365 project so far

Well, I'm still taking pictures every day. Some of them are good, some just so-so. I'm developing my eye, though. I also find that I'm looking at things more closely, trying to decide what would make a good photograph.

Here are some of my favorites so far:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Cover songs, classically done

I love cover songs.  Something about a person taking an established work and putting their own spin on it really attracts me.  I have a huge playlist on my iPod that is solely covers and remakes.  I'm always looking for more; the odder, the better.  That's why I started listening to the Coverville podcast two years ago--Brian Ibbott collects cover songs too, and twice a week he puts out a podcast--usually themed--that's 45 minutes of cover song heaven.

Coverville is how I found Janice Whaley's The Smiths Project (she's done, by the way, and now getting ready to release everything in a CD box set).  It's how I found Pomplamoose, that duet that was all over the TV this Christmas with Honda ads.  Cool thing about that?  The camera crew came to their house to film.  How'd you like to see your garage on national TV?

I love strings as well.  I played viola in third grade for a few months, until I couldn't stand the noise I was making any more.  I sounded like I was hurting the cat.  I gave it up and decided to sing instead, because at least I could control my voice.  What those few months did do for me was instill a love of the string section, probably because I know how difficult it is to do, and how much time and patience it must take to become an expert.

So when Coverville played Elton John's "Little Jeanie" by the Vitamin String Quartet, I immediately went looking for them. They're a group of session musicians in LA who remake popular music into string quartets in their "spare time."  They are very prolific, and they play anything from Elton John to Pink Floyd to Oingo Boingo to My Chemical Romance to Madonna, and all the spaces in between.  Here they are doing Lady Gaga's "Telephone:"


And this is their version of  "Grand Theft Autumn" by Fall Out Boy:


Good, no?

Here's one more string cover song.  This was tweeted to me by a friend.  It's dueling cellists performing "Smooth Criminal."



And there's your musical interlude for the morning.

Semi-Sophieversary

She showed up on a Thursday evening in mid-July.  There she sat in my flowerbed, meowing up at my living room window--lost, hungry, unarmed, afraid.  I let her in for what I thought would be a couple of days while I got her back to her home.

I told myself not to get attached.  She belonged to someone.  She had to.  She was declawed, after all, and spayed.  Those are alterations you make to a cat you're planning to keep, right?

I told myself it was too soon.  Delilah hadn't even been dead six months yet.  I wanted to wait at least a year before even thinking about getting another cat.

Then that Sunday I looked at her, and the name "Sophie" came unbidden to my lips.  And she answered to it.  And I realized that when her owner answered the ads I just put in the paper I would be really sorry to see her go.  It didn't occur to me at first that no one would answer.  She's a sweet-natured little thing, of course someone was worried and missing her.

Fast forward six months--she's still here, and here for good.  She has settled in.  I believe she thinks of this as her home.  We're past the getting-to-know-you phase, working on the this-is-our-routine phase.

She doesn't like:

• Being alone for any length of time
• The sound of tinfoil rattling
• Water in her bowl that's over a couple hours old
• Being carried around
• Dogs (yet.  I have a sister with a cat-loving dog named Daisy. I'm sure Daisy would love to win over Sophie)
• Sitting on my lap
• Static shock (well, who does?  I'm sick of the snapcracklepop that goes on all winter too)

She does like:

• Cardboard boxes (empty or full)
• Having her face and/or belly rubbed
• Yarn (if it's animal-based)
• The round ends of knitting needles
• Pretending to scratch the furniture
• Mouse-shaped cat toys
• Kneading me anywhere she can (arm, leg, chest...)
• Sitting in a fleece bed by the sliding glass door to watch the world go by
• Smacking little fuzzy balls under furniture for me to fish out and give back to her
• Sleeping on my furry red bathrobe (provided it's folded and lying on the rocking chair)
• Me.  

