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I like my money right where I can see it: hanging in my closet.
– Carrie Bradshaw, on Sex and the City
(I know it’s late, but you didn’t think I’d let you down so early in this NaBloPoMo, did you? I wouldn’t do that to you! I’m probably going to let you down later in this NaBloPoMo, though.)
1. Aveda Rosemary Mint shampoo – this was the shampoo in our room at the Palms when we went to Las Vegas in January, and I fell in love with it. It’s not overpowering at all, but it’s so refreshing and energizing. David hunted it down when we got back and bought me a GIANT bottle of it. (FYI: I didn’t like the matching conditioner – it didn’t seem to soak in well.)
2. Old Navy Slub-Knit Active Skirt – it’s too bad they only have XXL left online because I bought an XL one (which is a little too big, but they only had S besides that one) in the store that I live in on the weekends now and I would buy one in every color if I could. So soft, so comfortable. That’s summer.
3. Flutter Sleeve Scoopneck knit dress from Ann Taylor Loft – I bought this in purple a few months ago in anticipation of summer and it is perfect! Breezy and flirty without being overtly sexy, and totally comfortable.
4. Waterpik Aqua Fall Combo showerhead – we just bought this yesterday from Bed Bath and Beyond to replace the shower head that’s in our bathroom. This one is the bomb – I love the “drenching rain” setting on the big shower head. Also, you can use both of them at the same time, and the handheld one sits up quite high, which is great for David who is too tall for most showers and has to duck uncomfortably to rinse his head.
5. Bed Lifts – ever since we moved into our new apartment, we’ve had one quibble with the master bedroom: the TV table is just a bit shorter than the foot of the bed, which means that when we lie in bed and watch TV, the bottom of the TV is sometimes cut off. And if Pico decides to camp out at the foot of the bed, forget it – we can’t see half the screen. And, we have to hold the remote at odd, uncomfortable angles to change the channel or turn the TV on and off because the cable box sits in a recess even lower down. We’ve been debating various solutions and finally went with this one yesterday, and it’s worked out perfectly. These lifts (meant to give you more storage space under a bed) raised the TV table 7 inches, which means the cable box is now easily accessible from a normally held remote and ALL of the TV is viewable from a comfortable reclined position. WIN! (And these are wicked strong, too – we have a 32-inch CRT TV on top of a TV table that Target tells me weighs 100+ pounds)
What about you? What are you loving these days?
I refuse to believe that trading recipes is silly. Tuna fish casserole is at least as real as corporate stock.
– Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
As promised, here’s the recipe for my favorite of the cookies Karen and I made last weekend:
Peppermint Candy Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
Icing (this is the recipe we used, not the one that came with the cookie recipe – halve this and you’ll still have more than enough)
Whisk all ingredients together until smooth. Drizzle cookies with frosting and top with crushed peppermint candy, if desired (When I make these again, I’m going to skip the frosting step – it’s good, but I think they’d be perfect plain).
We had our work Christmas party today. There was a bake-off as part of the festivities, so I attempted the Death by Caramel bars that I was considering as part of cookie weekend. I couldn’t find dulce de leche in the grocery store, and I didn’t have time to go to the Latin grocery store, so I attempted to make my own by melting caramels with cream.
The recipe calls for the dulce de leche to be dolloped on top of the batter in the pan and then swirled into it to create pockets of caramel, which, in theory sounds heavenly. The batter was pretty thick, though, and I’m not sure much of anything could have been swirled into it, and if it could be, it wasn’t this stuff I cooked up. I ended up with a layer of caramel sauce on the top that just cooked with the rest of the batter and didn’t come out gooey at all.
The result was just ok, and I’m disappointed I wasted all of what it cost to make it on something that wasn’t anything special. I’m willing to try it again if I can find the dulce de leche, but I’ve still got nearly the entire pan of this batch left (it should go without saying that it didn’t win the bake-off). Boo.
One day, an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the earth.
