remind me later to post:

• christ, icannot type after too many shots
• becherovka is my friend
• i think unicum likes me more than i like it
• on having friends reproduce (not becherovka)
• p's head
• i can't even remember.
• oh, right, my first thanksgiving
• and how it went off without a fucking hitch
• also, the delicious goodness of wool socks

can i not feel my feet because:
(a) it's cold
(b) i'm drunk
(c) i'm sitting on them
(d) i'm wear ing flip flops and it's november
(e) all of the above? what?

Labels: food

i bought a dress, i bought a dress, i bought a dress. The Thanksgiving visitors are likely to want to see it tried on. it was $100 off for being a sample. it doesn't have a train. it's not all poufy and weird and too-much-skirt-y. it has no jewels, crystals, pearls, or weird embellishments. it has no lace or mesh or gauze or fur or crochet. it shows just enough cleavage without being too slinky. it has no flowers or obvious signs of ethnicity or trendiness. no slits, no sleeves, no cowl-parts. it is neither ultramodern, asymmetrical, obviously dated, period, or vintage.

it was not Terribly Expensive. but it was Expensive, Nonetheless.

i can hack off the bit around the bottom where it reaches the floor.

but it is Really White.

Labels: wedding

We used to have a rule: No Online Games.

Then they came out with star wars, and we were screwed.

Now, even worse, some random thwocky* game.

I like those. Especially the ones you don't really have to pay attention to, but just wander around and hit stuff until it stops moving. it's a game - it's not supposed to take effort. Or thought. i still play Diablo. i made an assassin yesterday named Bridezilla. We wander around and hit stuff until it stops moving, and i don't really have to pay attention.

now, this new online thing. i'm so screwed.

*Note that 'thwock' is the sound a computer makes when one small pixelly person smacks another small pixelly person. It is also, apparently, the sound that the rock makes when you give him a 4x4, the sound a boot makes when pulled out of an obstacle-course mudhole, the sound a flat tire makes, ping-pong balls, golf balls, police helicopters, tennis balls, volleyballs, underinflated soccer balls, kicked backpacks, chewing gum hitting the pavement, the sound a french person makes if you slap them, the sound preceded by "bring out yer dead," computer croquet, noise produced by a cheap, "cardboardy" speaker, the sound produced by an atlatl hitting its target , ...

Labels: media

• Grout is an awful, smelly thing to have to remove.
• Upon triple-shampooing a carpet, a pair of dogs will inevitably take the first opportunity to piss all over it.
• That blue jacket isn't really waterproof.

Labels: house

it's raining. Three-day work week. yay. Grocery shopping, tonight. which means i need to figure out what i'm doing for thanksgiving. Now. So. For group/lab thanksgiving, on thanksgiving: two pumpkin pies, possibly purchased as-is from the store. chess pie: brown sugar, cornmeal, pie-crust, vinegar. can i put expensive vinegar in a chess pie? is that worth it? and what kind? hm. Because not rice vinegar, eew, and not really balsamic, either, but, what, raspberry white wine? no. Um. Must review vinegar options in-store. cider vinegar? i'm fascinated by this possibility. i like weird vinegars, though. But it's only, what, a tablespoon? so it'd be subtle, right? i so hate about dot com. But. they have a recipie. C, i'll post ours later for posterity, but i needed to know ... er ... what i needed. hey, now i'm going to have a big box of cornmeal and nothing to do with it. what else can one do with cornmeal?

Labels: work

my votes for Best Movie Quote Ever:

I'd love to kiss you, but i just washed my hair.
    - Cabin in the Cotton
Leave the gun. Take the cannolis.
    - Godfather 1

Labels: media

When we bought our house, the stove had crud on it over the two pilot lights in the middle. One assumes that the sellers / realtors / et c. had scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed it, and it did not come off. When a house is on the market it is to be clean, top to bottom, and everything else was spotless, but this ooky stuff on the stove. Burnt on. Years of buildup. Chemically molded to the surface, even. i have no idea what it was originally. So i'm sure it had been scrubbed, possibly for hours, prior to any of my attempts.

Upon buying the house, i tried to clean it too. Scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing with whatever products i could find that i didn't think would scratch up the enamelled surface of the stove and cause actual damage. Eventually i gave up. my fMIL gave up. my mother gave up. The stove was uncleanable. which might have contributed to my perhaps not cleaning the stove as often as i might have, but hey - it was uncleanable. That shit was not coming off. And my layers started building it up more - all the rest of the stove could be cleaned - but there over the pilot lights - nothing.

Five minutes with the new magic eraser. Five. Two and a half years' worth of our crud, who knows how many years' worth of other people's crud. Five minutes. Total, for both pilot lights. Five. I was in shock.

Now my not-cleaning-the-uncleanable-stove excuse is gone, though, and i'm not completely sure how cool i am with that.

