines and pink lady apples... and pomegranates. Heavy, cracked, delicious pomegranates.

I've been a pomegranate fiend since I was a kid, but I am not crazy about Pom Wonderful juice (or any of its competitors). The taste of these juices is too concentrated for me, but beyond that, they only sort of taste like pomegranates. I suspect this has to do with pasteurization.

As it happens, however, I live in a pomegranate-friendly climate and frequent a good farmers market so I have more options than some. What I'm getting to here is that another thing I greedily snapped up on Sunday was a quart of freshly squeezed, NOT pasteurized pomegranate juice. Wow. Drinking that juice was like being punched in the mouth with a pomegranate, only in a good way. It was not cheap but it was totally worth the price because now I could make sorbet and I would not have to pull apart all those pomegranates to do it.

I used this recipe* and the results were amazing, as previously stated. Very intense, and perfect with the rich chocolate malt ice cream I had made the day before. Mmmm.

So how, you ask, is any of this Halloweeny in the least? Because the desert was made to eat after making these guys:

This weekend, Valerie and I went to Tyee's house to carve pumpkins. I am very grateful to Tyee for suggesting this activity because I am pretty sure I wouldn't have done it on my own this year. Plus Tyee's lovely husband made us pizza AND her daughter was charming and burbly as always.

(Mine are the two little ones in front: a friendly troll or hobgoblin or goat or something, and another one that's menacing because, you know, fangs.)

Happy Halloween!

* Except I skipped the fancy touches (champagne and garnish) because that lily just did not need gilding.

Or accordian consonant earPlugs playing his head onsh

2007-10-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

It's official: I am old. Mr Elinoire and I went to see The Pogues last week. I foolishly thought "at least the crowd will mostly be people my age for once," but I was only sort of right. There were many of my fellow Gen Xers there, but also many people who had not been born when I got addicted to Irish Punk.

Sigh.

That being said, the concert was EXCELLENT and much bouncy fun was had by all, or at least by Mr Elinoire and myself since I did not bother to survey any other concertgoers on their experience. Also? Things have changed since I started going to concerts in the '80s. A few random observations:

Phones are the new lighters. I saw two lonely little flames when the band left the stage but there were at least 30 glowing cell phones.

Speaking of phones, there is a reason they don't care if you bring in your phone with camera: the totally unsaleable quality pictures like this:

The opening band, Ollin, said they were honored to have been asked to perform because they were "a bunch of Mexicans who like to cover Pogues' songs."

The lime green faux snakeskin freebie "wristlet" I received with my purchase of Clinique products was the perfect size for my ID, cash, phone, and a lipstick.

During the concert, I kept thinking "I should write myself a note so I'll remember to write about somethingorother in my blog!" Unfortunately, bouncing around while trying not to spill your beer as you sing along to songs you learned in college is not the most conducive way to take notes. So I started texting myself little messages to remind myself later of all my Briliant Thoughts.

Remember how I said I was bouncing? And drinking beer? When I looked at my messages the next day, I had to spend some time decoding. Read the title of today's post again if you don't believe me. I wrote that. And sent it to myself.

Here is the probable translation for the message above:

"Something that I now forget was either one thing Or another; I usually don't like accordian music but for the Pogues I will gladly make an exception; Shane MacGowan's impressive substance abuse over the years hasn't killed him like I assumed it would* but it's turned him into an old man and somehow stolen all his consonants; Ohmygod am I glad Mr Elinoire went out to the car and found those earPlugs** for us; when MacGowan started banging what looked like a hubcap against his ear during the last song, Mr Elinoire said "he's playing his head! and he was right; onsh? What the hell is ONSH?! Oh! I think I was trying to write "mosh" and the cell phone had no idea that was a word. (I used to think that the best place to be in the audience was right on the outside edge of the mosh pit because there was a big (mostly) open space in front of you and very little view obstruction, but now I am too old to dodge moshers and come in contact with sweaty people I don't know so I will enjoy the concert from over here instead thank you very much.)"

So there you go.

* I never thought I'd get to see this band because I assumed the lead singer would die of an overdose or drunkenly walk in front of a bus before I ever got the chance. Let's hear it for aging rockers who reunite and tour so they can cash in on their older-and-therefore-more-affluent fan base!

** No, I don't know why I capitalized the P, and yes, the earplugs are further proof than I am old.

Diversionary rambling is what this is

2007-10-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

Several large swaths of San Diego County are being eaten by nowhere-close-to-contained wildfires right now, which is bad. The little house we live in is ~~pretty far from them~~ not as far as we'd like but we're probably okay for now. We have lots of friends who've been evacuated from their homes (or may be told to evacuate soon) so we're twitchy as all hell, as you'd imagine.

So what am I doing? Cheering myself up by posting vacation photos from our trip in May, that's what. Oh, and I also made brownies. And will probably make a bunch of jam in a little while. But right NOW I'm posting pictures.

So, to start we have this, a corridor at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou, France.

Our friend Nathalie (who is an amazingly kind hostess) drove us all over ze place (note the French accent there), starting here.

Not only was the abbey run by nuns (not men) throughout the middle ages, but Eleanor* of Aquitaine, one of my all-time favorite historical figures,** spent the last bit of her very active life here. Her effigy is at Fontvraud, along with her husband's (Henry VIII, who may or may not have asked his knights to rid him of that pesky Thomas Becket) and her son's (Richard the Lionheart, AKA the guy that baaaadd King John tries to supplant until Robin Hood says "uh, no."). So there's a lot to like about Fontevraud.

What you can't see in the picture above is the swallows swooping in and out of their nests. And where, you ask, is there room for a nest in this spare stone corridor?

Here!

Those clever dive bombers of the avian world have appropriated the spaces in the ribbing of the Gothic arches for their own use. You know the groundskeepers must love that, right? I couldn't get a good photo of the swoopage at Fontvraud, but here's one from a tower at le Château de Chenonceau the next day. The dark little triangles are swallows.

And finally I give you this, a photo that has nothing at all to do with Fontvraud, swallows, mud, or even France. It's a random railing in Brugge, Belgium. Isn't it cooooool?

Yes, I thought you'd think so.

* Spelled, amusingly, "Aliénor" at the abbey

** And the inspiration for my name, along with L'il Miss Sensible in Sense and Sensibility and my great-grandmother's cat.

La Nourriture

2007-10-16T17:55:00.000-07:00

Did I mention that Mr Elinoire and I really liked the food in France? You know, when we were there this spring? No? Whoops, I definitely meant to say that. I mean, what is not to love about these adorable penguins in a Parisian bakery?

Time for the truth: we did not eat at this restaurant so for all I know, the food's awful.* But who cares? With a display like this, who needs yummy food?**

And finally, chocolate. I'm cheating because this is a picture of a Belgian shop (a wonderful, wonderful Belgian shop with some of the weirdest chocolates ever -- tabacco chocolate, anyone? How about wasabi?) but I had to end on a chocolate note.

* I doubt it, though. This is Paris after all.

** I'm lying. I need yummy food. ALL THE TIME. But I still dig those copper pots.

I CAN HAS LOLCAT PLZ

2007-10-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

It's not in the same league as this, but here's (Sylvie's and) my humble attempt at a meme.

Heat is neat

2007-10-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

Back to your regularly scheduled blogging soon, but to hold you over until I get it together and write some actual content, I present you with this:

These blissed out meerkats have their own private heatlamp at the San Diego Zoo.

Do they remind you a certain small brown cat?

I thought so.

And I thought it was bad when my sister got the bigger cupcake...

2007-09-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

I've looked at this picture on my current favorite guilty pleasure about fifteen times today...

... and each time I start laughing. It's okay, my coworkers all think I'm nuts anyway.

The time, it zoometh

2007-09-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

Ack, what happened? I know Labor Day weekend was hot, but I couldn't have fallen asleep for three straight weeks, could I?

Okay, probably yes. If you know me, you know how much I love the sleepin'. Sadly, the Not Blogging has more to do with General Distraction and Job Craziness and less to do with the zzzzs.*

Having said that, I don't have anything in mind to write about, so I'm going to steal a blog meme. Hopefully we'll be back to your regularly scheduled original content by our next post.**

The meme is SCATTERGORIES … and it’s harder than it looks! Here are the rules:
* Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the questions.
* They MUST be real places, names, things … NOTHING made up!
* If you can’t think of anything, skip it.
* You CAN’T use your name for the boy/girl name question.
* If your name happens to start with the same letter as mine, sorry, but you can’t use my answers!***
* You have to add your own question at the end if you borrow this meme for your own blog.****

My name: Elinoire

Famous Singer/Band: Ella Fitzgerald (Luckily for me there's no rule about using the first thing that pops in your head because that was, for who knows what reason, "Eddie Money" followed by "Ethel Merman." Yeeg.)
Four letter word: Edge
Street: Everts. It's boring, sorry. It's two blocks from the house I grew up in.
Color: Ecru
Gifts/Presents: Ermine (the perfect "money is no object" gift for people who don't mind wearing fur) or Emeralds (for the people who do)
Vehicle: Edsel
Things in a Souvenir Shop: Engraved images of the touristical thing with which the shop associates itself
Boy Name: Edgar
Girl Name: Emily
Movie Title: Ever After
Drink: Evian
Occupation: Elevator guy
Celebrity: Elizabeth Taylor
Magazine: Oh lord, I have no idea. Elegant Homes. Egypt Today. Earcare Quarterly. Evangelist Fashion. Elf Enthusiast. (So much for the "If you can’t think of anything, skip it" rule.)
U.S. City: Evanston, IL
Pro Sports Teams: Surely there must be a team called The Eagles out there -- wait, doesn't Philadelphia have an Eagles? Let's just say they do. The Philadelphia Eagles.
Fruit: Eggplant. Except I don't know if it's one of those vegetables that's really a fruit (like the avocado or the tomato, which I know is related to the eggplant... ) so I'll say Elderberry instead. Elderberry!
Reason for Being Late for Work: Elephant sat on front of car
Something You Throw Away: Eggshells
Things You Shout: Evacuate! (Or, if that's too alarming, Eureka!)
Word you like to say for no particular reason: Eglantine

* It seems redundant to pluralize "zzzz" but I went ahead and did it anyway.

