Archive for Jul 2006
Mon Jul 31 14:54:02 2006August's library display is all about beach reads. I didn't set out to do beach reads. I planned on pirates, but one of my co-workers suggested beach reads and it was seconded by another and then, before I could say "arrrr, no," they told the assistant director and so ... beach reads it is, then.
It's probably a good idea. We just added a whole lot of new paperbacks to the collection and it would be nice to see them circulate rather than immediately vanishing into the back stacks, but there's not a lot to recommend them besides their cute throwaway line titles and cartoonish covers. To just put up a sign saying "beach reads" and cover the table with them ... it seemed lacking.
So I made a sign that said "Too Hot for Doystoyevsky?" with the word "hot" made of flames (because I am all about subtlety) and then a hot pink blurb under it which just said "beach reads are here!" in this funky little font that makes me think of psychopaths. I stood our most authoritatively boring doorstop copies of Demons and Crime and Punishment at its feet and then fanned out a dozen of the funkiest and fluffiest looking new paperbacks. I also added some YA paperbacks, because 1) (thanks to the high school summer reading requirements) we're crawling with teens looking for stuff they really don't want to read and 2) the children's department never use YA materials in their displays so it seems those materials never get the spotlight they need (I keep meaning to do a YA display for "Teen Read Week," but it always conflicts with something else).
Sadly, I only picked Doystoyevsky, because his name fit perfectly under "too hot for" and his works make the perfect foil for the new paperbacks. People are, of course, perfectly welcome to take Doystoyevsky to the beach if that's what turns them on.
So far, everything is circulating well. The display seems popular with both teenage girls and hip mamas and that's good enough for me as they're an enormous part of our summer user base, anyway. One of the hip mamas said she really loves all my displays and she looks always forward to the next display. I was so chuffed.
Also, there were no complaints about June's Pride Month display. Yippee.
Fri Jul 30 17:15:06 2006
There is some kind of banana conspiracy going on in my kitchen. I keep buying bananas and we keep not eating them. No matter how many bananas I buy, there are always bananas going brown and squishy on the kitchen side. I mean, I am only buying three or four bananas at a go -- it seems we ought to be able to eat them before they go brown and squishy, but no. One day there are three bright green bananas. The next day, there are two squishy brown bananas in a cloud of fruit flies. I thought at first this was because we are very chosy people when it comes to banana consumption (I like mine still faintly greenish and The Husband prefers them a nice unspeckled yellow) and weren't eating them fast enough. But, no. There is a conspiracy in the kitchen. How else would three (vibrant green) bananas I bought on Tuesday become all brown squishiness by Thursday?
Even though we do not eat the brown bananas, I am loathe to throw them in the compost. Waste of perfectly good banana! I could always make bread or muffins out of them, after all. So off they go into the depths of the freezer and never again shall they see the light of day.
Yesterday, I had three bananas in the freezer and four more squishy ones on the side. Do I need seven frozen bananas? I think not. I made "Streusel Banana Bread" from the Better Homes and Gardens New Baking Book (Meredith Books, 1998). I lacked a pastry blender for blending in the butter to make the struesel topping, but found that a combination of mashing with a fork and pinching with my fingers worked pretty well.
I brought the loaf over to my parents, later, and my dad liked it well enough that he ate three slices and kept half the loaf. He seemed really enamored with the streusel topping. My mother makes a good banana bread, but it is very different from the BHG bread and I suspect half my father's infatuation was due to shear novelty.
Because everything in teh fux0r3d fridge is going bad, I wanted to use the raspberries and blackberries before it was too late. They were almost over-ripe when I took them out of the fridge, so freezing them did not seem like a good idea. Happily, I found a recipe at joyofbaking for "Buttermilk Berry Muffins" which seemed promising. Since I'd already used half the lemon zest in the banana bread, I used a combination of lemon and lime zest for the muffins. I also drizzled a lemon glaze over the tops of them after they came out of the oven and had cooled for a bit. Because the blackberries were so very ripe, they disintegrated when I tried to fold them into the batter and turned the batter a nice bluey-purple. The raspberries, however, managed to hold together and look quite pretty nestled in the purple muffins.
They taste pretty good, too. My mother is allergic to bananas (yet loves my father so much she bakes him banana bread), so I brought some muffins over with the loaf and she seemed pleased and surprised I had brought something especially for her. Note to self: bake more for your mother.