– Gloria Steinem
Behold, my new favorite blog, co-written by two women (though mostly by one of them) in their 80s who have been friends for 60+ years: Margaret and Helen. As a warning, many of the posts are political, and heavily left-leaning, but oh my gosh, do these ladies have a way with words – I just started reading today, and they are cracking me up. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
“Your good friend has just taken a piece of cake out of the garbage and eaten it. You will probably need this information when you check me into the Betty Crocker Clinic.”
– Miranda, Sex and the City
Do you like chocolate? Of course you do. Unless you’re Karen. Or unAmerican. So, do I have the cake for you! Yes, its base is a boxed mix, but it’s doctored with other stuff that makes it so moist and delicious, you won’t have to admit it to anyone. I never do. And it’s called . . .
Too Much Chocolate Cake (from allrecipes.com)
- 1 18.25 oz. box of Devil’s Food Cake mix
- 1 5.9 oz. instant chocolate pudding mix (you cannot use the sugar-free for this – there’s not as much mix in them because, you know, no sugar)
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (I use the mini ones)
1. Pre-heat oven to 350.
2. In a large bowl, mix together cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, oil, beaten eggs, and warm water (make sure you scrape the bottom of the bowl). Batter will be thick. Stir in chocolate chips.
3. Spoon batter into well-greased 12-cup Bundt pan and smooth out (don’t cheat on the size of the pan – this cake rises quite a bit).
4. Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until the top is spongy and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Cool cake thoroughly in pan before inverting onto serving plate (you can get away with not cooling it all the way; last time I only waited 30 minutes or so because it was getting late and I still needed to glaze it before going to bed).
The original recipe says to dust with powdered sugar. I’m sure that’s fine, but I prefer . . .
Satiny Chocolate Glaze (also from allrecipes.com)
- 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I suppose you could use whatever kind of chocolate you prefer for this part – next time I might try dark chocolate)
- 3 tablespoons butter (the most recent time I made this, I only had unsalted butter, so I added about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of coarse kosher salt, which made for the best salty-sweet taste)
- 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. In a double boiler over hot (not boiling) water, stir chocolate, butter, and corn syrup until smooth and shiny.
2. Stir in vanilla.
3. Drizzle warm glaze over the cake, letting it run down the sides.
Serves however many people you need it to, depending on the size of the slice, of course (I think I served about 16 or so)!
I took this to work this week, and it was gone in no time at all.
You are very welcome.
I think housework is the reason most women go to the office.
– Heloise Cruse
Ok, here you go – proof that OxyClean really does work:
If you know where to look when you’re in the bedroom, you can just ever so slightly see that the carpet has a kind of greenish tint where the stain was, but I don’t even notice it anymore. Isn’t that amazing? The stuff I used is called Woolite OxyDeep, and it comes in a blue spray bottle (I just checked and realized it’s not an official OxyClean product, I guess, but who cares?).
I wasted hours and $25 renting a steam cleaner from the grocery store that only marginally made the stain better, even after treating it directly with undiluted carpet cleaner first (which just made it turn green). I don’t know what made me think of OxyClean, but I figured it was worth a shot. Let me tell you, I could have saved $20 and nearly all the hours, because you just spray that stuff on, let it sit for a few minutes and blot it up. It will still be damp and it will still keep working. I left it for a while after I first applied it and blotted it, thinking I’d come back to it and do another round, but when I went back in the bedroom, the stain had practically disappeared! Yay!
Also, two things I forgot about the beach:
1. I spend so much time in the pool, that I always forget that ocean water is salty. It’s kind of a unique surprise.
2. All around Virginia Beach there are dolphin sculptures all decorated differently. See:
I’m sorry, what was that? Oh – of course I had to take pictures of all of them!
Sorry things have been slow around here. The thing that was maybe going to resolve itself last Tuesday is still officially unresolved, which is actually much better for me in the long run, but still kind of hard to deal with at the moment, so I haven’t felt much like writing. Or, I have, but I’m not sure what’s really ok to write about right now, so I’ve been kind of taking a break. Hopefully more regular posting will resume shortly!
I really don’t think I need buns of steel. I’d be happy with buns of cinnamon.
