This is why I can't be trusted with sharp things

So, it turns out rubber bands start to melt if you bake them at 375F for half an hour. It took me a while to figure out why the cherry-nectarine buckle didn't smell as good as I expected. For those of you who are in the dark, a buckle is basically a streusel-topped coffee cake with fresh fruit in the cake part. I messed with the recipe a little, but I didn't expect anything crazy to happen. (I used cherries instead of blueberries - by the way, pitting a bunch of fresh cherries and peeling nectarines are a huge pain in the ass, in case you wondered.) Then the house started to smell really weird.

Good thing I checked on the cake, because the rubber band that I put around the end of the springform cake tin had snapped and was starting to melt onto the oven rack. Chalk that one up to "it seemed like a good idea at the time." We're theoretically going to a friend's backyard barbeque tomorrow and I thought it would be good to bring something. Theoretically because if they don't have a covered area of their backyard, I'm not going. They're good cooks and all, but I'm totally not down with standing in the rain for hours for the sake of two beers and a damp-bunned hamburger.

Just in case the barbeque occurs, I decided to be all smart and forward-thinking and bake the cake in a pan lined with parchment paper for easy removal. But the parchment was kind of refusing to stay in place and I didn't have the cake batter ready yet to weigh it down, so I stuck a rubber band around the outside of the springform pan and that kept the parchment paper in place pretty nicely. However, I failed to take off the rubber band when I put the cake in the oven. It's like I thought the rubber would be impervious to heat or something. Why don't I ever learn? Tire fires are a running joke on Simpsons! The entire MBTA system smells like burning rubber! Putting rubber bands in a really hot oven is probably not a good idea.

Anyway, I hope it turns out okay despite the burning rubber thing. The french chocolate silk pie for Dave's birthday came out really well. We ate pie all weekend. I think it's the best birthday dessert I've made for him yet. I guess I'll find out if he requests it again next year.

For Annie Lennox

I have spent most of the evening picking up shards of glass off the kitchen floor. With my bare feet. One of the cats (probably Pip the asshole) knocked the butter dish onto the floor and it shattered into a thousand tiny, greasy pieces. All the cats wanted to lick butter off of the broken glass.

It was worth it, though. It was in service of a french silk chocolate pie for Dave's birthday, which is tomorrow. I hope it sets properly, because when I licked the bowl it was pretty good. I will be bummed if all I have managed to make is a big puddle of pudding inside a pie shell, although I suspect that even if this happens, I can just freeze the pie and that's probably going to be super good too. Maybe we should freeze the leftovers even if it sets. (That is, if there are any leftovers. Apparently Dave ate a whole cheesecake once. I can only hope to tempt him to such heights of gluttony tomorrow. I'll let you know how it all shakes out.)


Claire Danes is the only Juliet I've ever seen who isn't hugely whiny. Even Olivia Hussey, although I love the Zeffirelli version. Also, this song makes me nostalgic for the good parts of being sixteen.

Enjoy your fridays, kids. I know I'll enjoy mine.

typical blogger cat pictures

Sorry about the unscheduled blogging hiatus. I had a cold and then we threw that whiskey party, so that stuff kept me away from the computer. Here's what's been happening, in my absence.

I gave Pip some catnip again.


Lucky has discovered that laptops are made of warm.


Simone is as plump and as bursting with sweetness as always. (Yes, I stole that from the copy on the raisin box. Me and my copy-thieving ways.)


Inty is costing a million dollars, as usual.


Her IBD started flaring up again - puking at least once a day - so I took her to the vet. This time we didn't wait until she got so skinny she almost died. $250 worth of testing later, we can rule out thyroid and diabetes and be pretty sure that the increased levels of cat barf in our house are because of Inty's IBD - which, you know, is what we figured was happening before we took her to the vet.

Anyway, now she has a new steroid ($35) and $60 worth of a new prescription food. We've changed from low ingredient - i.e. proteins she probably hasn't encountered and thus isn't allergic to - to a hypoallergenic food. Basically to make the hypoallergenic they denature the protein molecule and chop it up all small in the hopes that the immune system won't respond to a smaller molecule the way that it does to normal big protein molecules. If she keeps barfing and doesn't respond to the steroid, we'll put her back on an anti-nausea drug. And maybe re-start a regime of giving her B-12 shots periodically. That's all if, though, and I'd kind of like it not to progress further because: expensive. Also, the strain of keeping all that chemistry in my head just reminds me of why I never did pursue my childhood dream of becoming a vet: not good enough at chemistry. Or math in general. As an adult, knowing a little bit more about how much vets get to deal with poop and barf and what their earning potential is, I'm kind of glad that I was a quitter when it came to chemistry.

No comment.


No photos in this post were staged, though some were retouched afer they came out of the camera.

grab bag

Dave has a show tonight at T.T. the Bear’s, so this is going to have to be short.

Best thing I saw today: buncha Tibetan monks in saffron robes sitting outside the Starbucks on Boylston St. (Right in the middle of the Back bay, which is a ritzy area of Boston, for my non-local readers.)

Best lie I heard today: my friend Lisa told her mom that the tube of KY on her bedside table was “for the dog’s paws, to keep them from getting cracked in the winter.” Heheheheh. That’s a great story, not just because of Lisa’s quick thinking but because her mom didn’t know what KY was.

Watching the Squirrel Channel:

this shot was not staged. heh.

And that’s all I’ve got.

