Merry Christmas!

Me and the girls

Inside is cozy

Look at this sweet little angel!

outside is frightful

It's snowy here and quite lovely. Here's a picture from the campus where I work. Not that I like, see it through a window or anything. But when I go to lunch, there it is.

One day I was walking on campus and saw
a bunch of people looking up into a tree.
There was a hawk up there.

EATING A SQUIRREL!

W00t Pawn: Call of Duty Black Ops

Husband is now playing Call of Duty, Black Ops. M has already played some other Call of Duty game and, to tell the truth, I can't tell the difference. You play this army guy and he goes to some place like a snowy land which even I can tell is the same landscape and house from the other version only snowy, or Havana, which, I'll admit, looks kind of nice, if you take out all the army guys and the flaming buses and whatnot. Frequently I wish I could have a nice character, say, a lovely lady on a bicycle with a baguette or a dog in a basket, and ride around some of these locations without all the shooting and nonsense.
In this Black Ops, as far as I can tell, M gets killed approximately every 30 seconds, but apparently (he explains) that is not unusual. He said there's a "kill to death ratio" and 1-1 is "not bad" and 2-1 is "very good." Frankly, I find it rather disturbing in these games where you get killed and then get "spawned" right away again. Should there not be lasting consequences? I think it would be better if you get killed, then, you just have to sit out the rest of the game, contemplating the futility of war.

You can play "co-operative" against zombies, but M didn't like that mode. He prefers playing with and against for-realsie people (this is called "multi-player.") Between games you can hear the teenagers talking to each other, only, unlike Blur, you can actually make out what they're saying. I could listen to those damn kids all day.

M was quite excited about this featured called "Theatre" where you can re-watch (can you imagine?!?) the fight and therefore improve your technique, sort of like how on Friday Night Lights? They re-watch the football games. We watched a tiny bit of the theatre and discovered that M's character looks a lot like Saddam Hussein. He didn't know what he looks like because it's a "first person shooter." (Do you see how I know all this lingo?!?!)

M informs me that he'll continue playing this games for weeks if not months and that it's "a compelling experience." I rate this game Largely Unbearable.

Christmas music

Blogger friend and cousin-by-marriage KHM posted this lovely little Christmas meme on her blog - here are my answers - hope you play too!

1. All-time favorite traditional and serious Christmas song?
I am quite fond of O Holy Night, like KHM. I think I might like that one for listening, but I can't sing it so well (anymore). To sing myself, I have to go with What Child Is This?

2. That one song that says, unequivocally, that the holidays have arrived?


3. Favorite Contemporary Carol and/or favorite contemporary cover of a traditional holiday tune?
I am quite fond of that Barenaked Ladies God Rest Ye Marry Gentlemen, and I love Tracy Chapman's O Holy Night, but I honestly think I'd pick Mariah Carey's Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Damn it, that crazy lady can sing!

4. Carol that most reminds you of your holidays as a younger person?I don't actually like this song because I think it's really boring, but Silent Night reminds me of sitting around the church basement what felt like at least three times a week while my mom (and later I) went to choir practice at Christmas time.


5. Favorite version of "Baby, it's Cold Outside"
That song kind of creeps me out because I recently decided it's about date rape and now I feel all oogy when I hear it. It's like one lyric away from Rohypnol, I'm telling you. However, I did hear a version on Glee with Kurt and his guy that I rather enjoyed. A wink is required on the part of the soprano to make it less creepy.

6. Finally, Your all time favorite disc--aka, if you could have only one holiday music disc, what would it be?
Oh my! So many good ones... Honestly, that Mariah Carey christmas album is VERY good. Also, every home should have a copy of the Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas. But... my choice is the John Denver/Muppets A Christmas Together CD. Just great!

W00t Pwn: Blur

Husband played Blur for about two weeks. It's a racing game where you either play the game or you can play other for-realsie people online. Or, you can play with your wife, which, a few times, we actually did! I've tried to play racing games before and they're usually really hard to drive and you spend the whole time just trying to turn the damn car around after you drive into the wall or whatever. But, Blur cars were actually pretty easy to steer and when we played I could even finish the race and one time I even came in next-to-last! (W00t!)

