Ick.

I'm in a wretched mood today. I wish it would rain again to match my mood, but knowing the weather it'll only rain when I don't want it to -- like every other day. I'm still upset about my hair, which I know I should get over but I'm having trouble doing so.

I tried to print my Save the Dates and the f&@$# printer has decided to not work. It works when Christen uses it, but being that he's never home (damn back-to-school time) I'm stuck not being able to do anything. It's one of those wireless deals, and a friggin' expensive one at that, and it won't friggin' work. I went out and got a USB cable, because in the mess of all those extra cables we have I couldn't find a single USB cable. Still doesn't work.

But I went ahead and bought a caligraphy pen to do the addresses, so I might just do that today and try to get Christen to do the printing if and when he ever gets to come home. Tomorrow is his only day off this week. Don't get me started.

Would you like an orange with them apples?

We dyed my hair today.

I hate it.

I'm hoping at least Christen likes it, because he likes my hair really red, and it's really really red. R.E.D.

Maybe I'll get used to it, and maybe I'll change it, and maybe I'll just wait for it to fade a little bit. Who knows; time will tell.

I spent the day with Mom and the sibs. We got mom in a few Mother of the Bride dresses, and found a very pretty but ridiculously priced one. At least it gives us an idea of what works and what will look nice. The lady says, "Oh this one is moderately priced; it's a good price." Good price, my ass. She should buy the damn thing, then. That thing cost more than half what my wedding dress cost. :) I bought a few things at HomeGoods (I love that place) and a Jack Johnson cd at Target and hung out at the house dying hair and watching Capote, which was an awesome movie. I was a little perturbed that they changed the order of some things from the book ... but theoretically I guess I can see why. Ian says it's to make it more "theatrical". Blah :) But still a great movie.

I think I may start on my Save the Dates tomorrow. I've been putting them off, and I don't know why. Perhaps I'll stop by Michaels and get a caligraphy pen since my fountain pen is on the fritz. I'm so sleepy -- weird dreams last night. And a tummy ache when I woke up. It went away during the day, but it's back again. It might be because I can't get ahold of Christen -- who knows. I'm going to go read in bed though. Toodles!

PS

That pasta below is fantastic cold the next day. Or even later the same night. Fucking fantastic.

we call it inter-species erotica

So last night was a nice night. I made a Rachel Ray recipe that turned out really fucking tasty (see below) and we had some wine. We've been getting this Chardonney called Fish Eye that's not the best, but it's pretty decent for $8.99 and it's always in the fridge part of the store so we can get it last minute. We then proceded to waste time at the bookstore reading wedding books and getting ideas (Some of them were awesome, and not that expensive, like covering the "kids" table with butcher paper and giving them crayons as favors).

Then we went to see Clerks II. I had been on the fence as to whether I wanted to see it. I have adored all Kevin Smith's movies, but I was afraid it was going to be just a rehash of the first movie with a bunch of inside jokes and vulgarity and I'd be bored. I used to love the first one, but now it seems every time I try to watch it I just get bored and change the channel. It has become un-funny to me.

This one was not like that. It was really very funny, and although it may cross the line in some parts, Kevin Smith always crosses lines. The only problem I had with it was the guy sitting behind me -- I think he had the worst laugh I've ever ever heard. Ever. It was loud and annoying and I couldn't hear some parts because of his donkey bray. He should have been in the movie ... you know the part.

But overall, very good -- Two thumbs up. I'm sure I'll get it when it comes out.

