I am out of here

I am moving to Wordpress. Come find me! www.bloggingisforlovers.wordpress.com

Asking for trouble

So I'm feeling kinda overcommitted in my life right now, hence the neglect of this sad little blog. A couple of weeks ago I thought, Hey, I should do that NaNoBloMo thing. And then I thought, No way. That would just be asking for trouble. But, I'm only a few weeks away from escaping The Busiest Fall of My Life and then maybe I'll pull myself back together and this blog along with me. We shall see. A couple of the topics (I hope) to come:

• Baking something with the persimmons Fresh Abundance delivered a couple of weeks ago (if they are even still edible at this point, eek)
  
  
• Muggle Quidditch (I'm writing an article about this for the Inlander this weekend, yay, but that's just one more aspect of my overcommittment, boo, but it's worth it, right?)
  
  
• Parks and Recreation, which has totally shaken itself out of the awkwardness of last year and become a complete delight
  
  
• Details about our upcoming bargain vacation to Disneyland! Here's a photo of us in Disney World from our trip to Florida last Thanksgiving, to get everyone in the Disney mood. Brad and I dressed in matching outfits so that our mom could find us easily if we ran off and got separated.
  

Actually, the truth is, we didn't realize we had worn matching outfits until we looked at these pictures. Isn't that adorable?? No. No, it isn't.

Look no further

Mostly for my own entertainment, here are a few more of the phrases people searched for that led them to my blog. All typos and general weirdness have been left intact.

• "aches and pains all over"
  
  
• "best comment word;is for lovers"
  
  
• "describe an ideal day an shopping"
  
  
• "is a neibor stareing for hours stalking"
  
  
• "who did rory end up with on the series finale"
  
  
• "lovers anniversary blog"
  
  
• "fembot blogspot"
  
  
• "happy birth day questions for lovers"

Don't bore Nina!

Is it me, or is the current season of Project Runway totally boring? I still watch, but I just don't care. Their clothes seem so-so -- not much is shocking, except occasionally for how BAD it is (skanky hot pants?! 30 yards of white ruffles?!). Could this be because the season was filmed so long before it aired? Carol Hannah's dress pockets, for example, don't seem like a big deal now, because pockets have swept the nation over the past year. Maybe what once would have seemed inventive now looks like old news. But, that doesn't address my other issue: there's not much fun conflict. Irina is bitchy, Carol Hannah is super cute, and Althea has giant 80s hair and a complementary wardrobe. But it just feels like it's missing something. Maybe a guest appearance by Wendy Pepper would help?

Butternut disaster

Last night was the second time Brad and I and our friends Joel and Bekka met for dinner party club (man, we really need to think more about what to call this - really, "dinner party club"? Ew). Since Bekka and I cooked last time Brad and Joel were up yesterday. When I came home in the afternoon I peeked in Brad's grocery bag and was a little bit shocked to see not pizza dough or hamburger buns or taco shells, but butternut squash, red onion, and artisan bread. I had been wondering how things would turn out, because we have two guys who eat meat and don't do much cooking, and two girls who don't and love to cook, but the groceries showed a lot of potential for vegetarian delights.

When Bekka and Joel got here the ladies sat at the table eating an appetizer of bread and several bread dipping options served in ramekins (Brad: "Joel, we're going to put this stuff in ramekins." Joel: "A ramekin? What's a ramekin?" Bekka: "Joel, you know, like the big white one I have." Joel: "A ramekin? What's that?" Repeat.) I had just decided to get out the camera and take a picture of the boys in the kitchen when, while attempting to peel the squash, Brad sliced his whole finger off.

It wasn't really his whole finger, but a pretty serious, very gushy cut in his left middle finger. Squash fell on the ground, Bekka and I ran around looking for bandages and tape, and Joel examined the wound. It bled a lot for a while, and then they ended up wrapping it tightly in gauze and securing it with duct tape.

Of course this would be the one month of our entire lives when Brad doesn't have health insurance. That's right: this is the one time EVER that Brad hasn't had medical insurance. He's in an off month between being covered through his old job and the new one, and when he went to apply for temporary coverage to get him through October, he was already past the deadline, so here we are, just waiting for November 1. Joel thought he might possibly "need a stitch." Would we have seriously considered the possibility of stitches if he were covered this month? I think so. It was bleeding a lot. But knowing it's 8 pm on a Friday night and the only thing open is probably the super expensive emergency room limits what you're willing to seriously consider.

Very professional bandaging

For the time being dinner preparations just went on. I jumped in and did some quick peeling of the squash while all of the chaos was going on, and then got out of the kitchen so the guys could finish up. They made Warm Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad (as seen on Smitten Kitchen, who got it from Orangette, who got it from somewhere else), and it was DELICIOUS. The tahini dessing is fantastic. Everything about it is fantastic. Except that there aren't any leftovers for me to eat today.

Ramekins!

This salad might cost you a finger, but it's worth it

For dessert we ate brownies and ice cream, and then Bekka and I went to the store and bought some New-Skin, and when we woke up this morning Brad's finger was still attached - so far, so good. Because if he loses a digit over peeling squash for dinner party club, it could really cast a pall over the whole operation.

So hot right now

Have you lost the pulse of pop culture? Me too, but I'm pretending I'm on it. Things I'm loving right now:

• Ben Folds, who we saw perform with the Spokane Symphony on Sunday at The Fox. So fun! So much orchestration! And I loved the disjointed crowd - the dressy symphony season ticket holders, intermingled with the uber casual Ben Folds fans pleading for Folds to "Rock this bitch!"

• The September Issue - holy cow, what a cool insider's view of the life of Vogue, Anna Wintour and her insanely far-reaching influence over the world of fashion, and the Creative Director, Grace Coddington, who's more of a free-spirited artist in the commercial world. It's really great. My brain can't even contain all of that fashion.

• Mad Men, Mad Men, Mad Men. Beautiful, quiet, informative, heartbreaking, often hilarious. Keep your eyes out for riding lawnmowers - not for indoor use.

• Where the Wild Things Are - it looks perfect, the music is great, the characters are developed and believable and sad and funny. For what it's worth, I think it really captures the destructive yet cuddly yet angry yet loving yet stubborn yet dependent nature of boyhood like nothing else I've seen. Of course I'm an outsider when it comes to boyhood, but from what I've observed, this movie really nails it.
  

Avant garde marketing

Today I received an issue of Gourmet (a magazine I've never subscribed to) in the mail. Every so often I receive just such an unsolicited magazine. I'm assuming that's because I'm part of X magazine's target audience and they want to lure me into becoming a subscriber to X by flaunting all of its goodness in my face. But that's not really an option with Gourmet, since they're on their way out - the November issue, which I received today, is their last. And here's the kicker: the magazine was wrapped in plastic, and inside the plastic was a piece of paper that says this:

"Give the gift of Gourmet - only $4....Use the Card [yes, they capitalized Card, but I won't dwell on that] below to send a holiday gift to your favorite epicurean!" The detachable card shows all of the rates and options (12 issues, 24 issues) and even has a "Bill me after Jan. 1" option.

What is this all about?! Were these all bundled up and ready to go before Conde Nast announced the closing of the magazine and they just decided, "Who cares that we're promoting lies? We're sending them!"? Because a lot of people might take this offer and send in their little Cards. And then Conde Nast or whoever deals with these things is really going to have a mess on their hands. I think current subscribers are being bumped to Bon Appetit, or something like that. They'd have to do some serious bait and switch with any newbies.

The sad thing is, I really like what I see in the magazine. If they weren't already out of here, they might have won me over. Bad timing, I guess.