At bedtime she prefers to sleep next to me rather than on me, which at first hurt my feelings but now I find I like.  This way I don't have to worry about disturbing her if I change position.  Also?  She's not completely settled for the night until she has her face resting in my cupped hand.  All together now, "Awwwwww."  I know.  Precious.

She's talkative.  I think she may be even more talkative than Delilah was, if you can believe it.  She doesn't have the Siamese yowl, though.  When she meows, it's like she's asking a question: "Meowwwooo?  Meowwooowoo?"

Six months already.  Hard to believe.  Even harder to believe that someone abandoned her, discarded her like a toy that the novelty had worn off of.  I do not understand people who act like that.  As far as I'm concerned, when you take on a pet you are making them a promise that for as long as they live they can depend on you for protection, food, warmth, and love.  It's a long-term commitment, a contract.  It looks like these people (whoever they are) dumped her because she was no longer convenient to keep.  It makes my blood boil. 

Their loss is my gain.  Big time.

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Average Jane pointed out that it's Delurking Day.  If you do pop by today on the off-chance that I may have actually posted something, please do stop and leave a comment.

I am writing something that will hopefully go up before I get too much older. 

I was going to find a clip of Glinda the Good singing, "Come out, come out, wherever you are..." but I can't find it at the moment.  Hard to do when you're at work, pretending to do your job.

Plinky prompts

A while back I signed up for something called Plinky, a website designed to help people write more by giving them a new writing prompt every day.  I haven't used it much because most of their questions I don't really have answers for, or don't want to write about.  I've been noticing lately though that I don't have much to say over here.  My story-telling ability seemed to desert me right about the time I started NaBloPoMo this year.  Oy, what a slog that was.  I think I may be done with that for a while unless I can get some zing back into my writing.

So this morning I wandered on over to Plinky and looked at some of the recent prompts:

"Share a memorable job interview."  Um.  The jobs were memorable, but the interviews all seemed to blend together.  Though here's a question I have vowed to never ever ask: "What's your greatest strength?  And what's your greatest weakness?"  Oh, come on.  What does this tell you about the person you're hiring except that they're really good at BS?

"What are you looking forward to this year?"  I haven't really given it much thought.  It's only 6 days into January.  I don't have plans yet for anything special this year.  I'm kind of looking forward to next Christmas, provided I get all of my projects done.  I'll bet by November I'll be shaking my fist at the calendar, wondering why I ever thought giving everyone a handmade-by-me present was such a bloody fantastic idea.  I think my mother's going to teach me how to lay tile this year as she finishes their upstairs bathroom, I'm looking forward to that.  I'm already trying to plan the garden for this spring.  I'm sure as the year progresses there will be more planned things to look forward to, but at the moment the calendar is wide open.

"What does your home say about you?"  Bwahahaha!  My homes says that I'm scatterbrained, untidy, that instead of putting things away when I'm done with them I leave them right where I last used them, and that I'm not all that bothered about living from boxes.  I have some furniture, but not a lot.  I need shelves and cupboards and more comfortable chairs (for company.  We can't all sit on the sofa at once, you see).  I clean in spurts, so the place looks great for about a week and then slowly devolves into the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock before I wake up, look around in surprise, and have another mad cleaning frenzy.  It'd be easier if I just kept on top of it, doing a little at a time.  I've tried that and I can't make it work.  I'm not built that way.  Lucky for me I live alone.  I don't think a roommate or spouse would put up with this.

"Would you ever get an e-book reader?"  A few years ago I would have said, "no."  Now I'm not so sure.  I think if I did, I'd probably get a Nook, not a Kindle, and that's mainly because of the little trick Amazon played with, of all things, 1984.  They promised never to do it again, but still.  Sellers can't do that with a paper book.  Once you buy it, it's yours.  I don't understand why they thought it was different with an electronic version.