*************************************************

Three Vegetable Penne with Tarragon-Basil Pesto

1 pound penne rigate (with lines) pasta
Salt
1/2 pound asparagus, trimmed of tough ends
1 small zucchini
1/4 pound, haricots verts (thin green beans) trimmed of stem ends
1/4 cup pine nuts
1 cup basil, 20 leaves
1/2 cup tarragon leaves from 10 to 12 stems
Handful flat-leaf parsley
1 lemon, zested
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more to pass at table
Coarsely ground black pepper
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, eyeball it

Heat a large pot of water to boil for pasta. Salt the water and add pasta to cook to al dente or, with a bite to it. Cut asparagus spears into 2-inch pieces on an angle. Cut zucchini into matchstick shapes. Cut haricots verts or green beans into 2-inch pieces on an angle. Add vegetables to pasta after penne has been cooking about 5 minutes. Cook veggies and pasta together 2 minutes.

While pasta cooks, toast pine nuts in a small pan until golden, then cool. Place nuts, basil, tarragon, parsley, lemon zest, garlic, cheese and a little salt and pepper in a food processor. Turn the processor on and stream in the extra-virgin olive oil until thick sauce forms.

Scrape pesto into large, shallow serving dish. Add a ladle of hot, starchy pasta water to the pesto. Drain penne and veggies and add immediately to pesto. Toss to coat pasta and vegetables evenly. Adjust salt and pepper, to taste. Serve with extra grated cheese to pass at table.

B Squared

We forwent the cookout Thursday night for a drier night out, and met up at Bahama Breeze (hereto forth known as B Squared or BB). Kevin is such a cutup; I'm really going to miss him when he moves to Georgia. It was such an amusing dinner. And there was a girl I went to high school with at the next table -- this is the second time I've run into her at BB, as she works at the insurance company across the street. I was home at a decent hour (in time to see the WS of Pop Culture) and even got a good amount of sleep. I'd like to say, though, that I long for not having to get up by the alarm clock; to be able to see my dreams to fruition instead of having to wake up halfway through to get ready for work. The end of today can't come soon enough.

Dealing with an opossum part trois

There was an opossum playing dead in my backyard this morning.It's no longer playing dead.I heard Lola growling and barking outside, and that's usually what it is when she sounds like that. So I went outside, but I forgot to put on my glasses. Remember Death of a Squirrel Toy? Without my glasses the little pile of fur in the grass looked like that damn squirrel toy. So I went back in, got my glasses and came back out. I thought it was dead, but then I saw that it was breathing, and then I saw its nasty little claws start to move -- it thought the threat was over. So I went back in and got Christen and we locked Lola inside ... and he took care of it. Thankfully today is garbage day, so it won't have to sit at all. The shovel method seems quite effective.
And you know the CSI episodes where they find a dead fetus in the garbage can? I keep thinking that the garbage men are going to find that garbage bag and call the cops. Fun fun!! It's just a dead opossum, guys! I swear it!

Huzzah for good wine, good friends, good music and good sushi!!

So last night was girl’s night, and this time it was just Shelley and I instead of our usual trio. We went to the sushi place in Boot Ranch that I have been dying to try since I noticed it six months ago. We walked in, ordered drinks, looked at the menu …. paid for our drinks and left. There was nothing good on the menu. I mean nothing. So we drove down the road to the sushi place that opened next to Emerald City comics and ate there – it was fantastic! So glad we skipped out on the other place. We ate way too much and spent about the amount we would have spent at Chili’s, and the rolls were really great. We had crunchy spicy tuna (Shea, you would have loved – a little spicy for me, of course), a Phillie roll, a Mexican Roll and a spider roll. Mmmm … god, I love sushi.

Afterward we went to HomeGoods to wander a little bit and I got a springform pan in which to make cheesecake … and then we went to The Zone in Tarpon to see some friends of mine play. The Zone is this neat little coffeeshop/bar/hookah lounge with comfy couches. The band was great (nods to Ben and Levin) and the company was great. We had a fantastic time. I had a couple glasses of a very good petit syrah and Shell had two Long Beach Ice Teas. We stayed out so late (well, for us anyhow) and had such a good time neither of us wanted to go home (I drove around the block a couple times while we continued to talk). This morning however, I woke up with a horrendous headache. It wasn’t a hangover headache (I do know what that feels like) but I couldn’t move. I had a couple days a few weeks ago the same way. I came in a couple hours late, hoping that the headache would go away. It didn’t, but finally after lunch it faded a bit so now I feel pretty okay. I’ve had plenty to do, so I haven’t really had time to think about it either. My iPod is on its last battery-operated leg today – I forgot to charge it. The battery says empty but it’s puttering along for me, thankfully. If it can just get me through the next 2 ½ hours until I leave, I’ll be happy. I’m going to a cookout at Stacy’s house tonight and I have to go home and get the meat before motoring over to her place. Fun fun! I’ll let you know how it goes … I hope it stops raining!

