People don't really get ticks where I'm from, unless maybe you're out camping in the wilderness, way off the grid somewhere. I've never actually heard of someone I know getting a tick on them, so to me it was just some jokey affliction, kind of like scurvy - no doubt real, but not really something to worry about. This is the modern age, after all!
Note that I said it WAS a joke to me. This weekend, C. and I walked along a nice, wide, maintained nature trail with some friends of ours, Matt and Miki. We went down a short side trail to the beach, and I probably brushed against some foliage ONCE... fast forward a few hours when I was washing up in our friends' bathroom. I looked in the mirror and had a train of thought something like this: "AHHH there's a spider on me - wait no it's just some bug, I'll brush it off - why won't it... come off... AHHHHHHH IT'S IN MY NECK!"
A tick was in my neck, feasting on my blood. I tried to telepathically communicate, "I NEED that blood, you jerk! I'm using it." The tick continued quietly sipping away.
First we tried unsuccessfully to drown it with rubbing alcohol. It wasn't working, so I lay on the couch feeling awkward while C. and Matt rushed to - The Internet! - for advice. Matt and Miki were optimistic about pulling it out with tweezers, while C. wanted to heat the bug up with a lighter. An open flame, next to my alcohol-soaked neck. Was I concerned my head would go up in flames? Yes.
But my neck had dried at that point, so I let C. get to work with the lighter. Based on Matt's narration of the events, I think he was having some success, but then the tick burned up and died. Tweezers were employed, and then I was tick free - until I went back to the bathroom to finish washing up, and I found ANOTHER ONE in my hair. I squished it before it could tap into me. NOW I was tick free.
So now I'm just waiting... 3 to 32 days after being bitten, to see if I have Lyme disease. Fingers crossed! Sometimes I feel like the Northeastern United States is out to get me. I've transplanted here, but I'm not taking, and am being rejected...
28 May 2009
27 May 2009
Sammie's Outdoor Adventure
My long Memorial Day weekend started out with Sammie running away! Spoiler alert: he came back. I was out on the back porch hanging laundry to dry (I'm trying to give up using the dryer as much as I can this summer - you're welcome, The Earth), and I had propped the screen door open, thinking that Sammie is too skittish about literally everything to want to venture out. I didn't even see him take off... but after a while we determined he was gone, and then C. and I had an anxious night of searching for him with flashlights. We went to bed, and there were no pointy little feet stepping on us, and it was sad.
We hung signs around the neighborhood the next day. I kept calling him from the back door throughout the day - mostly "Sammie," but "Samuel" too, so he would know I meant business. In the evening, after a whole day of roughing it in the out-of-doors, Sammie decided it was time to start meowing back when I called him. He's skittish, but he'll "talk" back to me, and is sometimes pretty chatty, which I'm glad for. And the promise of wet food helped to lure him back inside. I suspect he didn't leave the neighbor's backyard the whole time, hiding in an extensive pile of stuff.
Soon as we got him back, he suffered the indignity of a bath. As I poured water down his back and soaped him up, he tried talking to me again, this time with what sounded exactly like the word "Noooo!" wailed over and over. Sorry buddy, you smelled funky. So glad you are home!
Huuuugs!
We hung signs around the neighborhood the next day. I kept calling him from the back door throughout the day - mostly "Sammie," but "Samuel" too, so he would know I meant business. In the evening, after a whole day of roughing it in the out-of-doors, Sammie decided it was time to start meowing back when I called him. He's skittish, but he'll "talk" back to me, and is sometimes pretty chatty, which I'm glad for. And the promise of wet food helped to lure him back inside. I suspect he didn't leave the neighbor's backyard the whole time, hiding in an extensive pile of stuff.
Soon as we got him back, he suffered the indignity of a bath. As I poured water down his back and soaped him up, he tried talking to me again, this time with what sounded exactly like the word "Noooo!" wailed over and over. Sorry buddy, you smelled funky. So glad you are home!
Huuuugs!
16 March 2009
Recipe for hilarity! Also, cookies.
Searching YouTube for the phrase "me singing [artist's name]" is a pretty rich source of comedy.
My current favorite is this one... it's not hilarious due to extreme amateurishness like you might expect, it's just kind of quietly amusing because of the guy's vaguely elfin qualities.
Say, you know that mumbling, la-la-laaa, don't-quite-know-all-the-words way that you sing a tune when you're just tooling around the house, doing chores or whatever, with no intention of having anyone record, let alone even HEAR you? This guy decided that rather than keep those moments private, he would share them... with the world!
I've made a ton of these in original lime, and also a few batches of tangerine, dipped in dark chocolate rather than powdered with sugar, and a few batches of lemon without zest - pretty good, but they'd be improved by the zest. The lime cookies are the ones I crave, however.
My current favorite is this one... it's not hilarious due to extreme amateurishness like you might expect, it's just kind of quietly amusing because of the guy's vaguely elfin qualities.
Say, you know that mumbling, la-la-laaa, don't-quite-know-all-the-words way that you sing a tune when you're just tooling around the house, doing chores or whatever, with no intention of having anyone record, let alone even HEAR you? This guy decided that rather than keep those moments private, he would share them... with the world!
----------
Onto the cookies... my new favorite cookie recipe is these Lime Meltaways from Martha Stewart. They are just all-around great - super tasty, easy to make, easy to modify if you prefer a different citrus flavor, and pleasant to look at in the mixing bowl, even.I've made a ton of these in original lime, and also a few batches of tangerine, dipped in dark chocolate rather than powdered with sugar, and a few batches of lemon without zest - pretty good, but they'd be improved by the zest. The lime cookies are the ones I crave, however.
04 February 2009
More like... farces
The new version of iPhoto (the photo organizing software on Macs) has a Faces feature that is supposed to automatically recognize people in your photos, which you can then label with names. Once you have tagged a few pictures of a person, iPhoto is supposed to “learn” who that person is, and suggests other photos that they are in. This works… sometimes.
Other times, it has been telling me that there are faces in or on inanimate objects, random unfocused things in the background, all kinds of crazy stuff. Here’s a list of people who I told iPhoto to look for, and the pictures it has recommended for them:
Other times, it has been telling me that there are faces in or on inanimate objects, random unfocused things in the background, all kinds of crazy stuff. Here’s a list of people who I told iPhoto to look for, and the pictures it has recommended for them:
- Marcus = biscotti
- Former professor’s 8-year old daughter = Cup Noodles
- My white-haired aunt = Stu with yarn piled on his head
- Jake Gyllenhall = Mr. Bean mask
- Matt = picture of a picture of Kevin Bacon
- C's coworker George = George Washington from Mt. Rushmore
- Aubrey = closeup of a kitten’s eye
26 January 2009
Hey Elena, what happened to your chin?: "Hilarious" "gag" answers!
- I cut myself shaving!- I was misbehavin' and my man popped me one to put me in my place. (This gag ghostwritten by doting boyfriend)
- I did not look out for ice under the new-fallen snow. My feet lost the ground (mid-fall, a brief moment of clarity: "My reflexes have failed me.") - and my chin found it again.
I mentally regarded my condition, and determined I was fit enough to keep walking. The cold numbed and hid the aches I would later feel.
I physically regarded my chin, and a hand that came away bloody convinced me to turn home again.
Ha ha! Oh, me.
22 January 2009
Welcome Sammie!
Just before winter break, we adopted a cat. He is Sammie, 5 years old, handsome of face and sassy of character. His interests include chasing balls of tinfoil around, hitting the 'nip, putting his butt in C's face, and wet food days.
Meow-lo!
When we first brought him home, he was very shy and spent most of his time under the bed. C. and I left for winter break barely knowing him, and we arranged for friends to check on him and the rats every few days. I felt guilty for making him think we had abandoned him. His previous owner had left him too - but, she had left everything and everyone, by passing away.
When we came home, Sammie was a new cat: friendly, chatty, cuddling in C's lap and following me around the house, apparently so glad that we had returned to him. He is a classically-trained actor, it turns out - recognize the role? That was a nuanced performance of Kevin from Home Alone. Kudos also to our friends for their cameos as the Wet Bandits.
If you have doubts about our Sammie being an actor, please look no further than this exclusive promotional still from his new feature film, The Curious Case of Benjisammie Button.
Meow-lo!When we first brought him home, he was very shy and spent most of his time under the bed. C. and I left for winter break barely knowing him, and we arranged for friends to check on him and the rats every few days. I felt guilty for making him think we had abandoned him. His previous owner had left him too - but, she had left everything and everyone, by passing away.
When we came home, Sammie was a new cat: friendly, chatty, cuddling in C's lap and following me around the house, apparently so glad that we had returned to him. He is a classically-trained actor, it turns out - recognize the role? That was a nuanced performance of Kevin from Home Alone. Kudos also to our friends for their cameos as the Wet Bandits.
If you have doubts about our Sammie being an actor, please look no further than this exclusive promotional still from his new feature film, The Curious Case of Benjisammie Button.
07 January 2009
Cookie factory
I decided that it wasn't enough for me to just like food, and to also like DIY - I must combine them! So I'm cooking and baking a lot these days. I have made three types of cookies recently, and here they are...
Ginger Pennies
These are fun bite-sized ginger cookies that you make by piping out a trillion little dots of dough. Really, I got 545 cookies out of this recipe. The texture kind of varied from sheet to sheet, but I liked the ones that were completely dry through the middle. I put some of the um... moister ones back in the oven for a few minutes, and that helped their deliciousness level riiiise!
Here is a picture of the ridiculous cookie operation.
Chewy Molasses-Spice Cookies
I used brown sugar instead of regular sugar, and I melted the butter down before mixing in the sugar because I didn't have a food processor to cream it all together... so the dough turned out wet and liquidy, and the idea of rolling it into balls was basically nonsense. So I just threw some sugar down on the cookie sheet and threw some more sugar on top of the blobs of dough I spooned out. Hey presto, though, the turned out pretty alright. I mean, I ate five of them in one sitting. A couple of times. They're gone now.
I need to take a break from talking about cookies to tell you that between that batch and the next one, C. bought a food processor! We were spurred to action by this BoingBoing post about potato latkes. I like making hashbrowns for breakfast (or basically any time - I love the potato), but whenever I did before, I always felt like I was in the beginning of kitchen utensil infomercials - "Are you tired of shredding potatoes - the OLD FASHIONED WAY?" and everything would be in black and white with some blurry, crooked camera angles, and I'd be struggling with a potato and a grater and there would be shreds of potato all over the counter and in my hair and I'd be crying and my fingers would be bloody nubs.
Anyway, we're movin' on up - we got a potato ricer, and a food processor plus some neato blades. Instead of squeezing shredded potato through some cloth, I can just use the ricer! And the food processor is AMAZING. Yesterday when it arrived, we were really excited and decided to try something in there right away, so I cut an apple in half and we stuck it in there and turned it on... and it DISAPPEARED. And in its place was a neat little stack of sliced apples. It reminded me of THESE KNIVES! "It FELL through that onion, man."
NY Times Chocolate Chip Cookies
I read about this recipe on some blogs, like NotMartha (who is not only in Seattle, but also in the SOUTH END aka my part of town), and decided to try when C. requested my next cookies have chocolate chips. I mixed the whole recipe up in the new food processor, and made one half with dark and one half with milk chocolate. Have not actually baked these yet, the dough is currently chillin' (LITERALLY, HEY-O!) in the refrigerator. I don't like this business of chilling the dough for 24+ hours... when I make cookies, I want some now, not tomorrow! Hey, right now it is tomorrow though, so maybe I will go do some baking.
Patience, dough... your time will come.
Ginger Pennies
These are fun bite-sized ginger cookies that you make by piping out a trillion little dots of dough. Really, I got 545 cookies out of this recipe. The texture kind of varied from sheet to sheet, but I liked the ones that were completely dry through the middle. I put some of the um... moister ones back in the oven for a few minutes, and that helped their deliciousness level riiiise!
Here is a picture of the ridiculous cookie operation.Chewy Molasses-Spice Cookies
I used brown sugar instead of regular sugar, and I melted the butter down before mixing in the sugar because I didn't have a food processor to cream it all together... so the dough turned out wet and liquidy, and the idea of rolling it into balls was basically nonsense. So I just threw some sugar down on the cookie sheet and threw some more sugar on top of the blobs of dough I spooned out. Hey presto, though, the turned out pretty alright. I mean, I ate five of them in one sitting. A couple of times. They're gone now.
[Picture of my distended cookie gut goes here]
I need to take a break from talking about cookies to tell you that between that batch and the next one, C. bought a food processor! We were spurred to action by this BoingBoing post about potato latkes. I like making hashbrowns for breakfast (or basically any time - I love the potato), but whenever I did before, I always felt like I was in the beginning of kitchen utensil infomercials - "Are you tired of shredding potatoes - the OLD FASHIONED WAY?" and everything would be in black and white with some blurry, crooked camera angles, and I'd be struggling with a potato and a grater and there would be shreds of potato all over the counter and in my hair and I'd be crying and my fingers would be bloody nubs.
Anyway, we're movin' on up - we got a potato ricer, and a food processor plus some neato blades. Instead of squeezing shredded potato through some cloth, I can just use the ricer! And the food processor is AMAZING. Yesterday when it arrived, we were really excited and decided to try something in there right away, so I cut an apple in half and we stuck it in there and turned it on... and it DISAPPEARED. And in its place was a neat little stack of sliced apples. It reminded me of THESE KNIVES! "It FELL through that onion, man."
NY Times Chocolate Chip Cookies
I read about this recipe on some blogs, like NotMartha (who is not only in Seattle, but also in the SOUTH END aka my part of town), and decided to try when C. requested my next cookies have chocolate chips. I mixed the whole recipe up in the new food processor, and made one half with dark and one half with milk chocolate. Have not actually baked these yet, the dough is currently chillin' (LITERALLY, HEY-O!) in the refrigerator. I don't like this business of chilling the dough for 24+ hours... when I make cookies, I want some now, not tomorrow! Hey, right now it is tomorrow though, so maybe I will go do some baking.