** Yeah, I don't know how I became a "we" there. Sometimes it just happens.

*** This isn't my rule; it was the rule of the person I stole the meme from. I don't care if you use my answers, but I will mock you openly for your lack of originality.

**** This IS my rule. I made it up. Go me!

I've never felt so glamorous!

2007-08-06T22:50:00.000-07:00

Clearly, 2-D suits me. The weird thing is, it's surprisingly accurate.

Sylvie, on the other hand, has had better pictures.

(Courtesy of this site, natch. If you don't want to start with a photo of yourself, try this site instead.)

Who decided that raspberry flavor is blue, anyway?

2007-08-02T18:28:00.000-07:00

I just got mail from my friend Xine. She said she's sick and her husband is out of town so her kids are "watching way too much TV and eating soooooooo many Otter Pops."

Oh MAN, her kids are so LUCKY!

I grew up in the '70s in Southern California so you'd better believe we never had anything as exotic and fabulous as Otter Pops at our house. We had homemade yogurt, and the all-natural unprocessed peanut butter that gets hard as a rock in the fridge, and sugar-free bubblegum, and orange juice popsicles that you made yourself with the Tupperware popsicle mold. I had friends whose mothers bought packaged cookies or Sugar Smacks (can you believe they actually called it that?!) cereal or Kraft Macaroni and Cheese from a box, or Hostess Fruit Pies, but except for the occasional visit or sleepover when I could eat these wondrous foods myself, I just looked on enviously when my friends opened their lunchboxes.

My friend Xine with the TV-watching, Otter Pop-eating kids was even more deprived than I was when she was growing up. Her mother was told Xine was hyperactive so she kept all kinds of crazy things on the "forbidden unless you can sneak it at a friend's house" list. "No artifically-orange cheddar cheese for you, missy! You want an apple? Here's a Granny Smith. The red ones have dye on the skins. Yes I'm sure all the other kids get peanuts on Halloween instead of candy."

See how we compensate as adults? Xine keeps Otter Pops handy for emergencies, and I keep cake mix in the pantry because I'm a grown up and I can make a cake from a mix instead of from scratch if I feel like it. Plus, I might have to go out and track down some of those Otter Pops for myself.

So there.

(Photo by Rachel Denny from this adorable story)

An epistle to an unexpected visitor

2007-07-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

Cilantro, you are not my friend. You show up uninvited in my Vietnamese-esque salad from Trader Joe's, and even though I think I've done a thorough job picking all your parsley-impersonating fringed leaves out of the bowl, there you are on my tastebuds when least expected. And do you stay in the back, all meek and subdued because you know you're not wanted? No. Of course not. YOU MAKE EVERYTHING ELSE TASTE LIKE CILANTRO IS WHAT YOU DO.

Cilantro, you need to go to the other side of the playground and, I don't know, challenge jalapeno pepper to a game of jacks or chutes and ladders or some other game I don't like to play.

Seriously. See this line? You stay on THAT side of the line. This? This is MY side of the line. And MY side of the line is a cilantro-free zone. No one likes you anyway, you know. They say they do because you're all ethnic and special and stuff, but I'm pretty sure they're just saying that so they don't hurt your feelings.

I know all this is hard to hear, but it's for your own good. Someday you'll thank me.

I'm one of the horde

2007-07-21T01:19:00.000-07:00

Guess what we did tonight?

Yup, it's true. I have my very own copy of the new Harry Potter book right here in front of me. I figured hey, it's my last chance to join in the midnight madness, so Mr. Elinoire and I went to a favorite local bookstore and did just that.

My friend Tyee came this close to winning the trivia contest (she was stumped by JK Rowling's middle name (Kathleen) and one of the two significant ways Bartemis Crouch Jr. was similar to Lord Voldemort (she got that they both killed their fathers but missed that they were both named for their fathers), neither of which I could come up with) and I got to tell her the story of the first time my sister Sarache and I tried Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.*

Plus? Now I have the book! Don't expect me to answer the phone or anything in the next couple days.

(There's no fun story about the Harry Potter box. I just brought it home to put jam in, but like all of its ilk, it had to be throroughly inspected once it was in the house.)

* She bought some the first time we saw them and then we went to her car and drove somewhere while we ate them. The candy came with a cheat sheet but we thought it would be more fun to try the flavors one by one.

First, we each bit down on a blue one.
Elinoire: "I think this is just blueberry..."
Sarache: "Yeah, I think so too. Check the sheet."
Elinoire, after checking: "Blueberry. Okay let's try gray."
We each bite down on our gray jelly beans.
Sarache: "Ew, is that pepper?"
Elinoire: "Ugh, I think it must be. It doesn't taste awful but it doesn't taste like anything I want in a jelly bean."
Elinoire checks and confirms that gray = pepper, and then gives Sarache a white jelly bean to match her own. They bite down.
Elinoire: "Huh, that's just coco-"
Sarache: "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WHAT IS THAT?! That is the most VILE THING EVER."
Elinoire: "Uh, it's coconut."
Sarache, spitting her jelly bean out into a kleenex and taking a swig of water: "That is NOT coconut. That is EVIL, is what that is."
Elinoire, consulting chart: "Ohhh... I think I got coconut, but the other flavor for white can be sardine.

Jamming

2007-07-20T00:15:00.000-07:00

My small maple cutting board is pink right now. It's been seeing a lot of plum action.

Ever since a kind coworker brought me some fragrant, ripe Santa Rosa plums from her tree, I've been making jam. I gave her a jar from each ofmy first two batches -- a basic fruit/sugar/lemon juice recipe, and one with orange juice and zest to give it a little bit of depth -- and she rewarded me by bringing in another fifteen pounds or so of fruit.

That is a lot of plums.

If you put them all in one paper grocery bag they would fill it. (You would not do that, of course, because the fruit in the bottom half of the bag would become mush and that would be very, very sad. And purple.)

I keep jam batches fairly small so I had enough fruit to make at least four more types of plum jam. (I would've had more than that but I couldn't start for a couple days, and sadly many of the very ripest plums had Moved On.) I'm moving into wacky Christine Ferber recipe territory and using mint, Alsatian wine,* vanilla, honey, and lemon slices (but not all at the same time because that would be overkill).

I am pleased with the output, but I am also relieved my coworker has left for a three week vacation. I think that by the time she comes back, she will find that her tree is Done For The Season. And I? Will be off the hook.**

(I also hope she has someone picking things up at her house while she's gone because otherwise, when she comes back, she may discover that her yard is full of stumbling, confused wasps, drunk on fermented plums.)

* No that does not mean it's German Shepherd flavor. Ew.

** I am an admitted canning dilettante and am glad I am not a farm wife*** who has to preserve (or lose) the harvest. I would have been the most horribly complainy pioneer ever.

*** My friend Anno, who actually is a farmer, sent me a postcard today telling me that last month she put up TWENTY jars of strawberry jam. What a show off.

**** This footnote is not attached to anything but I thought I'd add that I left the peels on for all but the last batch of jam I made... and of course now I wish I'd done that with most of the others. Hmph.

Proud as a . . . flamingo?

2007-07-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

San Diego celebrates gay pride this Sunday and the restaurant across the street from my car is wearing its party dress. I can't tell if it's apparent in the picture - I'm blogging directly from my phone because hey, I can - but that's several strings of inflated flamingos. I'll bet there was some serious hyperventilating over there last night. I feel festive already!

Yeearrrgh...

2007-07-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

I'm sure this is a handy tool, but I can hardly stand to look at it.

In other news, I have a mere 28% chance of surviving a zombie apocalypse. I wish I could say this comes as a surprise, but I've always had lousy reflexes. Here's hoping my neighborhood stays zombie-free. Actually, I'd just as soon it stayed wholly undead-free. I doubt I'd have better luck against vampires.

Now if elves moved in next door I'd be fine. Elves are benign, right? Pointy-eared and lithe and good at hiding under daisies and shooting orcs? In France, elves have even been domesticated and are used to fuel cars. Talk about green energy. (Yeeg, that was really, really bad. Don't worry, I'm kicking myself so you don't have to.)

(No, not the cat, check out the rear window.)

Why I am glad my parents saved us a space in their garage

2007-07-06T00:38:00.001-07:00

Though a cocktail would've been nice. It's hard to imagine the one worth $50, however. Maybe the parking space was paved in gold? Or came with a free puppy?

How to tell if you've nuked the chocolate sauce long enough

2007-07-06T00:31:00.001-07:00

Ah, the perils of using someone else's (stronger) microwave. . . The over-melty sauce was served with my homemade malted milk ice cream on the 4th of July. Mmmm. Happy belated Independence Day and Happy Summer!

I am crying over here, people

2007-06-21T01:25:00.001-07:00

But it's crying in a good way. That's what happens when I read Overheard in the Office when I'm tired and punchy.

12PM Back Up -- the Direction of the Earth's Axis?