Much ado about nada

I havent been blogging as of late Im not sure whats wrong with me; I dont even think about blogging. I just sit, really. Saturday went out with Andrew and Theresa and a few of their friends for karaoke. It was a lot of fun and no, I did not sing. Wouldnt want to clear the place out or anything. Listening to a few of the people singing makes me realize Im not as bad a singer as I think though. :) The weekend brought us to Linens n Things and Target to do wedding registries and to his dads house and grandmas house for visits. Monday was a couples night w/ Shea and Kyle, Shelley and Richard and us. It was so much fun! We really need to make them more regular events. I made this fantastic chocolate peanutbutter pie (recipe below), and Shea made tasty lasagna and bruchetta and Shell and Rich brought a yummy salad with MacGyver salad dressing (dressing made from the liquid contents of Sheas fridge). Stayed until far too late and had to drive myself home (blegh). Tuesday night I was home alone and ended up eating too much (cookies that I also made over the weekend also amazing I should put that recipe also) and going to bed too late, but I actually woke feeling rested this morn, which is a change from the norm. I met the girls for lunch at TooJays today, and lunch was also amazing. I had the turkey platter, which was sliced turkey and tabullah, fruit and cottage cheese. It was very filling and I didnt want to come back to work, but of course I did because Im responsible like that.

My next pie is a chocolate banana pie. Im already salavating. God, I love my mixer.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie Recipe

(from www.cdkitchen.com)

Ingredients:
1 (9") graham cracker pie crust
8 ounces softened cream cheese, light or regular (1 pkg)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla
***TOPPING:***
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons salad oil (veggie oil or canola oil)
1/4 cup chopped peanuts

Directions:

Whip cream cheese until fluffy. Slowly add sugar, peanut butter and butter. In another bowl, whip cream and vanilla until firm. Blend 1/3 of whipped cream into peanut butter mixture. Fold peanut butter mixture into remaining whipped cream until thoroughly incorporated. Fill pie crust, smoothing top. Chill.

Combine chocolate, butter and oil in top of double boiler (I just put them in a bowl in the microwave) until chocolate melts. Cool slightly. Spread chocolate on cooled peanut butter filling. Start at center and work out. Sprinkle top with peanuts, chill pie thoroughly.

hehe ...

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

What was I going to blog about?

So the girls and I are sitting around people watching at International Mall and snacking on Gelato when I said, "you know, I'm probably going to blog about this." The only problem is, I don't remember what I was going to blog about! So here's a lowdown of what we did:

--made Shea squeeze into all these tea length dresses only to decide that the full length one is definitely the one we're going with.
--went for sushi and it was disappointingly not as good as usual.
--wandered around the mall working off our sushi and to make room for gelato (Shea wanted to look at this ring in Tiffany's she's been ogling but the salesman was less than helpful).
--munched on tasty gelato (I got Nutella ... The Bracio was still better, but there's always next time!)
--dropped by DSW for a cute pair of tweedish brown pumps (Thanks Becky! Still lots of $$ left in credit!)
--came home and collapsed.

So while I still don't know what I had planned on saying (was it about the lady with the huge fake hard-as-rox boobs? or Shea's nipple popping out?) Come on, girls ... remind me. Nevertheless, we had a great time ... and I put money down on my dress! I made a decision on it! Ahh, it's real! Pinch Me!