P.S. I totally got Lisa’s permission to use that story, I am not that rude. Thanks, generous lady!

P.P.S. "Computers" almost rhymes with "uterus". There's a joke in there somewhere, but I haven't figured it out yet.

online reading

in honor of this monday being as shitty as most mondays, here's a post with some links to crap I read on the internet which you might like to read, too. Most of this stuff is pretty well-known, so don't be surprised if you don't find anything new here. It's more of a reflection of my tastes than anything else.

Angry Black Bitch. She has such a great voice and she's wicked smart. She writes a lot about the intersection of race, gender and class politics. Totally different angle from the mostly white, mostly middle-class well-meaning liberal young women who are kind of at the forefront of the third wave of feminism (in the blogosphere, at least, the big mainstream feminist blogs tend to be pretty white and pretty middle class. And pretty boring after a while.)

538. I visited this site daily during the run-up to this year's election; it has really good analysis of polling outcomes and techniques. Obviously this kind of thing makes me happy, since I have much love in my heart for data and analysis thereof.

sociological images. I'm kind of a new reader so I'm a little at a loss to describe this blog; basically it takes collections of images (or one image? Usually there is more than one, though) and makes an argument based on the messages given by the images. A recent post on a Harper's Bazaar photo shoot, for example, decodes a pretty clear message about appropriate roles in family life. Sort of like going behind the scenes at Disneyland, if Disneyland was the country's collective unconscious.

Indexed. Funny and smart commentary on a lot of wacky stuff.

Style Rookie. Okay, this kid is like 13 and she totally kicks my ass for creativity and awesomeness and style genius and the balls to wear her creations. I so wish I had been her, or had a friend like her, when I was in seventh grade. Instead I will read her blog as an adult and marvel. She totally inspires me to dress better. (thanks to Lisa for sending me this link.)

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but I read a lot of random shit, so maybe I will do a post like this again at some point.

Lasted: one day

I couldn't take the guilt. I moved the roses to the dining room where I wouldn't be the only one enjoying them. I suck.




And as long as I'm confessing things, I'll admit that every picture I post taken inside my house is kinda staged.


the dark blobs under the table are Pip and Simone grooming each other. Not staged

I mean, it mostly looks like this but I'd say that there's about 20% more clutter. (Hmmm, maybe 20% is giving us too much credit. Kay? Can you weigh in on this?) But the booze is only temporary. We're having a whisky party next weekend so we're all stocked up on single malts and bourbon and whiskey. And also wine and beer and rum and vodka in case you want to come to the party but don't like whisky, whiskey or bourbon. (I got kind of carried away at the liquor store.) Also if you're reading this and you're local, I probably know you personally so consider yourself invited and that I am just dumb and forgot to email or facebook you.

So, party, yay. We haven't had a party since my birthday last year, which makes it over a year, which is too long. I have been fussing with my hanging baskets for weeks so they will be party-ready.


this picture was not staged. I don't count "choosing a good angle" as staging.

Okay, that's a lie, I have been fussing with the hanging baskets since I got them and that's because it's the first time I have ever grown flowers and not killed them right away. But this year something has clicked in my brain (regular watering ?) and I'm nuts about gardening.


This picture was not staged. Fuck, now I am obsessed about staging versus not.

When I say the gardening bug has taken hold, I will tell you that I have begun saving the water from when I clean the fishtank and use it to water the plants. Fish poop is rich in nitrogen, apparently. I also made an all-natural aphid repellent from dish soap, wesson and water. So far it doesn't seem to have done much to deter the aphids. It's a bummer since it's cheap and I felt like a virtuous hippie when I was making it, but I think I will go back to the all-natural shit they sell at the garden center, which at least seems to kill the fuckers. I question their claims of "able to use on day of harvest" but it says it's for organic gardeners, so it can't be too bad. Right?

Anyway, I should shut up now. I have dishes to do, laundry to fold, litterboxes to scoop. Miles to go before I sleep.

Great Expectations

I wish my desk looked this clean all the time. This picture is totally staged though. The roses (from my little pots) smell like summer. I feel a little guilty that I'm the only one who will get to enjoy them, since I am the only one who sits here. Not guilty enough to move the vase, though.



Anyway, so fake cleanliness. Recently I bit the bullet and bought a new vacuum. I actually forked out five hundred bucks for a Dyson Animal. It was the reviews on Amazon that did it to me. They were like, insanely positive. There were reviews titled, "This Vacuum Changed My Life." I am not even making this up.

So when it I arrived I got all excited and insisted on vacuuming at 10 pm and testing each attachment in turn. This made Dave very angry. I think he wanted to sleep or watch TV or relax or something. I don't know the specifics because I wasn't really paying attention. I decided a long time ago that he's lucky to have a wife who gets so pumped up about vacuums and keeping the house clean.

I am kind of disappointed in the vacuum though. I think maybe my expectations got over-inflated by all those long, lovingly detailed reviews by people who now referred to their Dysons as "Jesus". So I was pretty much thinking that the second I plugged it in, all the dust in the house would race into the vacuum's gaping maw of its own accord while the vacuum gave me head.

It didn't work out quite like that, though. I mean, it worked fine and smelled better than the 15 year old Kenmore we have been using, which emits a steady stream of something that smells like a dog fart from its nether regions, but it definitely didn't make the earth move. I dunno. I think I was kind of stupid to buy into the hype in the first place. So I guess the moral of this story is, even a $500 vacuum won't go down on you.