Supervisor: We can't say 'Summer Solutions' on this brochure, because it might confuse people in California because it's summer all the time there. Any ideas of how to reword this?
Staffer: It's not summer all the time in California. It's summer during summer time.
Supervisor: But it's warm all year round, so how do they know it's summer? We need a way to explain that these things are only intended for the summer.
Staffer: But they still know what summer is, even if it's still warm during the other seasons.
Supervisor: I'm not sure about that...
Staffer: Summer isn't about temperature, it's about the direction of Earth's axis. Summer is always in June, July, and August. It always starts with the solstice in June.
Supervisor: I don't know anything about solstices and all that. Let's just reword this.
Staffer: But California still has a summer. I'm telling you, they know what summer is.
Supervisor: I don't know. They might get confused.
Staffer: Confused about what?
Supervisor: Confused about when summer is. Like, it's summer right now, 'cause it's been warm lately.
Staffer: No... April is in the spring.

Delaware

Overheard by: rofl in cube next door

via Overheard in the Office, Jun 13, 2007

Mr. Elinoire will be your guest blogger for today

2007-06-20T18:18:00.000-07:00

Approximately one thousand of your earth years ago...

A small neighborhood boy appeared at the door of the house where Mr. Elinoire grew up, bearing a cake tin he had been tasked by his mother to deliver. Said container contained (that being what containers do), a chocolate cake with green frosting. This cake was a present from the child's mother to Mr. Elinoire's family, the reason for which has been lost to the mists of time (along with the name of the child).

The young boy, having delivered his charge to Mr. Elinoire's mother, hung around the door for a few moments before announcing, "You know, I really like chocolate cake," adding a few moments later, "especially chocolate cake with green frosting." No doubt he is now a highly-paid marketing executive somewhere, but this early attempt to turn events in his favor met with utter failure. It is not recorded whether his campaign was met with admonishment, derisive laughter, or mere indifference, but, in any case, he went upon his way cakeless.

And then hands were waved in the air, and this event was transmogrified from a story into a meme, and thence into a family predilection for the question "what kind of cake would you like for your birthday?" to be answered "chocolate cake with green frosting (of course)." So now you know.

Just like regular cake, only, well, you know.

2007-06-19T21:20:00.000-07:00

New York was the first place we stopped during our recent trip. I had originally thought we might do various touristy NYC things, but once we arrived and were settled into our friends' lovely Brooklyn brownstone, we quickly realized that what we really wanted to do was take it easy, hang out with our friends, and maybe go on a few walks. On our first day we visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Our friend Katia, who was graciously showing us her city, took pity on us when it was clear we'd need caffeine in order to continue. (I plead jetlag, despite the mere 3-hour time difference between the West and East Coasts. I'm sure it had nothing to do with getting approximately 15 hours sleep over the four days before leaving for New York. Nothing at all.) We stopped at a coffee place across the street from the scary-strict Brooklyn Co-op (where Mr. Elinoire and I, as non-members, were NOT allowed to buy anything so you'd better believe we didn't even THINK about it) and as we were ordering, I noticed a case of cupcakes.

(Mmm, cupcakes. Just like regular cake, only you usually get more frosting and you aren't morally obligated to share with anyone, which is usually not the case with an entire cake. Not that I'd ever attempt to eat an entire cake by myself because I am far, far too virtuous.)

Mr. Elinoire chose a reasonably-sized black and white-topped cupcake but I went for the larger cappuccino cupcake with the mini milk chocolate chips on the top.

We walked a little further and then sat at the base of a statue at the edge of Prospect Park and dug in. And that was when I discovered that 1. my ginormous cupcake had extra frosting in the middle, and 2. no way was I going to be able to finish it on my own. Luckily Katia and Mr. Elinoire were willing to help. Wasn't that nice of them?

Our trip fell between my birthday, which we celebrated with Chinese food before we left, and Mr. Elinoire's, which we celebrated with Italian food about two weeks after we got home. His family has an odd* chocolate-cake-with-green-frosting tradition that I have occasionally incorporated into the birthday cakes I make for him. This year's version was my own little homage to the Brooklyn Cappuccino Cupcake. Here is a birthday cupcake from the outside:

I made the cake from a mix (shhh) but used very strong coffee instead of water for a richer taste. The frosting is pre-made (shhh again) vanilla with green food coloring, and then grated bits of (genuine Swiss!) chocolate on the top. Each cake has coffee whipped cream** in the center. They were a big hit, if I do say so myself.

Plus? Tonight? After I took the pictures of the Last of the Birthday Cupcakes? Sylvie found the just-out-of-the-dryer load in the little laundry basket and decided to do her own imitation of a New York City cupcake. Awww.

*To be fair, it's not any odder than my family's tradition of dropping lines from this fabulous work into normal conversation.

**This was the first time I'd made "stabilized" whipped cream and I was very pleased with the result. I just added about a third of an envelope of plain dry gelatin to the cream, sugar, and veryveryVERYstrong*** coffee mixture and whipped it up.

***As in "so strong it would make any child who bit into the cupcake expecting frosting and chocolate cake and instead found the equivalent of a double latte inside cry because yuck! coffee!"

The trick is to leave the last bit of the word unspoken...

2007-06-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

Mr. Elinoire gamely listened to many, many hours of French lessons on CD before we left for our trip. Some evenings he would come home and greet me with "Bonjour Madame. Est-ce que vous voudriez boire quelque chose? Du vin ou de la bière?," which was adorable, if slightly disconcerting.* (I think the less formal version of "you" is appropriate once you've done each other's laundry.)

But, well, there are a lot of words in the French language, and you can only remember so many, you know?

But you know what? He loved France! Okay, okay, he didn't actually use a lot of his newly acquired vocabulary, but Mr. Elinoire was like a lexiconically-enabled vacuum cleaner. He understood so much of la langue française by the time we left that I could only snark about him in French if I spoke really quickly.** Our friend Nathalie even taught him to talk to French cows.***

Here are three words Mr. Elinoire enjoys saying the way French people do: blog ("blugg"), wifi (weefee), and iPod (ee-puhd).

* Also? Mr. Elinoire doesn't drink wine or beer... so he only knew how order things he doesn't like. Note the past tense "knew" in that sentence. He has since learned how to request not one but two different beverages: sirop de pamplemousse (grapefruit syrup) and café au lait.

**I kid. I would never snark about him to his face. Give me some credit.

***Apparently French cows**** don't moo like their American counterparts -- they meugle. Imagine Mr. Elinoire saying "meuh" conversationally out the window while passing random fields and voila! a window into our vacation experience. If you need more, here is an MP3 of a French cow, courtesy of www.randonneur.net.

****Swiss cows really do wear cow bells, in case you were wondering. This is what it sounds like if you step out of the car next to a lush green Swiss valley. And yes, I know we're talking about France, not Switzerland, but hey, cow-related thought.

A round of applause for the Flemish, if you please

2007-05-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

For their marvelous addition to the Wonderful World of All Things Alcoholic. I'll bet you think I'm talking about beer, but nope. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Pudding Shot.

Seriously. It's pudding in a little shot glass with some whipped cream on top. It's alcoholic* and ever so delicious. It came with my meal of asperges op z'n vlaams** (white asparagus in the "Flemish style" (cooked with butter and served with egg and greens)) and potage d'oignon (onion soup, and yes, that one's written in French, not Flemish -- I can't remember the Flemish for onion soup) in a cafe in Brugge, Belgium. Okay, okay, they don't call it a "Pudding Shot" when they give it to you. Actually, they don't call it anything -- they just put it on the table with your meal and act surprised later when you ask what it is. They call it advocaat or, in English, egg liquor.

*Not in the "well there's alcohol in the recipe but then it all gets cooked off" sense, either.

** Isn't "op z'n vlaams" a great phrase?! I love Flemish (and Dutch, which is pretty much the same thing). My sister and I have a theory that Flemish is the funniest language EVER*** and while others have expressed doubts, they have yet to disprove our hypothesis.

*** In writing,**** and if your native language is English. It doesn't sound especially hilarious. Actually, it sounds a lot like American English, only with all the words wrong. Sort of the way Greek sounds like Mexican Spanish with all the words wrong. No, really. Go over there and listen if you don't believe me.

**** For instance, "soap" is "zeep." Zeep! And a Pepsi Max (which is Diet Pepsi in Europe) promised me "Maximum Smaak!" instead of "Maximum Taste." Don't you want to invent new slang and start using the occasional Flemish word for emphasis? Like Chinese on Firefly, only funnier. "No, no, I don't need a whole sprig of parsley there, just a fijngesnipperde."

In which I explain why I have posted so infrequently of late

2007-05-01T03:10:00.000-07:00

Mr. Elinoire and I are leaving for our belated honeymoon in just a few days. We're visiting friends in NYC, France, Switzerland, and then having a few days on our own in Belgium and Paris. I haven't taken a trip this complicated in several years and the logistics have been intense and complicated. (Not horribly so, but quite distracting.) So... not much posting, and for that I apologize.

Today I began packing by placing my suitcase on the table and putting things from my "take me" list into them. Naturally, any open container must be investigated.

Here, Sylvie joins the investigative team while Mirabelle checks to see if I've accidentally stowed any finches or lizards behind the suitcases. Hey, you never know, and wouldn't she feel silly if she'd missed the opportunity?

I'm going to be really embarrassed if I say I have nothing to declare and then it turns out that I'm transporting a cat across an international border. Note to self: make sure both cats are occupied elsewhere ("look girls, a skunk!") when I zipper it shut.

The neighbors

2007-05-01T02:53:00.000-07:00

This is our local skunk Claymore. We think he lives under the deck of the pottery studio next door, and he is an remarkably well behaved guy.* We are usually alerted to his presence by rustling in the leaves by the side of the house (where he comes out from under the building) or because Mirabelle is extremely intent on something going on outside. "Intent Mirabelle" + "fuzzed tail" = Sheba, the little feral cat the pottery people take care of, has had the nerve to walk somethwere that Mirabelle can see. (It also equals "Sylvie is going to be whomped in a minute because Mirabelle can't get to Sheba and man, is she in a whomping mood.)

"Intent Mirabelle" + "No fuzz" = Claymore is making his rounds. (And Sylvie can continue to nap peacefully.)

I put some catfood on the lawn the other day and apparently that was enough to get Claymore out before dark to snuffle it out of the grass. He was very intent.

He is also a she. A while later, I heard more rustling and looked outside to see two new baby skunks looking for any treats their mother might have missed. I didn't get good photos of them, but you will have to take my word for it when I tell you a baby skunk (kitten size but much waddlier and with an enormous bushy tail) is a seriously adorable creature. Especially when it is wrassling with its sibling and climbing up on things and then jumping off of them.

We don't get a ton of wildlife in this very urban part of the city, so I am pleased when I see a native species making good. Go skunk power!

* I classify "good skunk behavior" as "not making oneself known through ones scent" and this is almost always the case.

Catching up, Part 3

2007-04-22T23:32:00.000-07:00

I decorated two nightgowns to give for April birthdays. The first was for Valerie and the second was for my mother. You'll notice a certain similarity... It was such a cute idea, I felt compelled to use it twice.

This is Valerie's present. She posted some pictures on her blog, too.

Here's the one I'm giving my mother for her birthday tomorrow. I think I like the composition on Valerie's a little better. Shhh, what Mom doesn't know won't hurt her.

A closer look.

I would have included a small brown cat in the photos for scale purposes, but she was too wiggly.

Catching up, Part 2

2007-04-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

Valentines! Wait, aren't those given in February? That was months ago.

Yeah, well, what can I say? I got distracted. I'm happy to say that they were all given to the people they were intended for on the correct day, it's just posting them here that's taken me so long.

This year I made little felt pins for my family. My sister lives on the other side of the country, so I have to make sure hers gets finished early enough to get to her by the 14th. This usually means that I do hers first, and that means she sometimes gets the short end of the stick. I figure out what I'm doing when I make her Valentine and then the later ones are more complicated.

I realize now that I neglected to include a small brown cat for scale purposes in these photos, so you'll have to take my word for it when I say these are all about 2" across.

These were for my parents.

And finally, our two cats yin-yanged together for Mr. Elinoire.

Catching up, Part 1

2007-04-15T22:00:00.000-07:00

The deal is that I get to post to my blog when I finish something, but sometimes I can't post because the thing I've finished is for someone else and that person might see what I've posted. So I need to wait. And then I forget to post about it later.

Have I ever mentioned that I have the attention span of a hummingbird? Or a certain small brown cat?

Anyhoo, this is a tote bag I gave Valerie over the holidays. (You know, the ones back in December. Last year.)

As you probably know, Valerie is a Knitter Extraordinaire. So this is a bag for knitting stuff. With a mouse knitting on it. See?

Plus, the aforementioned small brown cat, now used for scale purposes.

Entry the fifty-fifth: In which Sylvie has strong opinions

2007-04-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Sylvie gets to go outside to sniff the world. I'd say "go outside for a walk" or "go outside and look around," but really, what she's doing is sniffing everything she can. See?

The first couple times she went outdoors, she was pretty skittish. That is no longer the case. Now she pulls me all over the place, complains when I pick her up to bring her back in, and then YOWLS AT THE DOOR FOR THE NEXT HOUR.

I'm so excited that Sylvie is embracing the vocal aspect of her Bermese heritage. :-|

We may have to have a moratorium on these little excursions for a while.

Window Hopping

2007-04-08T23:51:00.000-07:00

Happy Day After Easter! (Alternately, if you don't celebrate Easter, Happy Monday!)

On this holiday, my family has breakfast together,* everyone gets something yummy from See's instead of a basket, and then we go to a potluck brunch** that starts a little bit later every year.***

Sometimes we make things for each other but unlike Valentine's day,**** this is optional. This year I made this set of three little cut-paper windows for my parents.

I think you can parse the first and last windows on your own (they're three separate vignettes and don't have anything to do with each other, so don't worry if you can't figure out the plot because there isn't one), but in case the middle one confuses you as much as it confused my parents, it's supposed to be a (very) simplified version of this painting at the National Gallery:

I notice the National Gallery calls this "Two women at a window," but the title I learned in Art History is "A girl and her duenna." I love this painting. I just think the scene of two young women (or one young woman and her guardian, who happens to be another young woman) looking out the window and giggling is incredibly charming. So when I started trying to think of window-related images, this popped into my head. See?

(Hey, at least the thing that popped into my head wasn't defenestration. That's window-related. But kind of depressing and un-holiday-y. AND probably even harder to portray in cut-paper than a Murillo painting.)

* Traditionally we have hot cross buns.***** When I was little, the name of this food confused me. My family isn't particularly religious and our version of the holiday had a lot more to do with decorated eggs and the Easter Bunny (or the E.B., as we called him) than anything else. I didn't get that the relevant word was "cross," not "buns." I did not realize that hot cross buns had nothing at all to do with bunnies and everything to do with the shape of the icing.

** Yes, you read that correctly. My family has breakfast together and then we immediately go to a friend's house where we eat another breakfasty meal.

*** 2pm-ish this year.

**** I made valentines. I forgot to post pix of them. I will do this soon. No, really.

***** If we can't get those, we have some other bread product that my sister dislikes.

Plus, here's my sketch for the bunny window.

Too tired to write...

2007-03-28T00:11:00.000-07:00

... but just enough energy to post a few pictures of a belated baby shower gift I'm putting in the mail tomorrow.

Two freezer paper-stenciled onesies DONE!

Some sketches I made before drawing on the freezer paper.

I have to mix white with yellow to make the paint opaque enough to go on non-white fabric, but it's hard to get a good picture of the actual color. The mice on this guy are teeny -- each is about the size of a pencil eraser. I should have included a penny (or a small brown cat) in the photo for scale purposes. Ah well.

In addition to the stenciled part of the design, I added some freehand grass and flowers to the duckie onesie.

And now I'm going to SLEEP!

Some things don't taste like chicken

2007-03-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

A friend in Hawaii sent me mail about her moral dilemma: she loves Monarch butterflies and she loves her baby crown flower plant... but so do the Monarchs, one of which has laid an egg on it. She's trying to decide whether to let the caterpillar-to-be stay there and probably munch her plant to death, or whether to squish the egg.

(I voted for letting the baby butterfly munch the plant because, besides being mildly interesting, if one monarch found it, the odds are good that others will. My friend can watch Nature in Action but will have to reconcile herself to buying a new plant after caterpillar season every year. Maybe she coulld consider it her contribution to the Maui gardening/nursery industry.)

But that is not why I am blogging. No, no, I am blogging because her message reminded me of something else entirely and now I'm bouncy and happy and I have to share.* (Though I doubt this is news to those of you (you know who you are) who pay more attention to The World of Science and Bugs than I do.)

Mr. Elinoire often has the TV on while he's using his laptop. The other day we caught a bit of a show about birds. The narrator told us that the small colorful bird onscreen was called the Ptui bird (or at least that's what it sounded like) and I said "wouldn't it be GREAT if was called that because it tastes really bad?"

Mr. Elinoire agreed that it would.

And then (this makes me so happy I can hardly sit still and it's tough to type when you're bouncing around) the narrator said that the birds eat a nasty-tasting beetle and so they (the birds) taste terrible. Isn't that fabulous?! You'd actually take a bite of this little red or yellow bird and then spit it out and say it's name at the same time!

Sometimes life is just beautiful. And Google? Google is amazing. I cannot believe I tracked down a page on Pitohuis. (Having no idea how their name was spelled, I just kept adding things like "taste" "bird" "bad" "beetle" to my search.)

I read the whole article and kept waiting for the punchline, but nowhere does it point out that a word pronounced "ptui" is a hilarious name for a bird that tastes bad (but looks pretty enough to eat).**

Wikipedia took the purely scientific and rational approach, too. Huh.

I am not, however, the very first person to ask the tough questions.

* Because Monarchs are infamous for tasting really bad. I know this because I have a book about them.

** My sister's response to following quote in the article linked above: "'I was given a juvenile variable pitohui,' Gregory said, 'and when I licked the feathers, I felt my mouth tingle and go numb.'"

Who the hell does that? If I gave you a random wild bird (or even a domestic, relatively clean bird) would it ever, in a million years, seem to you that the right thing to do was to lick it?

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, perhaps this Gregory person had heard about pitohui birds being poisonous, so there was some reason to investigate. But wouldn't that be an even more complelling reason not to lick the bird?

Mixed Media with Catfood and Tinsel

2007-02-06T22:55:00.000-08:00

Sylvie is an artist. She usually expresses herself via installation pieces such as this.

Exhibited are a number of Sylvie's "sparkle balls" carefully arranged in her dry food bowl. This picture was taken last February, but it's just one in a continuing series. Here is another, dated a few months later. Note the playful arrangement of sparkle balls both in and outside of the food dish.

Sparkle balls (pom poms plus some mylar tinsel) are Sylvie's favorite toys. Period. She plays soccer with them on her own or brings them to us to throw and then she chases them down brings them back. I have woken up several times to find a sparkle ball in the bed or my hand. I'm sure it's very frustrating to Sylvie when I don't get the hint and play with her. You know, because I'm asleep and all. I have no idea why she leaves them in her food dish.

Sometimes she goes through a deconstructionist phase and then we see pieces like this.

Finally, Sylvie's tribute to the Dada movement.