Labels: emptor

have to clean the house before the hungarians get here. eek! Need to achieve understanding of the turkey fryer. also menu for thanksgiving which is in just over a week. Oh dear. what goes into a good thanksgiving? how on earth does one make stuffing and potatoes and pie all and god knows what else in the same oven-space?

and, do i really care? definitely frying a turkey. what else matters?

Labels: house

possibly the best thing about the ren faire? Knowing, dead-on, rock-solid, 100%, that by those standards, i'm a knockout.

Labels: texas

but giddy. and excited. really i can't wait. i get to be married. wheeee!

Labels: wedding

the same m that swears up and down he doesn't like chili. he doesn't like it, sam i am. no no no. but. You get a nice cold day, and by cold, i mean, maybe in the low 60s. Maybe. Ish. You locate your biggest pot (and if you have a bigger one, you use it). You put some oil in (a good bit, too, of perfectly normal veg oil) and you find a couple of medium-sized onions and think, maybe three, maybe three next time, maybe two, and you cut up the two onions pretty big, really, but still cut, and they start simmering, and you find your giant two-pound thing of the 4% fat ground beef from the good grocery and start that browning. And it takes a bit because your pot might not be quite big enough to brown that much at once. But it does. And there are some jalapeno sausages in the fridge that happen to need eating, so they get diced up and tossed in. Three of 'em. Probably oh, maybe not quite another half pound. mmmmm, slovacek jalapeno. And you toss in a .. no, two spoonfuls of the jar-minced garlic. V. handy. And then there are two giant, giant cans full of, um, stewed tomatoes. Not quite industrial-sized cans, but really big cans nonetheless. Hunt. Del Monte, maybe. Hill Country Fare. And a normal-sized one of "tomato sauce." Because that's what it said to do on the allrecipies. And then you say to yourself, it needs more tomatoes. So some tomato paste and some water. A nice heap of oregano. Two heaps of cumin. One of chili powder. Two green peppers. Two jalapeno peppers with all their membranes and seeds and junk. Think about the zucchini and think, maybe next time, as i don't have a lot of practice with the chili thing. Then it cooks. For, maybe, not quite an hour. And then it gets most of a can of, er, um, kidney beans, and most of a can of, um, ... those white italian kidney beans. That have been drained and rinsed off, both of them, because uck. And then it cooks for another good twenty minutes or so. Then it gets eaten.

mmmm, eaten, says m. With the cheese. and, in my case, the sour cream. Yeah, shut up. And the french bread that was warm when we came home from the store. And a good medium ale. Mmmm.

Labels: food

went to the Curiously Deserted Carnival last night. since, having mysteriously been forced to avoid travelling street carnivals since i was what, six, was sort of ... well. Everyone always said they were boring and wouldn't go with me. so i never got to go. but. All that has changed now. i don't have to live vicariously any more. because, as it turns out, street carnivals aren't like they describe them in paperback horror novels - they're like EuroDisney. all i could think of were the teacups at EuroDisney. all the rides were spinny and dizzy and not very exciting really. i like roller coasters better - you're thrown in in different directions, instead of the same two or three, over and over and over. And they were all teacup clones, really, in various permutations. so. Boring. but i like ferris wheels. and i don't care. i haven't been in a four-ticket haunted house, so i can't possibly know that they're dumb. right?

but. the carnival was deserted. And it wasn't a very big carnival and it was a Wednesday night and sure, it had been there for two weeks already, but it was awfully bleak. EuroDisney on Mars. it was us and the carnies. so really it ought to have been very Cheap Paperback Horrorshow. but it wasn't. just kind of sad and lame and empty. at least now i don't have to go again for another twenty years.

Labels: emptor

Rock On.

Labels: media

we babysat two small dogs over the weekend. It was tiring. there was a lot of Wild Kingdom. and a lot of doggy saliva. and the little ones are really, really awful at riding in the car. Like to kill them awful. like to toss them out the sunroof at 70mph. urgh. ours aren't nearly so bad. the little ones are also largely unsuccessful at sleeping. And they snore. And their heads are shaped like tennis balls. And they have these stupid little noses so they breathe very, very loud, all the freaking time. And they don't like it when their tails get pulled on. And they shed like mad, especially when they're nervous, and of course they're nervous when they're at our place because Orange Dog wants to eat them. Yeah. and Orange Dog is weirded out by them because they're small and noisy and very very active and because they're nervous, so he tries to eat them, and it just gets worse.

Labels: dogs

as in, i have to stop off-roading in the jetta, or i'm going to have to keep getting things fixed on it, which means being carless for a morning, which sucks, and which gets rapidly expensive.

On the other hand, i get to go chat with the mazda guy about the texas water safari, which he is apparently nuts for.

Labels: emptor

... are forthcoming. People recognized us both pretty fast (m faster, as his beer label has an active advertising campaign, and mine only has poster hos) and at the first party, we won the costume contest (in the couples category, which there were a surprising lot of) - our closest competitors were Ceasars Palace casino workers. at the second party there was a really good haunted house for just being set up in somebody's garage. But i'm not sure the keg got floated. and. so. some people took pictures, and we were not the people taking the pictures, but we were certainly in a great many of them. Some with total strangers. or I was. so as people email us pictures, we will edit them for red-eye and face-too-shiny and et c., and post the best one or two. And yes, we had flagons of beer the entire time. Only sometimes i had flagons of jungle juice or whatever.

somebody asked if the Twins really won the couples category because well, i was wearing the External Cleavage Producer, and i think they definitely helped. I think we would have won anyway, though. (I've never called them the Twins.) But the winning was judged by applause and, well, boys make more noise than girls do.

Future Hallowe'en costumes:

• Titania and Bottom - for when i want to be a fairy princess and M wants to not dress up too much
• Prince and Raspberry Beret - or purple man and nearly-naked lady if it's ever warm enough
• Tom Cruise and Hooker - i.e., M in a button-down shirt and socks, and sunglasses, and maybe a mike, and ... well ... an 80s hooker. i think this one would be funny.

Labels: media

V. sad. Stupid kerry conceding. all those people in that precinct i was working in (that went 90% for Kerry) are never going to vote again. but they were so happy and excited! ... options include:

• (a) move. Give up on changing things from the inside. Go to place in which free thinking is not frowned upon and have a happily ever after.
• (b) stay. Fight the good fight. Somehow, avoid frustration, desperation, republicrants.
• (c) stay. Revolution. Then, get to pick who is first against the wall when the revolution comes!
• (d) stay. Become completely disillusioned by politics in general and democrats in particular. Die old, bitter, penniless and without Social Security.
• (e) move. Invade america.
• (f) stay. Identify and pursue career which will be useful post-Armageddon, as they're certainly not going to need brainiacs.

M says there's some sort of schism fomenting between republicans, that some of them don't like all this religious stuff being the entire basis for policy decisions. That would be good.

Labels: politics

go see your friendly Election Official (i.e., me! i am an attested Election Official. it takes even less time than becoming an Internet Priest.) and vote. because you might get to see a Minor Fiasco, as in, the election machines stop working (once, so far, for about twenty minutes, and we had a pretty good line by the time they were working again) or as in, This Student is Registered to Vote 150 Miles Away, Can He Vote Here Pretty Please? We had to tell the student, you can provisional vote here but it probably won't be counted or you can drive to Town X, and he chose to drive to Town X. I was proud. But i can't spell beaurocracy. Buearucracy. Beuarauxcracy. Bearocrazy. Whatever. Democracy in action, baby.

Labels: politics

I usually stick with the minestrone, the tomato. Clam chowder. French onion. But it gets boring. and, as it turns out, progresso's italian wedding soup is better than many other meat-and-noodle types in the actual meat and noodle departments. Canned chicken soup is always a little rubbery, a little gristley or oddly sponge-like when it comes right down to the chicken; beef stews are always, always, always fat. The funny little meatballs aren't gristley or sponge-like, and are about as far from rubbery as it's possible to get. There's probably plenty of fat in them, but it's a little less obvious, and not in such big, chewy lumps, and so, better. I can never handle canned chicken soup because of the chicken. Beef soup only in emergencies. But i'd never tried a meatball soup before. The carrots are - perfectly normal canned-soup carrots, a little squishy, results are absolutely typical. Salty, but canned soup always is. Noodles are little mini-macaronis, and are smushy, nicely dense, that you can tell you're eating a noodle when you're eating a noodle. Got some funny little green bits that might be basil or might be spinach; they seem harmless enough. Maybe just to make things interesting. Also plenty of stuff in it, as opposed to the soups that are all broth and no ... stuff. A well-packed bowl rather than something thinly watery that leaves you still wanting real food afterwards.

But.

It's the consistency where it falls short. And by consistency i'm sure i don't mean between this can and the other - i mean the consistency of the actual broth. The weird, murky, thickly oily viscosity of it. Sort of gummy. Very slow-moving in the spoon. Reminiscient of a high-quality cough syrup. It's not globby at all (aw, fuck, is mucilaginous not the most disgusting word ever? maybe after smegma?) ... but this heaviness. Like they had to puree a little bit of Elmer's only didn't really get there. And it's very stick-to-your-bones stuff - for a reason. And the glorpiness isn't quite enough reason to never buy it again; it's a perfectly good soup, and if i don't look at it - or maybe if i water it down just a little? it's fine; it tastes good, the noodles and the meatballs and the carrots and the funny little green bits are pretty well done; it's not disgustingly salty like some are; buying it doesn't make me feel like i'm five. So i'm going to have it again, yes. Just ... when it's already a lot colder, and i'm way more in a soupy place.

Heats up quick, though.

Labels: food

*not very factual on motorcycles either

:anmut: :annika: :chin: :dooce: :ewok mama: :food: :little frog school: :lj: :longform: :low odysseys: :natalya: :rich: :salon: :slate: :this is how: :unique yn:



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