Patience, dough... your time will come.24 December 2008
Tracks
I'm home for the holidays now, and I've taken to wandering around my old neighborhood, as I've always done. I find my neighborhood engaging enough as it is, but this week it's had the added enrichment of Snow, and Lots Of It.
Every day I've been going out to see who's been around: there have been raccoon tracks investigating a trash can, rat tracks hurrying to a hidey hole - perhaps related to the nearby tracks of a cat and her kittens. The tracks of the rare and illusive mailman, making a wide garland from porch to porch. Also, pony tracks - definite horseshoe prints along the sidewalk. Unexpected!
A few times now while out and about, I've encountered my father, also out and about. We are similar in that it takes us a while to just get down the block, because there is really just so much to stop and see. I get this 100% from my dad - the wandering gene must be dominant over the recessive genes which restrict my mother to strictly Point-A-to-Point-B travels. Sure, she'll make the occasional additional stop - as long as it lies along Line AB.
Anyway - the wandering is here in my storytelling too, it seems - once I was the one being tracked by my snowy footprints. I had doubled back at some point and nearly threw my father off, but he soon recovered, and eventually there we were together. I showed him the phantom raccoons, the cats, the pony.
We spent some time fabricating tracks to baffle anyone else who might be about. Hop on one foot with an upturned shovel as a crutch, and what do you get? Pirate tracks.
Every day I've been going out to see who's been around: there have been raccoon tracks investigating a trash can, rat tracks hurrying to a hidey hole - perhaps related to the nearby tracks of a cat and her kittens. The tracks of the rare and illusive mailman, making a wide garland from porch to porch. Also, pony tracks - definite horseshoe prints along the sidewalk. Unexpected!
A few times now while out and about, I've encountered my father, also out and about. We are similar in that it takes us a while to just get down the block, because there is really just so much to stop and see. I get this 100% from my dad - the wandering gene must be dominant over the recessive genes which restrict my mother to strictly Point-A-to-Point-B travels. Sure, she'll make the occasional additional stop - as long as it lies along Line AB.
Anyway - the wandering is here in my storytelling too, it seems - once I was the one being tracked by my snowy footprints. I had doubled back at some point and nearly threw my father off, but he soon recovered, and eventually there we were together. I showed him the phantom raccoons, the cats, the pony.
We spent some time fabricating tracks to baffle anyone else who might be about. Hop on one foot with an upturned shovel as a crutch, and what do you get? Pirate tracks.
20 December 2008
The Frystache
The other day I found a French fry that looked exactly like a mustache.
It was imbued with the power to transform the already handsome into the devastatingly dashing:
Then I ate it! Now it's a part of me... forever.
It was imbued with the power to transform the already handsome into the devastatingly dashing:
Then I ate it! Now it's a part of me... forever.
01 December 2008
A bunch of videos
You guys know this Beyonce song and video, right? I love the video, and I wish every music video was like this - a performance, rather than the telling of some unrelated narrative or whatever else people are always trying to depict in videos these days. Case in point: A-Ha's Take On Me. Alright, so 1984 is not exactly "these days," but my point is, the story told in the video has nothing to do with the story (if there even is one) told in the song. Of course, the only reason I have had all this on my mind lately is because of this brilliant piece of work...
Anyway, back to Beyonce! This video first came to my attention from this Boing Boing post which showcases an amazing homage performance, as well as the truest statement ever: "If you feel moved to sneer, *you* try re-creating a Beyoncé video, shot by shot, shimmy by shimmy, while clad only in asymmetrical underwear." Truth!
Beyonce and J. Timb were also on SNL recently doing a funny attempted remake of the video, unfortunately this subtitled version is the only one I can find online right now. Hee, Paul Rudd. SNL is pretty bad these days though, isn't it? Basically the only guaranteed laughs for me are bits with Andy Samberg or Justin Timberlake.
Anyway, back to Beyonce! This video first came to my attention from this Boing Boing post which showcases an amazing homage performance, as well as the truest statement ever: "If you feel moved to sneer, *you* try re-creating a Beyoncé video, shot by shot, shimmy by shimmy, while clad only in asymmetrical underwear." Truth!
Beyonce and J. Timb were also on SNL recently doing a funny attempted remake of the video, unfortunately this subtitled version is the only one I can find online right now. Hee, Paul Rudd. SNL is pretty bad these days though, isn't it? Basically the only guaranteed laughs for me are bits with Andy Samberg or Justin Timberlake.
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