One of the lamest things about Blur is that if you play it online, all these dummies have headsets and you can hear their garbled talking and it's really annoying. M had to turn them off one-by-one and it's like, What are they saying? I felt the need to examine their secret, sub-culture language, but all I could make out was the occasional "Dude".

You get to choose your own car although some of the options are really stoopid like a Ford Focus? It would be really cool if you could choose a Hello Kitty car or something like that.

So, there's like these special powers that you drive over and then you can do various things like get a speed boost or shoot missiles or make like a protective shield around your car and stuff. Also, you kind of need to look in your rear-view in case someone's shooting a missile at you, but I think it's really hard to look at anything except my own vehicle as it hurtles down the "San Francisco" loop. Husband is good at looking at that stuff though. I found this game Not Unbearable, although the downsides are the lame chatter from other gamers and the tracks are really repetitive. M says it was "slightly addictive and slightly bland, which is a little bit of a conundrum. Ultimately forgettable."

And that's my first video game review! I expect to be highlighted on Slashdot soon.

I announce a new feature!

Gentle Readers, it is with great pleasure that I announce a new blog feature: Reviews of Moi's Husband's Video Games.* Husband was greatly encouraged to write his own reviews, which I think are brilliant, but after 2 years and less than a dozen entries, I think we can safely assume he's not invested in the project. And yet! There seems to be a general cry: What video games is M playing and how does K feel about them? Does she, for example, think they're sexist or silly? Very often: YES!

Last night we watched The Road, despite my protestations that I wanted nothing to do with that bullshit book (you see, I don't blindly admire any old book that happens to win the Pulitzer Prize). Warnings that it would not have a happy ending and was mostly about "feelings" and "emotions" were ignored - he insisted on watching it because supposedly it inspired Fall Out 3. Or something. Ultimately, he was unable to draw a connection between Fall Out 3 and The Road. However there did seem to be an amazing correlation between our boredom and The Road.

Coming soon: I review BLUR!


*need to think of a better title...

couldn't you just die?

crrrrrrrrafts

I am in deep with crrrrrrfts right now - here's something I made over the weekend with a little help from my mom - we had so much fun sewing together in my sewing/guest room. This one was a family project with help from M as well, who made the template for the numbers. I ironed those on using that iron-on adhesive stuff.

I'd seen a lot of designs for advent calendars but, frankly, I like mine the best. The pockets are 4" high and 20" wide, then I just sewed up between the numbers to make the pockets and sewed on the ribbon and felt flaps. Mom had the idea to put on tassels and I think they look great.

Thanksgiving weekend

Well, for Thanksgiving I made a goose, mostly because I was inspired by Two Fat Ladies who made one ages ago. None of our party had ever had one before, and we were all quite delighted with the way it turned out.

The other exciting thing I made was a liver paté, which was disgusting to make (boiled livers!) but the results were also delicious (and quite cost effective, I might add)! Here's my plate, pre-brussels sprouts, I notice, and pre-goose gravy, which G handily whipped up. She's the sort of person you can ask to make the gravy and she says, "Gravy! No problem!"


And here's that goose:

And here's G & G:

We went downtown to do a tiny bit of shopping (although I think I just bought things for myself! Whoops!) Macy's windows are pretty boring this year - Yes, Virginia, which I think is merely a desperate plea to validate the newspaper industry. And we had lunch at the Italian Village, one of my favorite restaurants downtown, where my mom made the shocking disclosure that they had the "best lasagna [she'd] ever had".

Thanksgiving 2010 Menu

Cheese plate with fig jam
Paté*
M's Agreeable Pickles
K's Disagreeable Pickles

Roast Goose
Sage Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Indiana Sweet Corn
Brussels Sprouts with Roasted Chestnuts
Broccoli au Gratin
Bread Rolls

G's Petit Gooseberry Pies
P's Pumpkin Pie

And, a lot of wine.

* I made it myself! It was unpleasant...

this one's for KHM

KHM's looking for a pick-me-up - this is the best thing I can think of, my favorite beverage of late...