– Ellen DeGeneres
I work out regularly – running, walking, elliptical, and now, with summer, swimming. I work out 5-6 days a week usually, and generally do upper body weights three times a week. My arms look pretty good these days, if I do say so myself. I realized I was neglecting my lower body and abs, though, because I hate the exercises and was only doing them once a week (abs) if ever (legs). Lately, though, it’s become clear to me that I need to do something extra to change my shape, so a couple of weeks ago, I ordered Jackie Warner’s One-on-One Training with Jackie DVD. I’ve never watched her show on Bravo, but I’d heard good things about her DVD, and I haven’t been disappointed.
The DVD has three separate 20-minute workouts – upper body, lower body, and core. I bought it with the intention of doing the whole video as one workout, but it turns out that might kill me, so I’ve taken to doing each part once a week, before or after another piece of my workout (running, swimming, etc), and still doing upper body weights at the gym once a week. Jackie combines strength training with one-minute cardio intervals, and each strength exercise is done for about a minute as well, which is a nice way to keep things moving. The total length of each workout is perfect too – just when I think I can’t do any more, the 20 minutes is up. I still can’t do all of the exercises for the entire time she does (well, not her, because she’s busy “checking the form” of her companions, who do the majority of the work), but hey – baby steps.
She has four of her trainers from her health club along with her, and each one is featured for a segment in each workout. The three girls are all big-busted and tan, and half-naked, of course (I think it’s supposed to motivate you, but I get distracted wondering how they don’t fall out of their skimpy tops) and I just know their six-packs have been given added definition via airbrushing, though I can’t prove it. The lone guy keeps his baseball hat pulled low over his eyes and doesn’t smile much. He is also fully clothed. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that Jackie is a lesbian. But I digress.
For the ab workout, the male trainer demonstrates the more advanced versions of the exercises, and one of the girls demonstrates the lower impact versions, which is a nice touch. Jackie regularly reminds you to focus on your form, which I need, because I tend to get lazy as I get toward the end of an exercise. She’s encouraging, but not overly chipper, and she explains things in a way that’s easy to understand. Overall, I’m very happy with the workout I get, but I wonder if I’m doing the ab exercises wrong because, although they hurt like a mother while I’m doing them, I’m never sore the next day (and maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know). The upper body workout reaches areas I’ve apparently neglected in my own arm workouts, especially the back (all you’ll need is hand weights). The first time I did the lower body workout, I nearly fell walking down the stairs of my apartment afterwards because my thighs felt like jelly. In a good way.
Anyway, it’s cheap on Amazon – $9, plus shipping (I think I paid $12 total), and it’s a fun, interesting way to spice up your workout life, if you need something to kick start you or motivate you to keep going. I’m enjoying it, so I wanted to share it with you. If you check it out, let me know what you think!
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
is hung with bloom along the bough
– A.E. Housman
This what greeted me when I came up out of the Metro this morning:
Yeah, Navy boys (and one Navy lady) practicing maneuvers or whatever they call that stuff. Not a bad way to start the day, if you ask me.
Then, at lunch, a co-worker and I headed down to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms – the festival officially starts tomorrow, but it’s going to be a madhouse down there because of the National Marathon, the circus, the Cherry Blossom Festival, and the Kite Festival, and my boss encourages us to take extra time at lunch to go and see them. It wasn’t as sunny as I’d hoped for picture taking purposes, but it was a great day otherwise – warm, breezy, perfect. We headed to the Mall, where I snapped these pictures (if they look cut off, click on them to get the full picture; trying to resize them all to the right proportions is making me crazy):
Then we came upon the, literally, thousands of cherry blossom trees that surround the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial. Here are my favorite pictures:
And here’s my really favorite:
On the way back we saw this amazing tree, and I just love this picture:
And then . . . we saw this group of dorks, and I had to have a picture of them:
The guy on the far right is the tour guide. Yes, you can take a Segway tour of the monuments. Cool or dorky? I can’t really decide.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and a great way to work in a 3-mile walk on my lunch hour (and a half). The schedule of events for the Cherry Blossom Festival says they have a guided running tour in the morning on both Saturday and Sunday. I’m tempted, but maybe I better wait til next year when I’m a real runner!