Nothing will replace the feel of a book in my hands, though.  And?  If you put a regular book down on a table in a restaurant and go up to pay your bill (which is what I do to signal to whomever was waiting on me that I haven't left without tipping them), you won't find it missing when you come back.   I wouldn't ever try that with an e-book reader.

Apparently there was more on Plinky that I wanted to answer than I thought.  I guess I'll keep subscribing.  It doesn't cost me anything, and it does occasionally give me something to write about.

Project 365

Thanks to Dana at Feast after Famine I just bumped into a website called Project 365, dedicated to these 365 photo projects.  I'm still going to put my photos on Flickr, but I've also started one on this site.  Go take a look if you'd like. 

While you're there (if you go), take a look at some other people's albums.  There are a lot of really good pictures.  I'm trying not to be intimidated by them.  I always thought my eye was pretty good, but yowza.  That site really points out (to me, at least) how much of an amateur I am.  I think this project will improve my photography quite a bit--partly from looking at everyone else's work and partly from the constant use the camera will be getting this year.

So I found my camera charger...

And a good thing too, since I just (as in just 30 minutes ago) decided to do the 365 challenge: one picture a day for the whole year.  Let's see how long this lasts before I forget to do it.

Here's the first one:


Also, I went downtown yesterday and took some pictures of the ice sculptures they were making as part of the First Night activities last night.  Here's a good picture of the rooster in front of a local bar:



There are more over on my Flickr page, if you'd like to look at them.  That's where the bulk of my 365 project will be too.  I may occasionally drop a photo from that into the blog, but I won't be putting them all on here.  That'd get old quick. 

Happy New Year, everybody!  I suppose by now some of you are working on 1/2/11, aren't you?

Santa brought me a freezer!

Okay, technically I've had this since the day after Thanksgiving.  Dad and I went out to Home Depot, used his veteran's discount (10% off anything, all the time.  I later found out that Lowes does it too, they just don't advertise the fact) and a Black Friday sale to get me a little chest freezer.

I washed it out with baking soda and water a couple of times, but couldn't get rid of the "new freezer" smell.  I could only air it out when I was home.  I had visions of leaving the top up and going out, only to come home and find that the cat had tried to leap up there, fallen in, had the lid close behind her and suffocate her.  Who's a worry wort?  This girl!

I finally plugged it in yesterday.  Bought some stuff for my little New Year's party-of-one and put the frozen things in there (mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, things like that) along with a box of baking soda specially designed for fridge and freezer use.  Have you seen these?  They have tear-away sides with fine mesh underneath them, so that all the funk can get right in that box.  Nifty!

In other news, this may be the last picture I take for a while with my Lumix camera.  I have now lost the replacement battery charger, which I bought to replace the original battery charger that came with the camera.  Here's the kicker--they are both somewhere in this house, dang it!  Last time I saw the replacement charger was when I juiced up the battery right before Thanksgiving.  It must have been stowed somewhere in my cleaning frenzy.  I did the same thing with the cord that connects the iPod to the computer.  Found that this morning.  Sigh.  I know where to get another replacement, but I want to do a more thorough search of this place before I give up on it completely.

So until then, let me leave you with a couple of pictures I took over Christmas:

The top of my sister's tree.  I think my aunt gave her that a few years ago, but I may have just made that up.

Same tree, a bit farther down.

Daisy, in a rare moment of rest, next to a sign inviting Nature to do her worst. Two days later the Eastern seaboard got smacked with at least a foot of snow.  We got a fraction of that, but the wind was fierce.

You'll need a tray.

Warning.  The f-bomb gets dropped throughout these videos, so you might not want to play them at work or around your kids.

Ran across this a while ago, loved it, bumped into it again recently and thought I would share:



Eddie Izzard as interpreted by Legos.  After looking at this one, I found a ton more:



Cake or death:



Not that Eddie isn't fun all by himself:

It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark

I've decided that next year's big project is crossing off #37 on my Life List: handmade Christmas.  Every person on my Christmas list will receive a present handmade by me.  There will be other things going on, I'm sure, but #37 is the big goal right now.

To this end, I've started compiling a list of who's getting what.  I haven't sorted that out completely just yet, but there's one project I know I'm doing, and for whom.  In the next 5 minutes I'm going to start casting on stitches to work this wrap with this yarn (color #2, fawn) for my aunt.

And no, I haven't forgotten about/given up on the sweater.  I need something portable to work on for the next week or so, though, as I make my way to and from my sister's house.  This project will do nicely.

I know, I know.   Isn't it a skosh early to be thinking about Christmas 2011?  We haven't even gotten to Christmas 2010, for pity's sake. Yes.  Yes, it is.  But I just bit off a very large piece of something, and it's going to take a while to chew it thoroughly.  I have an awful lot to do; might as well get started.

There will be updates throughout the year (with pictures) except for things being made for people who read this blog (I'm looking at you, Mom.  And you, Ditter).  Don't want to spoil the surprise.

Wish me luck.  I hope I don't drive myself crazy.  Though that might be fun to watch too, huh?

Christmas baking for my colleagues

First I got organized:

Then I got busy:

Biscotti

Peanut butter cups (1st half of batch)

Raspberry bar cookies

Peppermint meringues

At some point I went out and bought maraschino cherries, only to come home and find I didn't need them:

My cabinet shelf isn't really this bowed. It's the angle I was holding the camera. I hope.

Then I got ambitious:

I call these negative chocolate chip cookies: white chips in chocolate dough.

Then I got tired, and didn't make cookies out of the dough in the picture above.  I abandoned my original plan, which was to give two types of cookie to each person based on what I'd learned of their preferences over the past few years.  Instead, I decided to give everyone some of each.

And tomorrow I get to play Santa.  Provided I don't trip on my way to the bus, land on my packages, and create 6 containers of tasty crumbs.

No tree this year

And this cartoon should explain why:



I think I need to wait until the Gray Fuzzy One is just a little bit older than 1 and 1/2 before I attempt a Christmas tree.

Christmas season, Delilah, and Sophie

Last year, Delilah's failing health made it really hard to get into the Christmas spirit, or stay there very long when I did get there.

An example: all throughout Christmas Day, I kept forgetting to open the contents of my stocking (Yes.  At forty(mumble) I still get a stocking at Christmas. What?  Don't you?).  After dinner, I went to the room the cat and I were sleeping in so that I could fuss over her a bit, and to get her to maybe eat some canned salmon I'd bought for her.  She ate a little, then went back under the futon to lay on the heating vent.  I went out into the kitchen to put the plate in the sink and bumped into my mom.

"You never opened this," she said, holding up my bulging stocking.

I burst into tears, said something like "I can't do this anymore!" and fled back to the bedroom.  That was it, I was done.  No more Christmas, please.

She and my sister followed me, let me sob it out, fussed over Delilah some (she came out to see what all the noise was about, I think, and to see who had come to visit) and eventually did get me to open my stocking.

I never got any cookies baked for the same reason.  The thought would cross my mind to do it, then the cat would come into the room with her poor little face, hop up into my lap, and I'd decide to just stay put.  One time she climbed up my chest and stretched out, chin on my shoulder, purring in my ear.  I sat contorted for her maximum comfort for over an hour, tears streaming down my face, thinking this is probably the last time we'll do this.  I was right.

 It took a lot of effort to do what I considered the bare minimum.  I'm surprised people got presents at all, the way I was feeling.

This year is better.  I'm glad Sophie's here, because otherwise I'd be doing a lot of moping and remembering last year--more than what I'm doing right now, that is.  Sophie's interested in all the the goings-on.  She inspects the results of every shopping trip, and I fully expect her to supervise present-wrapping when I start that.

Just as soon as I post this I'll start making cookies.  A lot of these first batches are getting wrapped up and given away.  The raspberry bar cookie from 2 years ago is making an appearance. So is a peppermint meringue cookie that someone I work with really, really likes.  I'm going to make a peanut butter cup cookie that uses itty bitty muffin tins.  I'm going to try biscotti too, and that means the very first thing I have to do is toast almonds.  Well.  The very first thing I have to do is look up how to toast almonds, because they don't give instructions in the recipe.  Google, here I come.

If I don't run out of steam, I'll be trying a molasses cookie recipe that I found through the Pioneer Woman's Cookie Week.  As soon as I check for my cookie cutters, that is.  I think I have Christmas ones.  I used to.  Maybe.  I know I gave some cookie cutters away, but I don't think it was all of them.  Ah, well.  I can always use the mouth of a glass, right?  I'm also making something called chocolate-covered cherry cookies, but not today; I forgot to buy the cherries. 

After I finish making the ones I'm giving as gifts, I'll go make a second set to take to my sister's.  There will be more raspberry bars (last time I brought them Ditter told me they tasted like an Entenmann's raspberry danish.  For those not in the know, that is high praise indeed), those chocolate cherry things, and the molasses cookies (by then I will have either found or bought new cutters).

Wish me luck!  Some of these I've never tried before.  I'll photograph the results.

Edited to add:  Didn't have to go as far as the Internet to find out how to toast almonds. There are instructions on the package.  Yay!

Missed me by *that* much

Every year my old place of employment (which I've affectionately nicknamed "Hell") invites my fellow escapee and me to their holiday luncheon.  Every year I react like someone left a dead fish on my desk.

I've often said (and I may have said so here already, but I'm too lazy to go check) that I can map the decline and fall of the morale in my old department based on the holiday celebrations.

We used to have a party in someone's house.  We'd get all dressed up for it.  There'd be food--potluck, but being a college town, it was funky potluck.  Mexican hot chocolate, olivada and crusty French bread, curried chick peas, things like that.  There would be music--Jimmy would bring his keyboard, Max his guitar, and those of us who could would sing along with whatever they played.  People's kids would run around and play together.  There was a gag gift exchange.

Then one year the gift exchange was dropped, as it was deemed "silly."  The next year the instruments stayed home.  The one after that instead of an evening in someone's home it was lunch out somewhere one day during the work week.  Then a few years later it was a potluck in the staff room.  Then it was cookies by the coffee pot.  Then it was bagels at the staff meeting, and bring your own coffee.

Since the department split into two, the one group has revived the go-out-to-lunch thing. The other, the one I worked for until I moved to where I am now, holds a luncheon in their staff room.  It's semi-potluck, meaning they all cook but guests from outside the department don't.  They invite a lot of people, and most of them come.  This group does know how to throw a party, I'll say that for them.   If I had never worked there I might actually want to go.   As it is, I notice things that make me uncomfortable: 

• The people they invite are generally people who can do things for them: deans, associate deans, department heads, people in other departments with whom who they think they have "special relationships." 
• The conversation always wends its way around to work somehow.  They always have an agenda, an angle, are looking for information and a way to push what they want forward.  
• They may be friendly and chatty with their guests, but they don't have much to say to each other.  If you see them all together and they don't know you're there, they all sit silently munching, their eyes on their plates or the floor.

This year I have a prior commitment so I won't be able to attend.  I did a little dance of joy when I saw that on my calendar.  Otherwise, even though I really don't want to I'd have to go.  Unless I suddenly [cough, cough] got sick [feels forehead] right before the party [ohh, my throat's so scratchy!] and had to go home.

Threepeat!

Whoo! Made it to the finish line! The posts got a little thin there towards the end, and I apologize for that. Some days the brain just cramps up, you know? But I did it! And now I'm going to go back to blogging haphazardly, but I will try to post at least three times a week. Let's see how long that lasts.

I can't imagine attempting National Novel Writing Month. I think there's an actual word count involved with that. No, thank-you. Well, maybe if I ever get serious about writing a novel, I might try it. Emphasis on might.

And now, back to work. I'm currently haunting the area where my part-timers pick up their work because I need to talk to one of them about something. As I type, I'm keeping an ear out for him.

Oop! There he is. Bye!

The news from my end of the swamp

The good news: I bought three Christmas gifts today at the mall.
The bad news: That's not even a drop in the bucket.
The sad news: By two in the afternoon I was back in PJs and on the couch.
The meh news: I go back to work tomorrow.
The welcome news: NaBloPoMo is over tomorrow. I'm getting sick of the sound of my own voice.

And that's about it from over here. How are you?

Post-Thanksgiving Pre-Christmas recharge

I've been sitting around with my brain off all weekend. Just chilling on the sofa with the cat and my knitting, watching movies and TV shows I've DVR'd and haven't been able to watch yet. So far I've watched: 2 episodes of Medium, Coco Before Chanel, Love's Labours Lost, a couple of weeks' worth of In Treatment, and Moonlight Mile. In an hour or so I'm going to do something I rarely do anymore--I'm going to watch Boardwalk Empire at its actual air time.

I took the day off tomorrow. I'm using it to start Christmas shopping. I have no ideas at the moment. I'm hoping something will leap out at me when I'm at the mall and declare itself for someone on my list. I'm also hoping the piped-in Christmas music doesn't drive me batty by noon.

I don't have a snapshot for today because I haven't so much as looked out the door since my parents drove away Friday morning. Not to mention that I'm not quite sure what I did with my camera. Can't find anything on the hard drive that looks good either.

Recipe reviews

I made that Bob Andy Pie I mentioned a few days ago. After everyone called or texted in to say they made it home OK I sat down and had a slice. Boy is it good. It's a custard pie with a very thin layer of cinnamon on top and another on the bottom. I couldn't see how the cinnamon stayed on the bottom, considering that it floats so well, but I think I just now figured it out--you brush the crust with egg whites. The cinnamon probably sticks to that when the custard gets poured into the shell.

The three recipes I introduced for Thanksgiving were all greeted with general success. Mom and my sister really liked the corn with sage. After Mom took a bite, she told me that she'd been a little worried about the amount of sage in it, because sage can be so strong. You don't add that until the very end, though, so I guess the affect is minimal (or do I mean "effect?" I can't decide). She copied down the recipe before she left yesterday. Here it is, along with a few comments:

Sweet Corn with Sage

3 T butter or margarine
1 medium onion, finely chopped (1/2 c.)
2 bags (12 oz each) frozen corn
1/4 c. half-and-half
2 T chopped fresh sage leaves
3/4 tsp salt [I used kosher salt]
1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

In a 10-inch skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Cook onion and corn 10-12 minutes, stirring frequently, until onion is tender. [I wound up turning the heat up to medium high after melting the butter because it was taking forever for the corn to thaw out. I'd suggest thawing the corn ahead of time, and then maybe cooking the onion first before adding in the corn.]

Stir in remaining ingredients; reduce heat to low. Simmer uncovered 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until flavors are blended. [Turn the heat down before adding the 1/2-and-1/2, or you'll have to add more]

I think this recipe's a keeper. And I thank my sister for finely chopping the onion. I don't chop things fine, and I said so. She heard me from the other room and offered to do it for me. I watched her, so I think I know how to do it now.

Pie, anyone?

Apparently I fed my family so well yesterday that no one had room for dessert. They all wanted to go to a local waffle house for breakfast this morning, so my suggestion of pie for breakfast got rejected. I tried to get my Mom to take home the pumpkin pie, but she didn't think it would travel well.

So now I'm sitting here in houseful of food, two pies calling my name, and no one else to feed them to. Dear me. Someone's gonna be a whole lot fatter come Monday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am whipped. Combination of work, wine, L-tryptophan, and allergies. I'll write more tomorrow. I hope everyone is having/has had a great day.