American in Paris
1 1/2 ounces bourbon
1/2 ounce creme de cassis
1/2 ounce dry vermouth
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Shake with ice, serve up in a martini glass.

via

joining the fray

I thought I'd go ahead and way in on the TSA "body scanners" (or, "nudity machines", as I like to call them) since everyone else is. Two flights ago, I "opted out" of the body scanner because I didn't want the radiation, and so I got the "pat down" which, yes, is rather intimate. There's all this "now I'm using the front of my hand/now I'm using the back of my hand" nonsense, which doesn't really matter when someone's hand is all up in your business. Then, after they're done, they wipe their gloves with some kind of explosive-detecting wipe, and I came up positive (insert joke). So, they had to give me another pat down. Positive again. Then what? Then nothing, that's what. So, if you ask me, the whole thing's B.S. Meanwhile, guess what? They're all, "The amount of radiation you get in the machine is equal to what you get in the plane in one minute." But, of course, I don't believe them. So, I ask my friend, who's an honest-to-God rocket scientist. And, she says: Ah, that's probably correct. So, that why I just get in the nudity machine now.

Anywho, I ask the people, who's looking at all our naked pictures? And they're like, some guy, in a room all by himself. Oh, sure, I says. I mean. Seriously. No one believes that.

I'm not kidding you

Had a lovely little weekend with my husband ... We saw Harry potter, which I thought was great. Really exciting and moody - thanks to my terrible memory I was like omg! What's going to happen?????? Also totes gorg shots of England ... Reminded me of when I went to England myself and drove around the countryside.

Also bought some shoes... I'm not kidding you... These shoes.... These shoes are going to make you cry when you see them on my feet. One pair is sandals, which is mildly outrageous considering where I live and it's the eve of winter but they wre too perfect and we will most likely go on that all-too-important visit to a warm weather location sometime in February in order to actually a make it through the aforementioned winter.

I'm working on a lot of crrrrafts right now and finally managed to finish one today- a scrapbook of my trip to Bangladesh. That only took... 17 years!

Hope you have a fab thanksgiving. We're cooking up a ridik menu at casa Roark. Oh my. More later.

Glee (Spoilers) (from last week)

So, you know last week on Glee (yeah, I write about shows that are a week old because I'm on top of stuff)? I totally loved that song Teenage Dream by the local hoity-toity-zero-tolerance-policy-all-boys-school. The original is catchy too, I didn't know that song... BUT, the whole bit with Coach Beiste was so gaggy. First, it's like, Schuester finds out the kids are imagining her as a cold-shower replacement when they're too excited. Then he's all SHE MUST NEVER KNOW ABOUT THIS and then he's all THE KIDS ARE TOTALLY IMAGINING YOU WHEN THEY'RE FOOLING AROUND BECAUSE THEY THINK YOU'RE DISGUSTING. So, A.) I find it very unlikely that a grown woman, who works in a school, would give two shits about whether a bunch of teenagers find her attractive and B.) I was all, Don't you kiss her Will Schuester, even though she just told you she's never been kissed, DON'T YOU DO IT, YOU SONNUFABITCH! And then he kisses her, and I was like... God, I hate that guy. And C.) all the boys sing a "we're sorry" song and she's like, aww, that's nice, kind of????????? No.

Sometimes I think that show is really smart, but sometimes it's really idiotic. I want to mock Schuester and his stupid hair like I'm Sue Silvester. Basically I just want them to sing one song after another and lay off the preachy stuff (although I'm interested to see where they go with the bullying angle, but I don't have that much faith that they will NOT screw it up). I do not have high hopes for Gweneth Paltrow episode. BTW, why is Gweneth suddenly a (country western?) singer? We have not forgotten Duets, Gweneth. No, we have not.

Item! Music and fashion

Item! When we were in France, I was hot on the lookout for trends because I am, as you know, a total trendster. Alas, no glaring French trends jumped out at me beside fancy tights which I already knew about and, you know, all-black outfits, the de rigor uniform of the city girl. Do you want to hear something AWESOME???? One day, we were in the Pompidou, and this girl took a picture of my legs (because I had on super-cool tights and an all-black outfit, natch). I didn't see it but M told me and then I got REALLY EXCITED!