My mother is a diabetic and making sweets for her can be a bit of an adventure. She can eat things with sugar, obviously, but prefers to consume sugar substitutes. Sugar substitutes bake up a little weird, you know. Even Splenda, which is supposed to be some kind of miracle sweetener, doesn't work out as well as I would like. Unfortunately, a lot of the recipes that use natural sugar substitutes use ... bananas.
Wed Jul 26 18:32:05 2006
Our refrigerator, it is teh fux0r3d. Monday, I thought my breakfast watermelon was a little warm, but figured I'd been pretty slow about eating it since taking it out of the fridge ... but (while at work) I kept thinking that a lot of perishables didn't seem to be lasting in the fridge the way they used to and maybe I needed to turn down the temperature dial ... and then I came home for lunch and The Husband was all "does the fridge seem warm to you?" so I turned down the dial ... but my little brain was already making cash register noises ...
And you know what? There's nothing wrong with paranoia. Paranoia allows for the possibility of refrigerator breakage so that when the fridge is opened and the butter is discovered to be squishy rather than firm, there is no panic.
This whole week has been about breakage, anyway, so what's a fridge? The AC and security systems at work are broken, the lawn mower is breaking, and The Husband entertains the possibility of being broken.
Here is a hint: When your wife is driving you to the hospital for a sigmoidoscopy because you are bleeding out of your ass again, do not say anything like the following: "now would probably not be a good time to tell you I was dizzy last night" because she will then spend her two hours in the same day surgery waiting area worrying that you have something exciting and fun like rectal cancer.
Sun Jul 23 21:10:40 2006
I get a little confused about grocery shopping.
Every once in a while I get bit by the "eat locally" bug and become enamored with the idea of purchasing all our fruits and vegetables from local farmers' markets and stands. Then, just when I'm about to commit to this new venture, I seize up with doubt. These local veggies ... how are they better? Yes, yes, small intensive farming and whatnot, but they're still full of pesticides and inorganic fertilizers, aren't they? Most of the local stands and markets aren't sporting the organic labels that the stuff I buy at bigregionalchain are. And the prices ... holy crap. And the produce doesn't always look as good as at bigregionalchain. I don't need my peaches perfect, but they shouldn't look like someone was using them for footie, either.
Usually, I end up doing what I always do. I buy whatever nibbles take my fancy at stands and markets, but purchase the majority of produce from bigregionalchain.
Sometimes, I also think that, regardless of eating locally or not, I should try to do more specialized shopping -- cheese from the cheese shop, meat from the butcher, produce and eggs from the farm stand -- because wouldn't that be better than shopping at bigregionalchain? Theoretically, wouldn't foods from specialty shops be better quality? But, again, the prices can be horrifying and frequently the foods don't look a whole lot different from bigregionalchain's. And this isn't England, dahlings, where I kept tripping over butchers and fishmongers. This is Burbville -- land of the bigregionalchain.
I bring this up because we went to a farm market, today. It was small, but rather nice, and we came home with a loaf of bread, jar of honey, and half pints of raspberries and blackberries. All delicious and all many times the price I would pay at bigregionalchain.
We also picked up a card from a local poultry farm which will sell us freshly butchered pastured chickens and turkeys, if we reserve them in advance. I am torn. The price is good(ish) and the product sounds excellent, but the reservation process seems like a pain in the ass and do I want to drive 20 minutes down the highway to pick up my pastured chicken when I can walk 5 minutes down the street to bigregionalchain and buy one of their organic chickens that will probably taste the same as the pastured one, anyway?
Life was easier when I didn't care about what was behind the food we ate. When there was no question about shopping at bigregionalchain and factory farming seemed normal. Now, when I look at a pint of blueberries, I find myself not only wondering whether they will taste good and are worth the price, but also where they came from, how they were picked and shipped, whether they were treated with pesticides or chemical fertilizers, and whether they really do fight cancer and heart disease.
Hello? Over thinking grocery shopping a bit, you think?
Fri Jul 21 23:20:50 2006
Woman approached the desk with Danielle Steel's new book Coming Out in her hands and said "It just occurred to me ... coming out ... you don't think this is about The Gays, do you?" (Yes, dahlings, The Gays. I could hear the capitals quite clearly). I gaped at her for a minute while my brain tried to claw its way out of my head, then I pulled myself together, smiled, and said something like, "well, from what I remember from the reviews, it's a story about a mixed family with two teenage daughters who are invited to a coming out ball ... there is a closeted brother ... but why don't you take a look at the book flap and see if you want to read this before I check it out to you?" and she said "oh, no, as long as it isn't all about those Gays."
I admit my summary of the story wasn't all that precise, but I do think "closeted brother" should have been a tip-off.
I can't imagine Danielle Steel writing a gay character with any particular breadth or depth and suspect the brother is just so much window dressing. I don't know. Maybe I should be pleased "The Gays" are now mainstream enough Danielle Steel writes about them? Instead, I feel ... annoyed ... as if she's appropriated and commodified something of mine.
That's right! Because bisexual girlies living in the burbs with their heterosexual husbands have so much worth appropriating or commodifying!
Wed Jul 19 20:47:16 2006
One of the hard drives on my computer snuffed it earlier this week and, of course, after The Husband took everything apart and put it back together again there was a little weirdness remaining so, apparently, this website was not accessible until earlier today when I went "hey! where is my website!" and The Husband worked his foo. It is both good and bad to have a homegrown website-blog-whatzit, I think. It is good to have someone close at hand to rail at when things go wonky, but it also means that the things that go wrong would probably be less likely to go wrong if I had an account with a commercial service.
This whole moving-to-a-commercial-service train of thought is one I have every six months or so when I've seen one too many cute widgets that wouldn't work here or gotten sick of writing my own CSS/HMTL and want to slap bluefish around. Then I think about how much control I would be giving up and the train is derailed. In my own feeble and paranoid way, I am all about control.
It's why I've never been drunk or dabbled with interesting forms of pharmacology. And why I am careful not to make decisions without doing research first. It means I suck at spur-of-the-moment decisions like where we should go for dinner rightnowthisminute. But. If you give me an hour or so, I can spin out a nice Sunday afternoon's worth of activities. If I had just said "sure, let's go" and not thought about it or poked around on the Internet, we would not have had ice cream or visited the museum. So, in my view, it's good to be careful and stay in control.
Yes, of course, there are probably all sorts of spur-of-the-moment side trips and adventures I've missed. Also, there are things I've researched and planned that turned out to be complete crap. But, less likely than with the spur-of-the-moment ideas, I think.
And, yes, it gets tiring to be always careful and in control, but ... to just let go and see what happens? Are you crazy?
Tue Jul 18 22:58:04 2006
Sunday we went and checked out a property The Husband is interesting in purchasing for investment purposes. I have problems with the whole idea, but I am trying to be supportive and get over myself. I understand the reasons behind investing in property and diversifying one's portfolio and all that, but it's another thing entirely to actually be looking at property on a fine Sunday afternoon. Especially when that property seems more full of faults than promise. But, looking is not the same as buying and the more we look, the better we will get at spotting good properties and the more comfortable I will get with the idea of owning property I don't live in, right? We can only hope.
I think my ambivalence actually comes down to snobbery more than financial worries. I don't want to be someone's landlord. That's it. That's my whole hang-up.
Anyway, after looking at The Property in Question, we wandered up the street and had some nice ice cream at Praline's ("cotton candy" was pretty good -- a swirl of mildly sweet blue, pink, and white ice cream) then sat and sweltered by a fountain for a bit. Eventually, we got back in the car and drove up to the New Britain Museum of American Art.
We used the free museum pass from the library, but the entrance fee is only $9, anyway, and well worth it from what we saw. Among other marvels, I liked a rather fantastic waterfront and cityscape painting by Georgia O'Keeffe called "East River from the Thirtieth Story of the Shelton Hotel" and a weirdly compelling portrait of Lydia Lynde by John Singleton Copley. The Husband was quite taken with "Seal Rock" by Albert Bierstadt (so much so we purchased a large print of it to hang over the couch).
Sat Jul 15 18:58:04 2006
Because I am insane, I baked the second installment in my father's year long birthday cake extravaganza a scant three days after returning from England. Was I prepared to be baking? No. Should I have been baking? No. Did it even seem like a good idea at the time? Not very. But, I was full of this weird nervous energy. Kept feeling like I ought to be doing something or going somewhere. And baking a cake seemed like a good way to take the edge off.
Surprisingly, the cake was not a disaster. I don't think the cake was as good as it should have been -- the layers didn't rise as much as I had expected and the frosting was a bit too sweet -- but my dad seemed perfectly happy with it and he and The Husband made serious inroads when I brought it over. I used the "White Cake" and "No-Cook Fudge Frosting" from Better Homes and Gardens New Baking Book (Meredith Books, 1998). I'm really starting to like my BHG cookbooks as the recipes are all pretty straightforward and tend to yield good results. My mother knew what she was doing when she gave me the red and white standby for my twenty-first birthday.
Dad's leaving August's cake up to me, but Mom specified something light and non-chocolate. It's not her present, but I do think two chocolate-y cakes in a row is enough for this time of year. Actually, I'd like to try my hand at Eton Mess, but I'm not sure I could call that a cake. Somehow, I don't think dad would complain ...
At the end of our stay with The Father-in-Law, we went down to Birmingham and visited The Husband's Auntie and other sundry relations. Auntie's Husband is quite a capable cook and one of the things he served us was Harry Blumenthal's Eton Mess with bananas and lime. It looked like the dog's breakfast, but the lime-banana-meringue combination was truly delicious and I've been thinking about it on and off ever since I ate it. I found a recipe at joyofbaking.com for the traditional strawberry version ("Strawberry with Cream and Meringue Bits") and I think my dad would it eat. He'd eat the banana version, of course, but Mom is allergic to bananas and while it's his present, she'll be eating it, too.
Earlier this week I also made fairy cakes using the "Vanilla Cupcakes" recipe I also found at joyofbaking.com. I substituted lemon for the vanilla in the batter and frosting and they came out well. A nice taste of lemon, but not "Wow! Lemon!" I don't usually frost things I make just for us as The Husband is not too keen on frosting, but he quite liked this buttercream frosting. Well, of course he would. It's nothing but butter and sugar with a bit of cream and flavorings. How could you not like butter and sugar whipped together?
Fri Jul 14 15:41:39 2006
While I was in England I bought a lot of books. Of course. Was it ever likely I wouldn't return with suitcase and carry-on packed full of paperbacks?
There were specific titles I wanted to purchase in England, but forgot to write them down before I left so didn't get any of them. But that turned out okay, you know, as book selecting is becoming more and more about browsing and less about targeting specific authors/genres/publishers.
I did manage to get my hot little hands on trade paperbacks of Books Two and Three of Philip Reeve's Hungry City Chronicles (Predator's Gold and Infernal Devices). I had no problem locating a copy of Book Three -- every bookshop I visited had two or three copies of the shelf -- but Book Two was nearly impossible to find. Did stumble upon a battered and wrinkly looking copy at a Waterstone's in Standish which I almost bought out of pure desperation, but persuaded myself not to. At worst, I could always get a nicer copy off Amazon. Happily, whilst wandering around the duty-free area at the Manchester Airport I found one lonely, but perfect, copy in a WH Smith. Did a little whoop and a jig of joy which I am sure did not endear me to any of my fellow shoppers, but sod them. I found my book. Huzzah!
At the Waterstones in Blackpool, I picked up Devices and Desires (The Engineer Trilogy: Book One) by K.J. Parker, Predator's Gold mentioned above, Porno by Irvine Welsh, Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Kate Kerrigan, Inconceivable by Ben Elton, and a whole bunch of Headline Review Editions of Jane Austen's works. Apparently, The Telegraph thinks little of these editions, but I love them. Being larger than my old Penguins, they are easier to keep open by wedging against a breakfast bowl or dinner plate. The cover art is nice and contemporary, but not quite as girl-y or chick-lit-y as the Telegraph article suggests. But, I'm going to be biased, anyway, as I went to England with the intent of bringing back some Austen and so finding these editions (3 for 2, as well) seemed like a godsend. Though Penguin copies are great from a scholarly point of view, I am years removed from being an English Literature student and no longer need my books to shout "Boring Authoritative Work!" or "Canon!" Also, I am slowly going blind and need the big print.
Haven't yet read more than the first two chapters of Northanger Abbey, but am thoroughly enjoying skimming the "Additional Information" included in the back of each volume. I know I am a complete geek, but I love the maps of Bath with all the novels' locations picked out.
Oh. Now I am confused. Here are Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park. Where is Sense and Sensibility? Didn't I buy it at the WH Smith in Cleveleys?? Oh, crap. It is still with the In-Laws.
You are thinking that even with the missing Sense and Sensibility these do not seem like a lot of books. Well, you also have to take into account the two dozen or so of The Husband's we liberated from a cupboard at his grandparent's. Yes. And there are more in his mum's attic, but we couldn't be bothered looking at those as we'd never be able to carry them all home. Yes. Because no-one could ever just mail them to us or throw them out or give them to a charity shop. No. They must live in attics and cupboards and be complained about until we arrive and sort them out. And, of course, we never really do, because we can't be bothered. It is not as if we lack for books here at home and the idea of schlepping extra carry-ons of books through the airport is completely lacking in charm.
But, really, where is my copy of Sense and Sensibility?
Thu Jul 13 11:38:56 2006
We are sitting in the office doing the post-vacation catching-up-with-the-Internet thing when he turns to me and asks "If tivo died, would you want to replace it or cancel cable?" and my little brain, of course, jumps right ahead to "omfg! something is wrong with our tivo!"
People, this thing called "television" ... it is only bearable when filtered through the sweet, sweet Tivo. I could not bear to watch without. And yet ... what are we watching on Tivo, really? Too many episodes of crime and medical dramas. Tons of food pr0n. Shedloads of BBC imports. Nothing meaningful, really.
We've only had "real" television since 2002. I mean, yes, we had a TV, but it was just a giant monitor for the PS2/GameCube/VCR combo. We didn't actually watch TV. We had Internet, dammit. But then we got a cable modem and, obviously, cable TV. And though we lost the modem, we upgraded to a giant ass TV and added a Tivo. Sweet Tivo. And now we spend too many hours out of every evening enraptured by the pretty moving pictures.
You can probably guess my choice, right? Cancel the cable? Great theory, but will it actually happen? I mean, what will I do without America's Test Kitchen (actually hate their website) or Masterpiece Theatre? How could I possibly give up House or Daisy Cooks?
Oh, but just think about the money we'd save ... or have available for spending on something else. Without Tivo or cable fees, we could invest in a "real" DVD player (PS2 doesn't seem always happy with the DVDs), get a Netflix or GreenCine account, and finally get to watch all those weird films I can't (easily) get through work.
Or, you know, we could just play a lot of Scrabble and dominoes like the stodgy old people we are.
Mmmm ... Scrabble ...
Wed Jul 12 23:34:50 2006
So. Maybe. You want to hear about my Totally Excellent Summer Holiday® with my Super Fabulous In-Laws? So would I.
Okay, honestly, my holiday would have been better if I had spent less time playing the bitch or freaking out over being the Ugly American in the bunch. If I could have just kept on my Little Miss Susie Sunshine mask (or mainlined some Valium) I'm sure a whole lot of my holiday would have been more bearable. But! It's! Tiring! Being! Perky! All! The! Time! Especially when I'm staying in other people's houses rather than a nice anonymous hotel. There was never an appropriate time to let the mask slip so, of course, it started slipping when I least wanted it to. Like, when Blackpool Grannie was describing, in great detail, how she ironed her husband's boxers. I was so consumed with conflicting desires (laugh myself sick or stab myself in the eye with the stem of my wine glass) that I had to walk away (into the Ladies' Toilet where I gave myself a stern talking to about getting my shit together and stop being such a bitch but ... ironing boxers? Oh, it is to laugh! Or to weep! Who knows! All I know is, I deserve more oral.)
Anyway, to hell with staying in other people's houses. Next time, we stay in a hotel. The Husband is welcome to play the "Well, You Know My Wife Is A Bitch" card when he has to explain it to his family. I don't care. We are staying in a hotel.
But. I make it sound as if the whole thing holiday was bad and that's not true. The Blackpool Grandparents are my favorites out of all The Husband's relatives and it was really nice to spend time with them. It is disheartening to realize how old they are getting (85!) and that we may not have many more chances to see them before they die. Blackpool Grannie gave me a couple cake tiers she doesn't use anymore and I plan take pictures of them when I used them so she can see they are not just idling, unwanted, in a cupboard somewhere. I'm thinking fairy cakes (cupcakes) with buttercream frosting.
Also, The Husband and I spent a number of days just wandering around Blackpool on our own and that was quite lovely. We bought tasty things from Hampsons (vegetable tikka pasties are yummy, but cream cakes are pretty much to die for) and different chip shops, sat by the sea and ate ice cream, walked up and down the North Pier, shopped for books and chocolate, took the tram into lovely Cleveleys by the sea, talked about much about nothing, and made out a little bit more than mature married folk are probably supposed to. And, you know, that's all I wanted from my holiday. Much of nothing.
Mon Jul 10 18:59:01 2006
Today we finished off our vacation with Penguin Contact at the aquarium. It was pretty cool. I mean, when could touching a penguin not be cool? There were nine of us in the group, plus the Penguin Trainer and her summer volunteer, and only one African penguin between us all so there was not as much touching of the penguin as The Husband would have liked, but it was still pretty cool.
Needless to say, the penguin touching was pretty much the best part of our vacation. In-laws are okay and English junk/fast food can be pretty nummy, but penguins can't be beat.
last updated: Sat 17 Nov 2007 08:19:03 AM EST