Entry the fiftieth: Amphibious Outrage

2007-01-24T12:44:00.000-08:00

Today at work, I told someone that I liked newts. I pointed out that some of them are orange, and what's not to like about that? And then I felt the need to illustrate. After a little poking around, I found this image, care of www.northmoortrust.co.uk.

This newt is seriously irate. His stance and expression both say "What the hell, man?! I'm a newt! Back off!"

I'm not messing with that newt. He means business.

Entry the forty-ninth: In which I admit that I am not a Conscientious Duster

2007-01-18T00:24:00.000-08:00

How do I know that the dust bunnies under the bed are out of control?

Evidence:

Don't be distracted by Sylvie's sheepish look; it's not her fault. Go ahead and take a closer look.

UGH. Guess there's going to be some vacuuming this weekend. Neat.

Entry the forty-eighth: In which Sylvie develops a new hobby

2007-01-17T23:59:00.000-08:00

The first time we used the speakerphone to talk to my sister, Sylvie jumped up and started chinning the receiver. I've never known another cat who recognized that the voices coming out of the phone are human, much less people she knows and likes. But boy, does she ever.

Since that first incident, Sylvie has also realized that sometimes the voices of her favorite people come out of the answering machine. At first we found this pretty cute ("Hey, look how Sylvie runs in here when I play back this message from Valerie!") but now that opinion is under review. She has discovered that if she walks around on the machine, sometimes it will talk to her. She hasn't figured out exactly which button to step on, so it happens randomly. And you know how that variable reinforcement works: it's the strongest kind there is.

Now, practically every evening she hops up on the machine (which is in a little nook about 3' from the floor) and if it doesn't talk to her, she complains about it. Loudly. For a small cat, she's got a large voice.

Exhibit A: Small Brown Cat investigates as Mr. Elinoire leaves a message.

Entry the forty-seventh: Why cats aren't allowed to play with matches

2007-01-12T21:12:00.000-08:00

It's because they'd burn the house down. You know I'm right. Do the math:

Cats love heat sources + cats are easily distracted = we're all doomed.

Luckily for us, this fire's contained. This is my parents' cat Gremlin. She's blissed out in front of the fireplace on a cold (for Southern California -- it's 44 degrees out there! Crazy!) night.

Entry the forty-sixth: Dark red is my best friend, color-wise

2007-01-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

Holy cow! Look at what Valerie made me for Christmas!

It's the thing being being modeled by a small brown cat. For scale purposes, naturally, but also because I tweaked a bunch of muscles in my back/neck/shoulder/upper torso (so I never took anatomy and I don't really know what's connected to what or where things begin and end -- sue me) so by the time I got home last night I was sore enough to not want to reach back and put a shawl on. Yes, I know that's pathetic. Not to mention ungrateful.

The shawl (that's what it is: a handknit lace shawl) is absolutely gorgeous and soft and delicate and made of pretty much the bestest colored yarn EVER and she knit it for me, me, ME so I am very happy. And smug. In case you haven't noticed. And I will take a nicer photograph of it very soon and post it so you can all be jealous.

I can't get over the workmanship. It really is just an amazingly lovely thing. I am really lucky. :-)

Entry the forty-fifth: In which I answer questions that someone else's uncle/aunt/grandmother/etc. asked them

2007-01-07T02:52:00.000-08:00

I stole this list of questions from idiomsavant, for whom, I presume, they are more relevant then they are to me. This is owing to the fact that these are, in fact, questions asked to him (her? I don't know -- bloggers are mysterious and I am lazy when it comes to research) during his (or her -- sigh) holiday visit with his (oh never MIND) family.

It's late. As soon as I answer these questions, I'm going to bed. Really.

Q #1: How was the traffic?
Great! Of course it’s Saturday, so that helps…

Q #2: So, what are you up to these days?
Uh, working. And, you know, not traveling. Still. I'm hoping that will change. Plus I’ve been reading a lot of junky-but-satisfying-until-I-forget-them books, so that’s nice.

Q #3: What was your favorite part of the pageant?
Pageant? I don’t usually watch pageants. I just bumped Little Miss Sunshine up to the top of our Netflix queue – does that count?

Q #4 How is it possible, year after year, for you to be able to forget which of your cousins is which?
I don’t, really. I’ve only got the three. [pause, horrible realization hitting] Wait, wait… I’m not responsible for remembering my husband’s cousins am I? Because I’m pretty sure he can’t remember them and surely cousins-in-law don’t count?! Crap.

Q #5: Did you get enough to eat?
Yup. Scary Mexican* followed by chocolate coins with peanut butter. Oh, and some kind of mint tea with bark and twigs in it that my husband’s brother’s wife (did I mention I don’t have the hang of this in-law thing yet?) gave us. Surprisingly good despite the label that was written by some crazy mountain people. You probably think I’m kidding, but I’m not.

Q #6: When I remarked that 73 didn't seem very old for James Brown to have died, what did it mean when you replied, "Old enough"?
Gee, I don’t actually remember saying that. Was I drunk?

Q #7: What are you watching?
Project Runway reruns. (I miss it SO MUCH. Sniff.) Or a hummingbird getting a hit at our window feeder. Depends on when you ask.

Q #8: What are you reading?
Something by Diana Wynne Jones but I can’t remember what it’s called. I keep remembering that I’ve been told I’ll like her and I don’t remember that that has yet to be true until I’m at least halfway into one of her books, and then I usually want to know how it ends even though I’m irritable about it.

Q #9: Can you fix my VCR so that the time displays properly?
Probably. As long as you still have the original remote.

Q #10: Why don't you update your blog more often?
Sigh. Because I’m a slacker. And it’s been a tough year (I have high hopes for 2007). And it’s something I want to do but don’t have to do and you know how those things go. Or, in this case, don’t. Or, at best, go intermittently.

Q #11: What's your blog about, anyway?
Have you read it? I thought it was pretty clear, actually. Why don’t you go ahead and read it and get back to me if you still have questions.

Q #12: You don't have a blog, do you?
No. No I don’t. Unless you aren’t my mother (who is, for the record, a lovely person but who tends to share things that are Not Hers with everyone and I don’t actually WANT my great uncle Milton or all my mother’s friends to read this unless I tell them about it, thank you very much) or a few random other people I’d just as soon not share with and then yes. Yes I do.

Q #13: Would you like something to drink?
Yes. Thank you.

*Scary Mexican is what we call the 24 hour Roberto's knockoff down the street. The food isn't scary. There are bars across the kitchen/cashier area and the first time we saw them we said "ooh, scary!" and now the place is just Scary Mexican. The sit-down order-from-the-menu-instead-of-the-sign-on-the-wall and maybe even get a margarita place a few blocks away is, of course, Non-scary Mexican.

Entry the forty-fourth: My dad's shirt

2006-12-31T00:42:00.000-08:00

First attempt at sending photos to my blog from my phone. New technology is scary. More later, but for now, the t-shirt I gave my dad for Christmas.

Front:

Back:

Entry the forty-third: Never Before Seen Photos

2006-12-29T14:00:00.000-08:00

I can now post pictures of some Christmas gifts. Woo!

Freezer paper stenciled t-shirt I made for Mr. Elinoire (with usual Small Brown Cat included for scale purposes):

Front:

Back:

Some gift baskets:

Whew! That's enough for now, but more later, I promise.

Entry the forty-second: Another 15 things

2006-12-29T13:16:00.000-08:00

To make up for my lack of posts during the last week (it's been a doozy of a week), I will post TWO things today. Don't fall over in shock. :-)

Here are the next 15 items in that list of stuff about myself:

16. With the exception of the-future-and-now-current Mr. Elinoire, the best roommates I ever had were ones I didn’t know before we shared a dorm room/apartment/house.
17. I am embarrassed to be as picky an eater as I am.
18. I think if you can hold your breath the entire time you are going through a tunnel, you get to make a wish.
19. I am mildly allergic to tomatoes, eggplant, walnuts, and swiss cheese, which all make my tongue itch.
20. I love swimming in the ocean but since I am extremely phobic about sharks, I don’t do it very often.
21. My favorite thing about ocean waves is when they are so strong that they knock you over and you have no idea which end is up until you float to the top.
22. I hated coconut until I was in college and then all of a sudden I loved it and it tasted the same as it always had.
23. I like to spell things the old fashioned way: cocoanut, cooky.
24. I like English English spellings of words, but I think it’s pretentious to use them if you’re writing in America.
25. I’m a packrat but I’m trying to reform.
26. Progress is slow.
27. I am not a Good Shopper.
28. I like using capital letters to emphasize certain words or phrases even though I know perfectly well that English grammar doesn’t really allow for That Sort Of Thing.
29. I am uncoordinated.
30. I don’t like talking on the phone.

Entry the forty-first and a half: Celebrate the season!

2006-12-28T20:26:00.001-08:00

My mother's dog Strider helps with the whipped cream bowl.

Entry the forty-first: Is this numbering system too precious?

2006-12-18T19:44:00.000-08:00

I liked it at first but as the number of posts goes up, maybe it's... ungainly. Anyone have any thoughts?

Entry the fortieth: In which I continue to do stuff that isn't work-related or The Resentful Doughnut – a holiday fable

2006-12-18T11:42:00.000-08:00

Mr. Elinoire (via Instant Messaging): I got spam where the title is "resentful" and the first line is "doughnut". Sounds like a weird short story.

Elinoire: Once upon a time there was a donut. He was one of those plain, cake doughnuts that some adults like but most kids pass over in favor of the ones with rainbow sprinkles. The plain cake doughnut did not think that was fair. He was just as good -- No, better! -- than any of those decked out razzle dazzle sprinkled doughnuts. The cake doughnut's beauty was more than just skin deep. A customer came to the doughnut's store and decided to buy a dozen. He carefully chose the prettiest and yummiest of them and then, when the sales clerk said that he could have an extra to make it a "baker's dozen," the customer pointed to the cake doughnut and said "I might as well take that boring one. Someone might want it." The cake doughnut was placed at the bottom of the box and by the time it was opened by the customer and the customer's friends, the cake doughnut was squished. No one ate it.