We went to a Virgin Megastore (I thought those were totally extinct!) - we used to love going to the VM in SF because they had all those listening stations. Anyway, I found this CD by The Constant, I Blame Coco, which I really love. Update: my fave song is probably SelfMachine - here's a link to the video and info on this Coco. Hint: it's not Conan O'Brien.

Then I saw this video once in a bar (Plan B, She Said). But, I can't seem to buy the song on iTunes. SUCK!


This song (Camelia Jordana, Calamity Jane) is really sweet, I love that little melody. Her voice kind of reminds me of Gillian Welch.
I also heard a few song by this band called Coeur De Pirate, but I can't decide if I like them or not.

Oh, snap! Did you see that boys-school Teenage Dream song on Glee? O.M.G.

My other hot French tip is ham and cheese sandwiches on baguette with butter. You heard it here! (:

it went like this

Me: Hey Sweetheart, did you know Uncle M was a Frenchman for Halloween?
Adorable Nephew: WHAT? Uncle M was a FIRE ENGINE?!
Me: Ha ha ha!
Adorable Nephew: Why are you laughing?
Me: Because that's so funny! Uncle M was a French man. A man from France! Not a fire engine. Ha ha ha!
Adorable Nephew: HA HA HA!
ME: HAHAHA!
Adorable Nephew: HAHAHAHA!
Sister: That's enough, you two.

evil cupcakes

I've been wanting to make be-flagged cupcakes for ages now, and finally did it! Fun! Gee, these are really nice.

Your Evil Twin

This year our Halloween Party theme was "Your Evil Twin" - we had a really fun time and some great friends came by. Some of the evil twins of my liberal friends are ultra-conservatives and even tote gun-loving babies dressed in camo. Others are crackwhores and serial killers (oh my!). M's evil twin is French...

and I'm an international art thief (the pipe is integral to my costume, believe me)...

This is G in a remarkable likeness to her own boyfriend.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Party Mix Selection

I am a Cat (Shonan Knife)
I am not a Robot (Marina and the Diamonds)
Heavy Cross (The Gossip)
I want Candy (Bouncing Souls)
Dead Man's Party (Oingo Boingo)
I Gotta Feeling (natch)
Don't Fear the Reaper (more cowbell!)
Disturbia (Rihanna)
Sinnerman (Felix da Housecat & Nina Simone)
Thriller (natch)
Voodoo Cadillac (Southern Culture On The Skids)
Cobrastyle (Robyn - I LOVE that song...)

the Seine

A mini-movie

I made a little mini-movie about our trip! I hope you like it! (It's 6 minutes)

Grotte et l'art

M likes going to caves and I like looking at art and in France we have found the perfect pastime: caves with prehistoric paintings in them! That's fun for the whole family! I've been really impressed with the sophistication of the drawings- they are so beautiful. Yesterday we saw a lovely cave witha tour completement en francais! C'est tres dificil parce que trop scientifique. Aujour'hui: Paris!

Who would do that?

The area we're visiting in France is known for it's foie gras and truffles and we rather outdid ourselves with the rich food. I ate an embarrassing amount of foie gras. So much that I felt as if someone stuffed a funnel down my gullet and forced rich fatty French food into my stomach. Why???????

The strikes in France have not effected us but with any luck, we'll be 'trapped' in France and unable to return. Keep ur fingers crossed!

Oh, here's something amusing from my phrase book- a translation is provided for 'i've lost my child/handbag.'

it's really old.

I did not intend to blog every day, but, it turns out there's plenty of wifi and free time to spare! Today we had a really excellent time traveling around (Daddy, our car is a Fiat 500 and tres adorable!)

We first went to Font De Gaume, an ancient cave with beautiful paintings from (wait for it...) 17,000 BCE (take that, Sarah Palin!) then we went to the village of the Madeline and then the Maison Forte de Reignac and then largely spent the rest of the day contemplating the definition of troglodyte.

Saw ducks about to become fois gras. Why can't I just stuff fois gras into my greedy maw without considering the lovely, innocent creatures of my delicious, delicious lunch?

the lantern of what now?

Bon jour! Our trip continues to be very exciting. Yesterday we took the train to Brive and then drove to this little town called Sarlat-de-Canada, which is an absolutely gorgeous little village with medieval buildings and winding, hilly, cobbled streets. I forgot to say that I successfully navigated Paris in high heels but may not be up for the European-lady-challenge of high heels in Sarlat...

Out the window of our beaucoup charming inn is the Lanterne des Morte. We find it very amusing, if ominous.

Although we've only been here two nights, we've already had two incredible dinners - in Paris we went to le Coup-Chou and last night a tiny restaurant in Sarlat where I had a decadent meal of fois gras and duck. And chocolate mousse. And wine, of course.

Tomorrow we're probably going to see some cave paintings. Au revoir!

Bon nuit

Bon NUIT je suis en France avec mon amor after mild tribulations. We are staying in totally gorg hotel with lovely view (and balcony!). Are exhausted due to jet lag ,natch. Dinner:boeuf borg. To die.

Tropes

M discovered this website called TV Tropes which has been amusing us for a few days. Tropes are commonly used narrative devises and this website names them and then cites a ridic number of examples.

Here are some of my favorites:
Slap Slap Kiss
Belligerent Sexual Tension
Verb This
Big No

80 degrees

We were granted what is surely the last warm weekend of the year and took advantage of it by taking a bike ride around town and tried out our new camera. I thought you might like to see a picture of "my" beach:
This is the view of downtown from up here...

It was warm enough to put my footsies in the water (isn't that nail polish gorg? It's called Commander in Chic.)

And that's the campus where I work...


And here's our pride and joy:

Math! Blast it!

Today is 10/10/10! We tried to do something exciting at 10am, and ended up jumping up and down in the kitchen and having a kiss. M explained, that in binary, today is "42", which, as everyone knows, is the answer to Life, the Universe, and EVERYTHING! And then he became very judgmental when we did not understand how binary (and decimals) worked. Not cool.

In other math news, we are leaving for France in a few days, and learning french together. Numbers are really hard! Did you know that the number for 70 translates as "Sixty-ten" and 71 is "sixty-eleven" etc.? AND, not only that, but the number for 80 translates as "four twenties" and, EVEN WORSE, 90 is "four twenties and ten." And 91 is "four twenties and eleven", and so on. I mean, seriously. Come on.

Banned Books Week!

It's banned books week, yo! How are you sticking it to the man by reading a book? Lately I've (unintentionally) read a few books that are frequently banned - the entire work of JD Salinger and a lovely little book of prose poetry called What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones. For book club, we intentionally choose a banned book: The Satanic Diaries by Rushdie.

ABFFE's Banned and Challenged Book List

No! It can't be! ... more tomatoes?

With the rest of our green tomatoes, we made Italian Farmhouse Green Tomato Pickle (recipe via The Splendid Table, an absolutely fabulous radio show with Lynne Rossetto Kasper. I highly recommend the pod cast.)

It's incredibly easy to make. One night you cut the tomatoes and sprinkle with salt, then let it sweat it out in the fridge all night. The next night, dice up garlic, sun-dried tomatoes (which I made myself! OMG!), a few herbs and a pepper (from our own garden!), cover the whole mess with vinegar and then.... wait. The Splendid Table recipe is for canning, but we just put ours in a jar in the fridge. I know it'll be fine because it's covered in vinegar and we'll eat it soon. I have to wait four days for it to marinate, but... it looks pretty darn good. The whole thing took about a half hour's work!

More tomatoes?

It's starting to get cold in this area, so we pulled the rest of the tomatoes off the vines, including the green ones.

In previous years, we tried to follow our grandmothers' advice and wrap the green tomatoes in newspaper, snuggle in a box, and put in a cool, dark place. Supposedly the tomatoes will ripen, we were told, and we'd magically have red tomatoes when we expected them the least. What really happens is, you put the tomatoes in the basement, promptly forget about them, and then what you have is a box full of mold when you least expect it.

This year I decided to try a few recipes instead. I'm not a big fan of fried green tomatoes, so the first thing I made was Green Tomato Bread. It's kind of like zucchini bread, but tastes a little crisper. It was delicious! I took a loaf to my office and everyone raved. Very easy to make. Here's a pick of the green tomatoes all chopped up - you just squeeze the liquid out and mix in the dough. Nice and cinnamon-y - I'd highly suggest this if you have some green tomatoes to use up. Recipe via Cooking with Michele.

I also made slow-roasted tomatoes with the smallest tomatoes - you just cut them in half, throw them on a pan on parchment paper, drizzle with olive oil and roast them in the oven at 275 for a loooooooong time. We had ours in there for about 6 hrs. Tasted one tonight - like pure heaven! Recipe via Smitten Kitchen (she has gorgeous photos so I didn't bother.)

I am not a robot

I'm really into this song right now.

12 years!

This weekend we went to Indiana for the funeral of a dear family friend. Like when my Grandpa died a few years ago, grief is also accompanied by joy (a birth), and celebration (our wedding anniversary.) Life, it's proved, is cyclical. I read this poem today by Thich Nhat Hanh that goes, in part:

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

I still need to contemplate that for a good long time.

Today M & I celebrate 12 years of marriage. Am luckiest girl in the world. You know me, I like to spread out my celebrating, so next month we'll be in France. Il n'y a qu'un bonheur dans la vie, c'est d'aimer et d'être aimé. Here's the view from our hotel:

Weekend in Review

Well, last week was a doozy, what with the surprise birth of C&D's baby (name: D.I.) and the beginning of our chaotic period at work. I made several trips to the hospital to admire baby and otherwise spent a lot of time trying to hold my head on straight. Weekend came non-too-soon. Friday night - book club - very fun; Sat.: shopping for a bathroom vanity, which we did NOT buy but had a pretty good time looking around. I kind of want this

But I also like this:

(Upstairs bathroom for those in the know.) What do you think?

M & I have been listening to Coffee Break French podcast to pick up some lang. skills in advance of our trip next month. We can ask each other how we are and introduce ourselves to each other as our own husband and wife. V. handy. Last night we watched Tell No One, a rather interesting and amusing French film from 2006 (despite ridick convoluted plot.)

Today we went to Renegade Craft Fair, which was fun but INSANELY crowded, and I got kind of creeped out by the crowd (as I'm wont to do) and had to split. But, not before I got some super-cute stuff, like:

• A sculpture by Janet MacPherson.
  
• A letterpress card by Lady Pilot Letterpress.
  
• Und some cool mustache earrings by Isette.
  

for mom

Canning!

Quite overwhelmed by the output from our tomato garden, we finally took the plunge to give canning a try! We did twelve half-pint jars (mostly because we don't have a gigantic pot big enough for pint jars), and it was really fun, and our cans are beautiful. When we crack open those jars in the middle of winter and taste the tomatoes from our own garden, I can tell you... we are going to be extremely SMUG.

Tales of long hours spent over the stove, I can tell you, are overdone. We did all the work in about 2 hrs, and then waiting patiently while the jars boil in the pot. Basically, you just boil the jars to make sure they're squeaky-clean, then you blanche the tomatoes to slip off the skins, then you stuff the tomatoes in the jars, then you put the lids on and boil them again.

If you're interested in trying it, I mostly used these two sites:
Martha Stewart, which is kind of basic, and this one, which had more details.

One of the most exciting aspects of canning was discovering just why one of our heirloom varieties was called Amish Pink and Yellow. Here you can see an average haul from our garden, where the orange Amish Pink and Yellow are virtually indistinguishable fro Betty's Orange (an orange tomato from M's Gran's friend Betty, you see.)

When canned, we saw this lovely (wait for it) pink and yellow emerge!

Anyone else canning? I'd be interested to hear what you've made!

Pesto

We had two big bushes of basil in the garden and used it liberally all summer in our bruschetta and other meals, but there's PLENTY left over for lots of pesto.

I think pesto comes down to personal taste, I like mine fairly course with lots of olive oil, but you might like yours smooth with less pine nuts or what have you. Anywho, the key is, first grind the pine nuts, then toss in the basil leaves and absolutely smother in olive oil, then toss it in little containers and put the whole mess in the freezer and be smug all winter. Note: don't include Parmesan at this stage (because it doesn't freeze well), but do put some in when you thaw it out.




I like to put it on crostini!