Okay I'm done.



Oh!!!!!!! Update: I remember what I planned on blogging about. So we're in Waldensbooks because Shell wanted to check out their Manga, and Shea and I were looking at wedding books ... and right next to the wedding books are Kama Sutra books ... with giant color photos of these positions! So we're checking it out, and we were laughing so hard that everyone in the store knew exactly what we were looking at and one of the ladies working there comes up and asks if she could help us! It was f$#-ing hilarious! So we told her that we were looking at the wedding books and then had moved on to the honeymoon books :) hehe. She tagged on by saying if that doesn't work, you always have this section, and motioned to the Romance section (by far the biggest section, BTW). hehe ... so funny :)

when comment moderation fails.

So I enabled comment moderation, right? I get home tonight and I have 24 comments waiting in cyberspace to be approved or not. 23 of them are from the lovely "Anonymous" and 1 from NPR Junkie . So I highlight all the spam ones to delete, but I'm reading Becky's, and I approved all those damn spambot ones anyhow. Why do I bother?

Find me this shirt

I want this shirt so bad. I saw it one time when I was on vacation and didn't buy it.
Yes, I'm now kicking myself.
Find me this shirt and I'll love yo u forever. Not that I don't already, but still ...

62

That's how many spam comments I had to receive in three hours to reinstate the comment moderator. I turned it off because I always fail the spelling thingie -- evidently I can't read as well as I thought. But I got home after going to the shoe store (nothing for me this time ...) and to dinner to 62 emails from "anonymous" telling me how great my website is and linking me to someone else. I don't know where the comments are (they aren't on current posts) because I deleted the damn things too quickly. But now consider yourself moderated. I like my comments ... just from people who say real things (not necessarily in my favor either ...)

A Blogging we will go, hi ho the derry oh ...

My system at work decided to freeze momentarily, so I thought I would take these few minutes to let you know I'm not dead. That's always a good thing, right? I have been sick, though with stress or sinus I know not. It's most likely a combination of the two. The problem is, I call out because I feel like crap, and then I feel worse for calling out so I can't even have a decent day, and when it's time to go back to work I still have to drag myself there because I don't want to go back -- it just makes things that much harder. It's also hard that Christen's home and I'm here working, even though he has to do it all the time, going into work when I'm home. He's off today, probably playing his LOTR strategy game that I got him for his birthday. Scratch that, my mom got it for him. He really seems to like it -- score! Except that he's playing instead of going to bed when I go to bed :( But that's okay. I'll put up with it, because I know that it'll only go on for a week or two and then he'll stop playing for a month and then go back to it for a little bit. This is his habit.

I went on Thursday to see The Devil Wears Prada, which I have to say was rather good. I didn't like the book much, and I thought that the movie did a much better job of putting things together without being so name-droppy and with having deeper characters.

Wednesday and Friday I called off from work, not feeling so good and needing some time to regroup. Friday when I finally rolled out of bed, Christen and I looked at some reception sites for the wedding and looked at wedding bands (I'm really getting into that ... hehe) and then Shea and Teddy Bear came over for beer and chinese food.

Saturday I was by myself all day, so I mostly watched tv and hung out with Lola all day, taking some time out to buy books at Barnes & Noble (woohoo! Saturday by Ian McEwan, Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham, and A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews), groceries, fresh flowers for the dining room and Superman Cap'n Crunch (I'm addicted -- I eat it for dinner). I took my sister and Lola to the beach in late afternoon and it was so much fun -- we let her off the leash and let her play with the other dogs in the area. She was surprisingly good, not wandering off too often. Dinner at my mom's house and then we came home.