The end.

Entry the thirty-ninth: In which I sometimes goof off when I should be working

2006-12-18T11:40:00.000-08:00

This morning, on the way to work:

Elinoire: That fire truck we just passed is really shiny.
Mr. Elinoire: It just got behind us. I think it’s following us.
Elinoire: Uh…
Mr. Elinoire: It’s still there. It’s definitely following us.
Elinoire: Are you on fire?
Mr. Elinoire: Uh…
Elinoire: Because you aren’t paranoid if you’re really on fire.

And now that meme is stuck in my head.

“You’re not paranoid if the enemy really has hired psychics."
“You’re not paranoid if they’re really out of coffee.”
“You’re not paranoid if the birds are deliberately aiming for your car.”

Entry the thirty-eighth: Um...

2006-12-17T21:25:00.000-08:00

I saw this tonight in a high-end antique/decor shop in a fairly posh neighborhood:

These rabbit figurines are two separate objects. Surely this is not what the manufacturer had in mind. Did someone intentionally place them just so? Do they look wildly different (and, you know, less provocative) when viewed from inside the store instead of through the window?

The situation doesn't improve from this angle:

Perhaps the store has an employee with a grudge.

Entry the thirty-seventh: Baking insanity

2006-12-17T17:17:00.000-08:00

No, no, I'm not perfecting a recipe for insanity on a cookie sheet; I've gone insane and baking is my way of expressing it. ("Gone," you say? "What is this 'gone' Elinoire speaks of? Hasn't she already been there for as long as I've known her?") Ahem.

Proof of my mental condition:

"That," you might say to yourself, "is a whole lot of banana bread." And you'd be right. (About the quantity. I'm just pretending I didn't hear that earlier comment about how long I have or have not been crazy.) Especially if you were including the eight loaves still in the oven. It's ridiculous. And even a little bizarre because banana bread is not a traditional December goodie.

(Not that I think you wouldn't be muttering to yourself if I baked twenty-seven loaves of fruitcake.)

But I digress.

Here is the reason I bake and distribute banana bread every December:

These are bananas that were bought during the last year and then ignored for a just a little too long. I like bananas that are tinged with green and my husband likes them when they're all yellow with maybe one or two brown spots. These were left in the fruit bowl until they became spotty and unappealing (to us, anyway) and then tossed in the back of the freezer. That's why they're totally brown now and even a little frosty. When they're thawed they're perfect for baking.

Except these are the bananas I had left over after my bout of baking insanity. These are the extra bananas that ended up in my parents' composter.

We're definitely buying smaller bunches in 2007.

Entry the thirty-sixth: Fifteen things

2006-12-12T22:37:00.000-08:00

I'm in the middle of one of those self-involved but (hopefully) amusing "Hundred things about me" lists, but I'm just going to post the facts in groups of fifteen. I'm hoping this will mollify me when I can't post pictures of presents I'm working on. Plus, it draws this out. That's good, right? Yeah, I don't know either.

1. I wish I could see some of my very best friends more often. I hate that I live so far away from them.
2. I love gingerbread.
3. And really good strawberries.
4. I get annoyed about trivial things way too easily.
5. Like people who talk during movies. I am so easily annoyed that I don’t go to the movies very often anymore.
6. One of my earliest memories is of being underwater and seeing the surface above but not being able to get to it until my dad pulled me out.
7. That was in Loch Ness but, as far as I know, no monsters were involved.
8. I am always surprised when lake water is fresh, not salty.
9. I am impatient.
10. I am a Taurus but I don’t believe in astrology.
11. I love John Waters’ essays but his movies are usually too rude for me.
12. I get tense when people on TV or in movies are in embarrassing situations.
13. I don’t mind traveling on my own.
14. Sometimes I prefer it.
15. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

Plus, for no reason, here is a picture of my husband taking a picture of our cats.

Entry the thirty-fifth: In which I am really, really tired

2006-12-11T00:07:00.000-08:00

I still have cookies waiting to be iced. Hmph. This after two days of diligent work. I really did make a lot of dough this year -- I shouldn't be as surprised as I am that this process is taking friggin' FOREVER.

No pictures from yesterdays bake-a-thon with tyee and her lovely babbling (in a good way) daughter, but I took a few tonight.

The production line: I like to work on several cookies at a time; this year I wised up and started using a lazy susan.

An hour or two later...

And, finally, the aftermath.

Did I mention I'm not done yet? AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

(The aforementioned tyee gave me the idea for both the hula girls and the light-swagged & Christmas-treed houses. Thanks tyee!)

Entry the thirty-fourth: Your anonymity is safe with me

2006-12-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

After hearing a friend tell me she couldn't post comments to my blog because she didn't have a Blogger account, I did a little poking around. Turns out I was blocking anonymous comments without realizing it. Whoops.

That feature's been switched off so non-bloggers may now comment to their heart's content. :-)

Entry the thirty-third: Snags

2006-12-03T22:52:00.000-08:00

On an almost daily basis, Sylvie attempts to perch on the towel bar on the back of the bathroom door. She is rarely successful, but she keeps making the attempt. Maybe it's that variable reinforcement thing. Every once in a great while we get this:

And there is much rejoicing.

Nine times out of ten, however, we get a small brown cat hanging from the towel like a monkey. Admittedly, it's amusing... but this is the unfortunate result:

Snags. Snags in EVERY SINGLE TOWEL we own. My sister's boyfriend stayed with us for one night last month and I had to empty the linen cupboard before I found the last untouched-by-paws-and-claws towel cowering in the back. And Sylvie? Unrepentant. Even when I tell her This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things.

It's like she doesn't understand a word I'm saying. Or perhaps understands one or two of them, but can tell from my tone I'm not conveying any information she would find interesting.

Entry the thirty-second: It starts...

2006-12-03T01:48:00.000-08:00

What, you ask? What is starting, exactly?

Holiday baking, that's what.

Except very little actual baking occurred tonight. I used my wonderful KitchenAid mixer (one of the best birthday presents ever!) to put together um... hold on, I'm counting on my fingers... SEVEN batches of gingerbread cookie dough. My husband thought I was kidding when I told him to buy 5 jars of molasses -- Ha!

My husband set the cat bed up in the kitchen doorway and first Mirabelle then Sylvie obligingly smooshed into it. I feel sure they were cheering me on.

Next week I will descend upon my parents' (larger, nicer, more modern) kitchen like a gingerbread dervish and roll out and bake all this dough. My parents don't mind this because
1. It's a nice way to hang out
2. Their house ends up smelling like gingerbread
3. They get to eat all the mistakes and extra bits.

My mother really likes it when I appropriate their lovely double oven for my cookie madness. The ensuing cheer always knocks the "They-put-Christmas-stuff-up-in-the-stores-in-August-and-that's-just-wrong,-wrong,-WRONG" grouchy mood out of my dad. Once he's experienced the healing power of baking cookies, he brings the boxes of Christmas decorations in from the garage. My mom can never make any headway in this department before baking day.

Happy December!

Entry the thirty-first: Someone else's art

2006-12-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

My current favorite blog is Kevin Cornell's bearskinrug. Kevin Cornell is an illustrator and a goofball (in the best possible way, of course) and his site is full of odd little corners to poke into. Over Thanksgiving weekend, I made my entire family play with The Bear (top right corner of the screen on this page) and I bought myself a t-shirt, despite the fact that I'm trying not to spend money on myself during this expensive time of year. So much for that resolution.

Clearly, I am helpless against the power of the sock monkey.*

In other news, Valerie told me that someone is studying Internet meme velocity. It's an intriguing idea. I am eager to see the results.

*Truth is, normally I'm not such a fan of sock monkeys. But Mojo, the one on bearskinrug, is another matter entirely. And he's on a t-shirt.

Entry the thirtieth: In case you were worried

2006-11-28T13:22:00.000-08:00

I realize that lately I've been blogging like an eight year old, or maybe just a senile old lady or a bouncy annoying teenager. You know what I'm talking about but you've been too nice to say anything. Dressing cats in clothes? Youtube links to Sesame Street? Penguins in little blue socks?

Okay, maybe you weren't worried about the penguins.

Here's my excuse (or at least the excuse I'm going with for the time being): every third person I know is having a baby and I am easily distracted by tangents. In other words, I've had children on the brain, which makes me think my childhood, which makes me thing of all kinds of diverting things that have nothing to do with the work I should be completing now. And then I discover youtube.com or that Sylvie really doesn't mind if you put a onesie on her, and it's all over.

In other news, I'm working from home today and the pottery studio next door is prepping for an art walk this weekend, so I'm learning all about the pottery biz. Conversations sail in from the acoustically-perfect deck next door and through my bathroom window.

For instance, when I put in my contact lenses, I learned that someone is picking up her laptop today and is looking forward to not sharing a computer with her family because one person is always researching trailer pricing and another person is fond of recipes for cranberry jello. No, really. You didn't expect them just to discuss pottery, did you?

Now I can hear someone breaking something that makes a satisfying noise when smashed. The sound is loud enough to carry to the living room but it isn't unpleasant. I'm guessing it's unfired, unloved unfinished pieces which will be turned back into soft clay, but I could be wrong. It could be crockery. Or delicate bricks. Or large china Dalmations with chipped ears. Yes, yes, I could go look, but then I'd know the answer.

Entry the twenty-ninth: Brrrrriiiiiing... yip yip yip

2006-11-27T00:54:00.000-08:00

My most wonderful husband just downloaded the perfect ringtone for my new phone. Now when he calls, the phone plays the exchange between the telephone and the Muppet aliens in the clip below. (For the impatient among you, skip to 2:23.)

I'm very, very happy. Brrrrriiiiing!

Entry the twenty-eighth: In which I must have done something benevolent in a previous life...

2006-11-26T23:55:00.000-08:00

... or Sylvie did something really evil in one of hers. Proof:

Isn't Sylvie a lovely model? I'd use my "small brown cat used for scale purposes" phrase, but I doubt any of you smart people would buy it. (Or you would point out the onesie is too large and that Sylvie is more of a "0-3 months" than a "12 months" cat.) You've no doubt already figured out that I'm the kind of person who occasionally puts clothes on defenseless pets.

The thing is, Sylvie is the most "eh, whatever" cat ever. I'm not going to say she loved this experience... but she didn't really mind. No, really. This picture was taken a few minutes ago and now Sylvie is asleep on my desk, mere inches from my keyboard.

Here's a clearer (i.e. sans cat) picture of the stenciled onesie I finished this weekend.

Looking back at the weekend, I can think of a dozen things I wish I had finished (or started) but for now I'm content with this.

Entry the twenty-seventh: Oops

2006-11-20T00:10:00.000-08:00

A few friends came over to make rubber stamps tonight and I forgot to take pictures. Ack! You'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you they created nifty things. Since I have no evidence from tonight, I'm cheating and showing off some of my own stuff.

A little explanation: I decorate the labels for my canned goodies (and the recipe cards above and below), but I'm not crazy about using prefab stamps. It sort of feels like cheating to make a design and then call it my own work. My homemade stamps are a bit clunky compared to the ones from the pros, but I like them nonetheless. I wanted to share this doable-even-for-beginners craft with others... but I'm a dork and I forgot to take pictures.

Here are some of my homemade stamps with the cards.

My wonderfully talented (and patient!) friends made a candy cane/heart arrangement, a flower with separate stampable leaves, a paw print, and a supercool pumpkin with two optional jack o' lantern faces and a leggy spider on the opposite side. (The stamping material is thick enough to carve one stamp on each side and four more around the edges.)

One more shot of some of my favorite cards. And a promise: next time I'll remember to take pictures!

Entry the twenty-sixth: Adorableness

2006-11-17T16:41:00.000-08:00

I've got some yucky bug (of the germ variety, not the kind Mirabelle likes) so I'm not up to doing much, but I had to post a picture of this guy.

This mini article says that this is Elvis (yes, really) and he's wearing shoes because the floor of his enclosure (he's at a zoo in New Zealand, I think) were making his little feetsies sore.

Poor Elvis. I hope the shoes help. Does someone help him take them off when he wants to go for a swim?

Entry the twenty-fifth: Extreme Canning Frustratrion

2006-11-12T21:34:00.000-08:00

Raaaarrrrgggh.

Last night I used my pressure canner for the very first time. I've canned many a thing with boiling water, but never with superheated steam. My wonderfully sweet husband reread through the instruction booklet and walked me through it, step by step, as I prepared the ingredients and readied the hot sterilized jars.

The recipe told me to leave 1/4" headspace, so that's what I did. Even when my husband pointed out that the canner instructions said to leave twice that. But me? I followed the recipe. Grumblegrumblegrumble.

The first indication that something was wrong was when I opened the cooled-for-the-allotted-time-so-not-going-to-explode-and-scald-anyone canner. The canning water was cloudy and smelled a lot like lemon and egg. At first I thought one of the jars had broken (this happened to me once when I made pickles, but I think in that case it was because the room temperature cukes did not play well with the boiling water), but no. The largest jar had leaked approximately half its contents into the water during the process, but then sealed when cooling.

Concerned by this and the now-completely-filled-with-no-headspace-WHATSOEVER jars, I started Googling. And getting answers. And now I am extremely frustrated.

Turns out it may not be safe to can lemon curd (yes, this was the origin of the lemony eggy water), even with a pressure canner. And yet Linda J. Amendt's Blue Ribbon Preserves instructs me how to do it.

I don't know what to do. This book has forty-one reviews on amazon.com and all but (I think) three are glowing. Her book is published by Penguin. It didn't occur to me (before all that Googling) that her recipes might not be safe. Raaaaarrrrghh.

I've posted a "please help!" question on gardenweb.com and am hoping for a reassuring answer. But in the meantime, I Am Not Happy.

Here is a picture of an adorable dormouse to mitigate some of the grouchiness of this post.

Entry the twenty-fourth: In which I am gratified

2006-11-09T13:17:00.000-08:00

If you read yesterday's post, you know what I did as soon as I was fully conscious this morning: run next door for stenciled onesies. (I might have put on my glasses and pet the cat a couple times before that, but that's it. Oh, and I took a vitamin. Vitamins are important.) After carefully pulling off all the stencils, I was quite pleased with the results. Mostly.

Here's the line up. The two at the top left (cheese and an unfinished sun) are still on the first stage. I will add another stencil and some paint today.

The pink mouse on the yellow cheese came out nicely. He still needs an eye.

And I love the sun and moon.

The navy onesie was a pain because it required three layers of paint, but I can't complain about the results. Maybe it's worth the extra trouble after all.

This is the only piece I'm not thrilled with.

Turns out the soft flannel-ish texture of these navy overalls doesn't play well with fabric paint. You can see that the paint leaked under the stencil in a few places. I might try daubing a little yellow paint on one of the "spills" to see if I can hide it. The other problem is the placement of the mouse on the cheese. I could have done a better job with that.

Overall, however, I'm quite pleased. I think these will be well received. Yay!

Entry the twenty-third: Stenciled onesies and a basket!

2006-11-08T20:54:00.000-08:00

Valerie and I spent all of Saturday learning how to make baskets out of Torrey pine needles at the UCSD Craft Center. I didn't manage to finish that day (Valerie did, the showoff), so it looked like this when I took it home.

Yesterday I was freakishly (for me) productive. If I had more days like yesterday, I wouldn't need a blog to nudge me into getting things done! (I'm serious. I need this blog to lurk in the back of my consciousness saying "you could post pictures if you actually got something done. Plus, I'm pink!") First, I finished my basket.

Here it is again, this time with the obligatory (and irritated) small brown cat included for scale purposes.

Then I washed some stuff. I will spare you pictures of that. But after that I drew and cut out stencils from freezer paper and then ironed them on some onesies.

I followed these directions on this blog.

I used silk screen fabric paint and discovered that dark fabrics are, well, dark and difficult to cover with lighter colors. Yellow paint over navy blue fabric, for instance, does not work. At all. Luckily the white paint is quite opaque so I mixed that with the yellow and painted a second coat an hour or so later with better results.

When I got home tonight, the first thing I did is run next door (yes, next door... it's sort of our annex... it's a long story) to bring all the onesies back. I carefully peeled the paper off a few of them and was delighted to discover that the stencils were a success! (Apologies for the lack of pictures of this stage -- you'll just have to come up with your own mental image.)

I decided that several of the onesies needed another coat of paint before going further. The ones with the successfully-stenciled designs had a second stencil ironed on over them and then I painted the second design element. This one will have a pink mouse on top of a piece of yellow cheese.

Whew! More tomorrow when I see how the mouse comes out. :-)

P.S. My husband would like the world (or at least the four people who read this blog) to know that "Trader Joe's Chocolate Sandwich Creme Joe-Joe's are the Devil's Lunchbox." Whatever that means.

Entry the twenty-second: In which I come in just under the wire

2006-10-31T23:18:00.000-08:00

I meant to post these pictures yesterday but was sidelined with a migraine. To celebrate what's left of Halloween, I present some pictures of a candle thingie I made for a friend last fall.

After drawing the design on orange cardstock, I cut it out with an x-acto knife. Then I inserted it in a glass candle holder. When a tealight is lit inside, the paper will act as a partial shade and make cool shadows on the glass and anything else the candlelight reaches.

Happy Halloween!

Entry the twenty-first: Mice!

2006-10-27T00:03:00.000-07:00

Progress has been made and I have photographic evidence! (If you're a friend or family member and you have a cat, just pretend you see nothing. <waving hands mysteriously> You see nothing... This post is invisible to you. </waving hands>)

I like little hand sewing projects I can work on in front of the TV and these guys fit the bill nicely. They're stuffed with cotton and homegrown catnip and will go out as holiday gifts when the time arrives. I started with four panels and the blue calico, but my heart belongs to the three-panel plaid flannel mice. They're the perfect size, soft as anything, and will be camouflage nicely if you want to hide them amongst your Bermuda shorts.

Entry the twentieth: In which I can't help myself

2006-10-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

He is all id.

Entry the ninteenth: Quandary

2006-10-23T23:57:00.000-07:00

I've made progress! On two projects!

But now I am faced with a dilemma: almost all the the things I am working on now (or for the forseeable future) will likely be presents... and some of these will be intended for people who read this blog. So what to do? Should I save up all my photos and progress reports until the giftee has been given the gift? (It could be several months.) Or can I write about the things I'm excited about as I work on them, and resign myself to ruining surprises?

Any advice would be very welcome.

Entry the eighteenth: In which I have no progress to report

2006-10-20T20:11:00.000-07:00

But here's my contribution to Eye Candy Friday.

I hope the Montery Bay Aquarium got some kind of award or a MacArthur genius grant for coming up with this way of displaying live jellyfish. I never thought jellyfish were all that exciting until I saw them in Monterey. And now? Now I think they're still not exciting BUT they're really gorgeous. So. Yeah.

Plus, those otters are really cute. You know, the ones they have in Monterey. Actually, the ones we have here at the zoo are pretty darn adorable as well. I'd love to pick one up and pet its tummy but I'll bet you a quarter that otters bite, so I won't. Plus, it's against the rules. You aren't allowed to do a lot of things at the zoo, and even though it isn't specifically mentioned, I suspect breaking into an enclosure with the express purpose of petting an otter's tummy is still considered a no-no.

But look at them! Aren't they the cutest? Those eyes! Those shiny black noses! The tiny ears! The little clawed toes!

Yesterday at the zoo, I saw them zooming around in the water. They swim like... otters. (Okay, lousy simile.) But you know what they sound like? Birds. One of them spent a lot of time chirping -- it was quite high pitched -- and it was both interesting and unsettling because it seemed worried about something. None of the other otters paid any attention, though, so maybe it was just crying wolf.*

*As in, "Hey you guys, I know you said I should stop chirping about this, but I swear this crazy woman in the big hat is going to jump in here and rub our tummies! I'm serious you guys! You guys? Where'd you all go?"

Entry the seventeenth: In which I continue to get nothing done but share a few details

2006-10-16T21:32:00.000-07:00

Hmph. For various reasons, this weekend was close to a total loss. I hate that.

Anyway, in lieu of showing any actual progress, here are a few details about the yarn I'm using to make myself a sweater.

When I was three years old, my father got a summer-long sabbatical. My mother, grandma, and I joined him for three months of driving all over Europe in a red VW bus,* camping, checking out cathedrals, pretending to speak Danish,** and visiting museums. Sometime during the trip, my mother bought a seventeen skeins of this

to make a sweater for herself when we returned home. She never got around to it. When I got interested in knitting about ten years ago, she gave it to me. I started and then abandoned a sweater (though, in my defense, I did get a few other projects done) and put it away. Until now.

As you can see, the yarn is a lovely bluey greeny color (the photo is pretty darn close to reality) called "Kentucky."*** I have no what it weighs (what its weight is? I don't know how to write about knitting) but it's very satisfying to knit on my mom's old #7 BERNAT-Aero needles (which, since they're English, I'm guessing my mom bought on the same trip).

According to Valerie's diligent googling, the yarn is from the Keighley Knitting Wool Spinners in Yorkshire, England. It was a little business that was eventually swallowed by a larger one and at some point it produced this batch of yarn. Since the company closed the same year we took our trip, it's likely the yarn is from sometime close to the end of the Keighley Spinners' history.

Oh! Oh! Wait! I do have progress to report! Okay, maybe not knitting progress, but it's a project I completed, so that counts, right? I finally finished making a wedding photo album for my parents and they love it. I used Apple iPhoto and mypublisher.com and it came out really, really well.

I don't have a picture of the album but I can show you the invitation my dad designed for my wedding. The little thingie next to it is a teapot made by cutting & folding the invitation (and following the convoluted directions inside). Isn't that cool?!

Here is Mirabelle "helping" me take the picture.

*Does this make anyone else start humming "Alice's Restaurant"?
**None of the grown-ups did this. I thought the Danish kids in the campground were speaking gobbledygook, so that's what I spoke back at them.
***This is where Sylvie wished to add "fgcxxxxxxxxd"

Entry the sixteenth: In which I need to get some work done on various projects so I can write about them

2006-10-09T15:19:00.000-07:00

But in the meantime, check out this article. It's hard to choose my favorite sentence, but "the shop manager said people need to be aware not to put spiders in bags" is a strong contender.

I love the dry tone of BBC news. I'd say it's second to none, but the New York Times is pretty fabulous, too. My favorite is when they're reporting on a celebrity with a name like Snoop Dogg. They'll use the whole name the first time, but subsequently refer to him as "Mr. Dogg."

Entry the fifteenth: Je suis grincheuse

2006-10-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

<snit>
Quick question: if you were applying for a job as an editor, writer, or proofreader, wouldn't you want to be very, very sure your resume didn't have any typos in it? I mean, really, all resumes should be carefully proofed before being submitted for all the world (or at least all the hiring world) to see, but isn't it even more important if the job you're applying for is that of CORRECTING OTHER PEOPLE'S MISTAKES?!

Dear applicant,

When your only writing sample is your cover letter and the first sentence
1. is badly written
2. has two grammatical mistakes
3. makes no sense
you are in trouble. You are even more trouble if you spell a word incorrectly. It's not a typo -- I can tell you think "laid" is spelled "layed," but it's not.

I'm sorry. Please go away now.*
</snit>

*the applicant. Not you guys. You guys are great. :-)

Entry the fourteenth: In which I stop writing about bugs for a little while

2006-09-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

These are "Bush Early Girl" tomatoes. I tried the first one yesterday and it was really good, but not spectacular. I am still sad the heirloom variety I tried to grow early this summer fizzled, but I am mollified by the fact that no one* had much luck with tomatoes this year.

I shouldn’t fret about the tomatoes, however, because the cucumbers I grew early this summer were amazing, and now I’m getting ready to harvest my second crop of Japanese eggplants. I used this recipe to stir-fry the first batch and now I can’t wait to do it again as soon as these guys are a little larger.

In other news, I’ve started my first knitting project in 9 years. Yikes! It’s going to be a sweater (I haven’t decided yet between a cardigan or pullover) and as you can see, I’m getting some help.

Valerie has been even more help than Sylvie (you're shocked, no?) and is the one who helped** me get started. More about the sweater and where I got the yarn soon.

*”No one” = me, my godmother, a family friend, my sister (in upstate New York), or the guy teaching the “Summer Tomato Sensations” class at Great News.

**”Helped” = figured out my gauge, found a starter pattern, and retaught me how to cast on. My fingers remember how to knit and purl, but I’ve never actually learned anything else. Like how to read a knitting pattern. Or fix mistakes.

Entry the thirteenth: In which Mirabelle helps out with the grasshopper problem

2006-09-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

Poor Mirabelle. She can chitter and bat at the grasshopper on the other side of the window but she can't actually nab it. Sometimes life is very frustrating.

You know who can eat all the bugs she feels like? The green lynx spider that lives in the carnations in my windowbox, that's who. To be fair, I suspect a grasshopper might be a little ambitious for the spider at this time, but I've seen new, smaller spiders around and about, so I think this one has chosen my garden in which to raise her family. Eventually la famille verte d'araignée may learn to work in tandem and bring down an entire grasshopper.

I'd say something like "that's a sight I'd like to see," but it would not be true. It's dandy if the spiders eat all the bugs that feast on my plants, but I don't want to witness the carnage personally.

Entry the twelfth: In which I tentatively venture back into the blogsphere

2006-09-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

Ack, where did the summer go? The campus is rife with new students who cannot remember a time without cell phones, DVDs, and laptops, and once again, I feel ancient. The school year is upon us.

I promise to come back (soon!) to write about tomatoes, raspberry lemon jelly, my first knitting project since 1997, cats, freezer paper, green lynx spiders, and more, but for now, I'll just share this:

Cookie Monster is my all-time favorite (but I know perfectly well that my personality is more like Kermit's).

Entry the eleventh: In which I wig out for a moment and then recover my calm

2006-07-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

I have decided to be magnanimous and give the sulky tomato plant a second chance. It was with this enlightened view that I went out yesterday evening to trim the deadest of the dead leaves and photograph the one tomato that has finally begun to ripen. And that was fine and all except that I saw this

about two thirds of the way through pruning. And I yelled. Loudly. As most people who know me will (gleefully) tell you, I am a bug wimp. (Go ahead Sarah, just start writing your comment before you even finish this entry.)

I can’t find this guy’s exact match on my favorite bug reference site, but I’m pretty sure it’s your basic grasshopper, only in brown instead of the traditional green. It’s friggin’ HUGE. In the image below, the beastie is on the branch to the right of the ~~other beastie~~ cat (used, once again, for scale purposes).*

The good news is that it was gone this morning and I didn't let it stop me from taking this lovely picture.

*I'm not sure how many more times Sylvie will let me do this.

Entry the tenth: In which the tomato gets insolent

2006-07-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

My friend Sonia has a Square Foot Garden in New Hampshire. Isn't it cool? I'm hoping she'll send me updates as everything (except, presumably, the cat) gets bigger.

I, on the other hand, have Just About Had It with my tomato plant. I know, I know, it needs to be in a bigger pot... but does it have to get so wilty and sullen if it doesn't get watered every 15 minutes? It's has an awful lot of attitude for a vegetable, is all I'm saying. Until it behaves (or the tomatoes ripen), it does not get a photo. That will show it.

The cucmbers, which remain relatively sedate, get two pictures today. The first is a still life with lemon and Japanese cucumbers in front of another wonderful canning resource and the second is a picture of the same cucumbers in situ, plus a small brown cat* for scale purposes.

*Said cat was not entirely thrilled to be included in this documentation project.

Entry the ninth: In which I boast

2006-07-06T01:50:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of the many, many jars of raspberry sauce with chambord liqueur that I mentioned in yesterday's entry. My estimate last night may have been a little large.

I love canning things and I love giving things away to friends. My raspberry sauce (adapted from a jam recipe in one of my favorite canning books) has proved a hit so now I make it every summer when the raspberries at the farmer's market are at their best.

Sylvie "helps" put the jars in the basket (top) and a close up of raspberries in the sunshine (bottom).

Entry the eighth: In which I am ready for bed

2006-07-05T00:14:00.000-07:00

I made some super delicious barbecued chicken today because, hey, it's the 4th and barbecuing is appropriate, and then I canned roughly eleventy billion jars of raspberry sauce with chambord. And now it's late and I am too tired to write anything interesting, so I will just paste in this picture of me with a flamingo on my head. Happy Independence Day!