The heart must speak, and its search for the perfect outlet is the premise of all artistic expression. When words are insufficient or impossible, and physical gestures fall short, music is a language by which the soul can be heard. But when music itself is unattainable, the silence can be more than one spirit can stand.
– from Music to My Ears, by Timothy White
I was watching Once last weekend – have you seen it? It’s amazing. It’s a love story about an Irish street performer and a Czech musician, and it’s told largely through the music they write and perform in their roles. If you haven’t seen it, you are really missing something wonderful.
The day after their first meeting, she takes him to the music store where the owner lets her play the piano for an hour at lunchtime. He gives her the music to his song, Falling Slowly (the Academy Award winner for best song this year, by the way). He teaches her the basic parts of the song, then he begins to play on his guitar, and she joins him on the piano. He sings the first verse, and she comes in on the chorus, and it was at that point that I started to cry. I just sat there watching in the dark, listening, with tears streaming down my face. The thing was this: I could tell that the song was gorgeous and full and beautiful, but I knew I wasn’t hearing it all, if that makes any sense.
Ever since I lost my hearing, music isn’t as rich of an experience for me as it used to be, and that makes me unspeakably, and sometimes unbearably, sad. Most days, I’m good – this is just how I go through life now, you know? It is what it is, and it doesn’t do any good to lament what I lost. But there are moments every once in a while where I just get blindsided by the heartache of growing up as a hearing person – someone whose life was enveloped in music, who used to play instruments and dance, and more than anything else, sing – and being reduced to this.
I haven’t sung in public since I lost my hearing because I’m afraid that I won’t be on key and I’ll embarrass myself.* Some days I’m sure I could do it, after almost 5 years with my implant, but I never take steps to try, because if I fail, I’ll be devastated. Once, about 9 months after I lost my hearing, a friend asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I told her I really wanted to get people together and go do karaoke, but that I was afraid because I was never sure if I was on pitch when I sang along with the radio. She looked at me sadly and said, “You aren’t.” She said it gently, and she meant well, but it broke my heart then, and it’s always in the back of my mind when I think about trying now. I still sing – my nephew has his own theme song that I made up for him, the Princess loves to hear “Winnie the Pooh” (House at Pooh Corner, by Kenny Loggins), and I sing out loud to myself when I’m alone – but singing for yourself is a distinct experience from singing for an audience, and I miss that so much.
And I can’t just turn on the radio anymore, because without context – the title of the song on my iPod screen, for instance, or knowing the order of tracks on a CD that I’ve owned since before I lost my hearing – new (meaning post-2002) music is mostly just noise to me. I’m am very much out of the loop when it comes to whatever’s hot these days. I’ve downloaded a fair number of songs I didn’t know before I lost my hearing, but to recognize them without cues requires finding the lyrics online and listening along multiple times. Even then I’m never sure if the melody I hear is the true melody of the song.
So this, you see, is the great sadness of my life. There’s nothing like music, is there? I read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers, several years before I lost my hearing, and looking back over some of the quotes I copied from it makes my spirit ache a little bit:
She had just drawn whatever came into her head without reason – and in her heart it didn’t give her near the same feeling that music did. Nothing was really as good as music.
I’ll say.
But all the time – no matter what she was doing – there was music. Sometimes she hummed to herself as she walked, and other times she listened quietly to the songs inside her. There were all kinds of music in her thoughts. Some she heard over the radios, and some was in her mind already without her ever having heard it anywhere.
I copied that down when I read it because I think it describes me to a tee, even now. And I do still have music – anything I knew before I lost my hearing is mostly readily available in my memory, and when I hook my implant up to my iPod, the music fills my head and I can still hear that opening guitar riff from Boys of Summer or the organ on Hear Me in the Harmony, the clarity of Celine Dion’s voice (shut up; I’m a sucker for a power ballad) or David Gray’s wavering tenor, the perfect harmony on the chorus of When I Said I Do or the gorgeous piano melody of Mandolin Rain. It makes me cry and uplifts me all at the same time, because just knowing that music even exists at all is really something, isn’t it?
* Edited to add: I just remembered that I have done karaoke once since I lost my hearing, in law school, but I didn’t sing by myself, so I don’t count it.
* with apologies to Mindy Kaling (aka Kelly Kapoor, on The Office)
The quickest way to know a woman is to go shopping with her.
– Marcelene Cox
Ok, here’s a brief list of things I’ve bought recently that I adore, and want to share with you in the hopes that you might love them too:
- Gap Essential cut jeans: I’ve had to find new places to shop since losing weight, because I sized out of the places I relied on for years. That’s a great feeling, to be sure, but it’s also been kind of a pain in the ass, because before, I could walk into a store, pick my preferred style of jeans in the size I’d worn forever, pay for them and be done in under 10 minutes. Now I actually have to try stuff on, and I have to take three sizes of everything into the dressing room because I don’t know how the sizes run in “normal” stores. Anyway, when I was in Houston with Aimee, we went to the Gap at the Galleria and she patiently waited while I tried on about 20 different pairs of jeans – different sizes in different cuts and different washes (shopping is hard) – but it was worth it, because these are the jeans I was meant to wear.
- Naturalizer Leisure Plus knee-high boots: I have been on a quest to find knee-high black boots for I don’t know how long. Apparently I have freakishly large calves, because I could never find a pair that I could zip up. I tried everywhere, even Zappos, the online shoe mecca. Everything I bought, I had to return, and I was convinced I just was not meant to wear knee-high boots. But then one day, I was perusing Zappos again, convinced it was hopeless, sure I’d tried every boot they had to offer, and lo, I came upon this pair. I ordered them without much confidence (but with great security – Zappos offers free overnight shipping and returns, so I wouldn’t be out any money if they didn’t fit), and they arrived the next day. I opened the box with trepidation, slid them on, and then, the heavens opened up, the sun shined down, and angels started singing – they fit! I wish they were leather, but hey – beggars can’t be choosers, huh? Now I just need to find a brown pair and my life will be complete.
- Canon Powershot A720 IS: This was my birthday present to myself, as you may know, and I love it. 8 megapixels, 6x zoom, video capability, and a ton of other stuff I don’t even know how to use yet.
- Cadbury Creme Eggs: Maybe this one’s a little silly, but I know Spring is just around the corner when I see these at CVS (who, luckily – or not – sells them for the low, low price of 2 for a dollar). I know some people are repulsed by them, but I love them better than any other Easter candy (except maybe jelly beans, but you can get jelly beans all year round). In case you’re not familiar with these, Wiki helpfully explains: “The egg has a thick milk chocolate ’shell’, with a white and yellow fondant filling designed to resemble the yolk and albumen of an egg.” Sounds gross, tastes great!
- Trader Joe’s Organic Jasmine Rice: This is genius. It’s a box of three bags of frozen rice – no additives or preservatives or anything. All you have to do is cut a small hole in the bag, pop it in the microwave for three minutes, and next thing you know, you have perfectly cooked rice for two! They also have brown rice, which I love as well – the brown rice I cook from a box does not turn out like that – but they never have both at the same time. The guy said it had something to do with customs, I don’t really know.
- Simply Enjoy Thai Peanut Asian Sauce: I think this is the store brand from Stop & Shop, but I bought it at Giant, and I think it’s available at Safeway as well. It’s delicious – it’s the only store-bought dressing I’ve found that comes anywhere close to the peanut dressing on my favorite salad in the world, the Santa Fe Chicken Salad at the Cheesecake Factory (I have them leave off the cilantro dressing and just bring me the peanut dressing). I’ve not actually used it on salad myself (but now that you mention it, I think I might try to recreate that one at home), but I dip pot stickers (another Trader Joe’s favorite) and egg rolls in it, and I add it to chicken stir frys. It is delicious, and not bad calorie-wise (70 cal, 4g fat – no saturated or trans fat – per 2 tablespoons, which is more than enough).
- Cover Girl LipSlicks: This isn’t a new find, but it’s really the only lip stick/gloss I’ve worn for 5 years (I remember that I bought it for the first time to wear in Nate’s wedding) so I thought I’d spread the gospel. I wear Daring, which is a wine/red/burgundy color, but there are lots of others to choose from. It’s sheer, not sticky, and gives plenty of color and shine. It’s the perfect lip color, in my opinion; I keep one in every bag.
That’s it for now. But tell me: do you love any of these products, too? Or is there something else you’ve loved forever or just discovered you can’t live without? I want to know!
“Think as I think,” said a man ,
“Or you are abominably wicked;
you are a toad.”
And after I had thought of it,
I said, “I will, then, be a toad.”
– Stephen Crane, “Think As I Think”
I had a good weekend. I left work a little early Friday and came home and worked out, even though I usually take Fridays off. Didn’t do much that night, just watched a new episode of Friday Night Lights – that, if you don’t already know, is the best show on TV, and there are grumblings that NBC might not renew it for a third season, and to that I say: boo.
Saturday, I headed down to Richmond. Nate was going to take me out for my birthday, but he and Molly (my SIL) were both sick, so I took the kids to the Children’s Museum for an “extra-special day with Mel-Mel,” as the Princess called it. They had never been, and they had so much fun, if you don’t count the part where the Princess got whacked in the eye with a bucket by accident in the fossil digging sandbox. We took a tear-filled trip to First Aid and I had a minor aunt-freak out, worrying whether I should call Nate and if he’d be mad and if she needed to go to the hospital to get stitches and whether, if I didn’t take her to the hospital, she’d wind up scarred for life, literally. I decided it wasn’t that bad after all, and once we got back out there, she got distracted by all there was to do and soon enough, it was all forgotten. Whew.
I have to say, though, I don’t know how parents do it. I only had the two of them, and every 10 seconds I was sure I’d lost the Conductor forever because he was constantly running from one thing to another and I was trying to catch him but not lose sight of the Princess, and at the end of the day, I was exhausted, both from the running all over the place and the anxiety. Karen has four kids, so she does this on a bigger scale on a regular basis, and I think I would just die. My hat is off to you people and I am revising the number of kids I think I want downward.
We met Karen and baby Caroline for dinner at Friendly’s where we had possibly the worst service I’ve ever had at a restaurant, even considering that it was Friendly’s. I don’t stand for poor service – 40 minutes to get macaroni and cheese and hot dogs for the kids, without the waitress coming over once to check on us or let us know there was a hold up in the kitchen? Hell no. – so after speaking with the manager, who was an unprofessional mess, she agreed to take the kids’ meals off our tab. In the end, we actually only paid $10 for 4 meals, because she gave us our meals at half-price; a bargain to be sure, but it wasn’t worth the near melt-down of the Conductor who was so, so hungry (I had ordered their meals right away because I knew it was busy and I wanted to avoid just such a scene). The Princess was remarkably patient and well-behaved, and even leaned over to comfort the Conductor when he was crying. They’re such good kids. Conehead sundaes went a long way toward erasing the memory of waiting so long for dinner, and we all went home exhausted.
I hung out with the kids Sunday morning – they tag-teamed me and begged me to be “the Mel-Mel monster” or “the Kissing Monster” and we just generally goofed around. There is no place in the world that makes me happier than being with them. Things are just easy with them; I don’t worry about anything when I’m hanging out with the two of them. Would you like to see a picture of them? I thought you might:
(Nate said it was ok for me to post their pictures “as long as they get famous,” whatever that means. I think he’s jealous of my site view stats.)
When I got home yesterday, it was just the usual Sunday stuff – laundry and cleaning and whatnot. I ordered The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford on pay-per-view because I’m an awards show junkie and I’m trying to watch as many Oscar-nominated performances as I can before the show on the 24th (and yay – the writers’ strike is over, so the show WILL go on!). I thought it was well done, and Casey Affleck deserved his nomination. Then I watched week 2 of In Treatment on HBO InDemand, and was as impressed as I was with week 1. It’s quite an interesting concept, and Gabriel Byrne may be older than dirt, but he’s still hot.
Oh, before I forget: Those of you in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, don’t forget to vote in the primary tomorrow! I’m not allowed to tell you who I’m voting for or campaign in any way for any candidate because of my job, but I do think it’s super-important to exercise your right to vote, so be sure to vote early and vote often. Oh, wait . . .
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