Sunday was one of those days where I woke up feeling like not doing anything, so I laid around and did exactly that. Later on I bought some clippers and cut Lola's hair, and it doesn't look too bad at all. It was just getting a little out of hand, and the summer heat and her black fur was all a little much. I was going to bike ride with my sister, but she called in the middle of clipping the hair and I had to decline (really, there was hair everywhere) but we should go sometime this week. Sunday I also checked the mail for the first time in a few days, and had gobs of it -- I detest checking the mail. Anyone I've lived with will tell you that it will go weeks without being checked if I'm the only one to do it. The problem is, I'm almost always the one stuck checking the mail. I regularly get notes on my front door from my mail lady telling me if I don't go out and grab the mail that she's going to start sending it back. :) Whoops!

Anyhow, system back online and I get to go home soon, so I'll post this when I get there! :) Toodles!

Coincidences

So I have a habit of looking up different celebrities on IMDB when I'm interested in who the hell they are. I was looking up the Mac guy from the Apple computer commercials, thanks to Amber and he's in this upcoming movie called One Part Sugar. So I was watching Must Love Dogs and I looked up the Justin Timberlake look-a-like, and found that he is also to be in the same movie. How weird, huh?

Leftovers

So it's been one of those days. I didn't go to work. I tried ... halfheartedly, but I did try. My head hurt so bad when I woke up. First I told them 9am, then 10:30am ... finally I called to say I wasn't coming in. Twelve hours later, I still have a little headache, but not too bad now. I made a key lime pie with a beautiful meringue with my lovely new mixer, and a tasty lasagna. The girls were supposed to come over, but Shell called to say she wasn't feeling well, and I didn't hear from Shea at all. So tonight I am alone watching movies and trying to decide if I'm up to doing laundry. I watched The Man in the Moon and and now I'm on Must Love Dogs, which I've seen before and was sweet and amusing.
But I did have a slice of lasagna and a slice of pie, and I have to tell you all -- you're really missing something with my cooking. Both were delicious. :)

Death and JuJu Beans

Don't ask -- it was just the first thing that popped into my head. wha?

It's been an interesting week. Well, some of it is, so I'll just lie and say the whole darn thing was.

Saturday (yes, my week starts with Saturday -- what about it...) I went dress shopping with Shea and my mom and sister. I found a couple that I really loved, and decided on my bridesmaid dresses -- yay :).

Sunday Shea and I looked at reception sites and chapels. I found one of each that I adored, but Christen and I will have to go again this week to make the decision.

Monday -- not interesting in the least. hehe.

Tuesday -- Luau!!! So fun, and the food was amazine -- thanks Richard! There were great friends there, and fireworks, and a mean game of Trivial Pursuit (you know me) ... the decorations are still up, and may stay up for 6 months -- who knows? Maybe I can come as a hula dancer to my own Halloween party, and I won't ever have to take the decorations down at all!

Wednesday -- my birthday! We had a nice night at home, with Chicken Bryan and garlic spinach. Yum! I got some cool things, and beautiful yellow and pink roses.

Thursday -- yep, not interesting.

Today -- nope, not interesting :)

Rooting for the weekend again! Aren't you glad you wasted time with this blog? I didn't realize I had nothing to say until I got partway through, and by then it was just too late. I'm sure it was the same for you. Thanks for coming!

It's my birthday and I'll blog if I want to!

Now if only I could light a fire under my ass and get to work. I guess that's what the fire pit is for that Shell and Rich got me for my birthday.

More later, I've got wedding crises to blog about!

Death of a Squirrel Toy

So Lola is into destructive chewing. My "parenting" web sites say this is because she is lonely and bored, and possibly stressed (she does have a lot of separation anxiety, so that makes sense). So I've been trying to get her toys so that she has stuff to play with. She has a Kong, and a rope toy (which has also bit the dust as of last night) and occasionally I get her stuffed animals. The problem with stuffed animals is that she tears them up in no time flat. So I bought her this one that was considered "indestructable". MmmHmm ... sure. I wish I had taken a picture of it before, but it took her about 2 hours to render it "destructable". Here are the pictures of it now: