Balance

Boozey snow cones to combat the vitriol of what came before.

Fuck this

DIY and done

I'm a reasonable woman. I can't do it all.

Homemade kimchee. Store-bought shandy.

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet Emotion

Swap and brunch

Perfect early summer brunch foods.

Drink made especially for the event: Pink Dynamite.  Homemade rhubarb-infused liquer/moonshine, Grand Marnier soaked strawberries, and dry pink champagne. 

declaration

2012: summer of cut-off jean shorts

Three Day Weekend

Sunshine in a cup.

even before coffee

That I might step
by Laurie Sheck

Then I came to a peace so random it felt dangerous.
   Rough battlefield, expectancy, most tenuous and fragile contract,
How can I step with threadbare tenderness
   Across the zero hour of each strike and batter?

Why do we live in time? - its edges crumbling, its contours filling with monuments,
   Hard data.  But there is a very plain in things that sometimes comes
Just calmly.  It holds no trade routes, no borders fortressed, guarded.
   That I may briefly touch it.  That I might step into the curious

Despite -

summer dreamin'

True.


I also like hiking if "hiking" is quietly, slowly walking on well-marked paths through woods with only moderate altitude changes.  

5 years

This Bud's for you, Bob.

unexpected reminders from Ashley Judd

"Over time, I matured into the understanding that good and bad are equally fanciful interpretations. I do not want to give my power, my self-esteem, or my autonomy, to any person, place, or thing outside myself."

All my feminists, raise your femifists.

Who broke my words?

Oh, Mercury, I spoke too soon.

truth in advertising

Don't feed this to your kid.

in question

I think I have had happy hour 10 of the last 14 days. Happy, happy, happy.

Do you remember that Postal Service record we listened one thousand times? There's a lyric from it that really sticks-
It's not a party if it happens every night.

Ellipses.

Friday Club 3/2/2012 - the exciting real-time edition

5:51 - Fat snow flakes

5:52 - Start a load of laundry

5:54 - Hummus snack

6:02 - Rage on the inside translates to sweaty eyebrows because of this and this. Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.

6:05 - Crack last PBR tall boy from fridge.

6:15 - "Even without engaging in any political conversation, I believe that Rush Limbaugh has once again said things that, even in a nation where free speech is the law, shouldn't be said." - Emily's mom in an email entitled FW: Misogyny

6:18 - Bounce spastically in my busted plastic ikea chair for a few go-arounds of this




6:48: Start second load of laundry

6:56: Inspired to start live blogging my night. Make-up last hour's timeline, break computer and interwebs accessing NPR's First Listen, have internal debate about whether to get Thai food delivery and when to open bottle of wine.

7:48: Decide that at some point tonight I will eat the Trader Joe's gyoza that I have in my freezer instead of ordering delivery. Celebrate my restraint and frugality by pouring a glass of 2008 Firesteed Oregon Pinot Noir.

8:20: Laugh at Rachel Maddow calling Rush Limbaugh and Mitt Romney out for not understanding how birth control works.

8:24: Revel in my privileged white liberal cocoon.

8:25: Use fists to punch-punch creeping depression.

8:31: Pet Mabel.

8:32: Oversimplify and conclude that poetry's probably the answer.

8:33: Miss Marcus.

8:39: Vow to be very productive tomorrow morning because the evening's settling into getting drunk, watching bad tv, and listening to tunes.

8:41: Change into pjs

8:46: Remember that the receiver is broken. Pout.

8:51: Peruse

8:56: Decide I want to teach, go back to school, and run a rocknroll retreat

9:15: Realize I've forgotten my laundry.

9:20: Google Carroll County. Think about buying a country house.

9:39: Cook faux buffalo wings instead of potstickers.

9:53: Embarrassingly google myself. Find out that a research project I helped work on back in 2007 got published in 2010, and I have a by-line. Pour another glass of wine to celebrate being a published researcher. Think I should google myself more often.

10:01: Encourage Marcus to visit the space needle.

10:04: Curl up with faux nugs, ranch, and Say Yes to the Dress-Atlanta

10:17: First SYTtD-A tears. Find Milano cookies.

10:24: Oh. Laundry. Right.

10:45: The Truth About Cats and Dogs...? Oh, the glamour. The glamour.

11:13: I think a car hit a telephone pole across the street from my house. The pole is blocking two lanes of traffic and there's four cop cars, a fire truck, an ambulance. All of the lights.

11:21: All of the lights reminded me to watch the kanye video that comes with a seizure warning. While Rhianna's boobies are hot and I admire her sweet tattoo placement, I missed Nicki.

11:40: From Man on the Moon 2 to Marquee Moon (which will forever remind me of College Hill)

12:13:

Friday Club 2/24/2012

No smokes and no booze
but there's Beer and a bar.

Leaving, the city smells of hazelnuts.

two bloody marys might be too many

but there ain't no such thing as too much dancin

Chicago's Cajun Aces

4 for $1 Tina's Perhaps?

It's not a good sign when the back of the wine bottle recommends a food pairing with bean and cheese burritos.

Back in the saddle again

Like a good urban cowgirl, I ate steak with black kale and drank a Manhattan and red wine. The Caparone cab bloomed as dusty roses and warm, worn leather.

Cranberry spritzer at a carnival-themed baby shower

Something about this Sunday, my last day of detox, and first baby shower caused me to tilt and whirl.

in lieu of coffee

Brene Brown

detox version of pizza and wine

Popcorn cooked in coconut oil  sprinkled with nutritional yeast flakes and fruity sparkling mineral water.

Cinnamon raisin mochi drizzled with maple syrup subs for Reese's pieces.

3 Tea Saturday

The first
warm peaches
for noshing and cheeks kissed
off season sweet elixir
shrug the peripheral garbage
pail fire

The second
garnet hibiscus
tendril limbs
Quatre Nuits Dun Reveur

The third
burdock and nettles
cleavers, dandelions, lemon myrtle
Dreamy chrysalis

Reset

It's a new moon today and the first day of my three week whole food detox. That's a lot of potential energy to spray at a Monday. Monday of my first five day work week since the holidays came a-caroling. I'm taking it all gingerly.

The above drink isn't too far from a Southampton, the only non-alcoholic drink recipe listed on the bottle of angastora bitters. I sub seltzer for tonic. If you're cutting out the booze, you might as well cut the calories but keep the bubbles. The dashes of bitters do make the ice, seltzer, and lime seem almost like a cocktail. The name conjures sun burnt, hungover vacationers reluctant to return to the city. They need a drink to brace them for itchy suits and monotony. A bloody mary would send them tumbling into the surf. The Southampton, however, sits them straight as they watch the water from the porch. Remember common pleasantries like chopping vegetables and walking home from the train at sunset?

Return to turn to return.

Kumquat is not a dirty word

My mom is doing this totally awesome thing. She's 52 and trying to do 52 things she's never done in her 52nd year. Yeah, mathletes, that works out to one new thing per week. Do you do one new thing per week? 

One of the 52 in 52s she did during my last visit was try kumquats. She candied them and had the brilliant idea to plunk a few in the bottom of a mimosa. Yes! When you reach the tasty little bits, they have absorbed some of the booze and effervescence of the champagne.

Enjoy the tickle of the new.

good stuff

This and this.