Mushroom Monday

Mixing things up a bit this Monday...

My friend Sarwa found this at a thrift store for me when we lived together.

I like the dining room with it's selection of mushrooms. The colors go well together on the sunlight mornings.

This is my favorite mushroom thrift store find. It's a nice large oil painting and I've had it since I was an adolescent.

I had to beg Sarwa to give this acrylic painting to me when she finished it. Something about it just struck me and it's been a nice complement to my mushroom painting ever since she relented.

The Green Monster

Everyone has one at some point in their lives, over something or someone.

It rears it's ugly, envious head when you see someone with something you want, when you feel threatened and are vulnerable to its whisperings in your ear.

Mostly they are benign, little things, like lusting after a purse or wishing your hair would do that or you could go somewhere fabulous.

Less pretty are the times when it involves a relationship.

I have never had a serious wrestling match with the monster (I think). Frankly, I don't get it.

Intellectually, I understand the feeling, but I don't think I've ever been deep in its grasp. I suspect that like an orgasm, if you only think you've been gut-wrenchingly jealous, then you really haven't.

Even dating a hyper jealous man-boy for a couple of years didn't make me understand it entirely. I just didn't feel it viscerally, down in the gut where I understand it stabs from. When the man-boy harassed me once for not getting jealous over a girl (supposedly) hitting on him in front of me all night, I tried to go through the motions, but that's exactly what it was--me doing what I thought a jealous girlfriend would do.

For me, it comes down to making sense and my own special brand of people-naivete. In small doses I think a bit of envy can be good. Keep you on your toes, from taking your loved one for granted.

But the kind that makes you check in on your lover every hour, on the hour? or accuse them of cheating? or stalk their Facebook page? or steal their phone to read text messages? or any other aggregious violation of personal privacy and freedom? Makes no sense to me.

A friend of the Big B's was over this past Sunday to watch the football game. Earlier that weekend on Friday I was dropped off by the Big B to go out for a girl's night with the friend's wife and another girl, so the guys talked briefly and set up their man date for two days hence. B's friend said how great it would be to watch a game with a friend instead of alone, but was already temporizing, saying things like "I'll have to talk to the wife" and so forth.

Sounds innocous enough, if you haven't seen their couple dynamic before. I had, so I quickly piped up that she could bring the kids and hang out with me if that would make her say yes.

(In retrospect, the part of the allure of the gameday hang session was probably the absence of said wife & kids, just for a bit.)

What strikes me is that there would be any doubt whatsoever about a "yes" answer to that question. I'm not saying it shouldn't be asked--respect for each other in a committed relationship demands that--but more that the expectation would be a non-approval for something so simple.

For the Big B and I, the question would be expected to be asked, but barring previously made committments, in most cases the question is more of a formality, a quick check to make sure there are no plans and to let the other person know what you plan on doing. Early on, the two of us established a straight-down-the-middle, equal sides partnership that is quasi-sibling like in the fervor to make things exactly equal.

I'm not saying this approach is without pitfalls. No such approach to relationships with other human beings exists, as far as I can tell.

But I can say that if it were the Big B and I, and he was driving me and my girlfriends to the bar and picking our drunken asses up after 2am on a Friday night (and most likely not getting laid because of the state of my over-inebriation), there would be no question that he could go watch the game on Sunday at a friend's.

Granted, a caveat is that we are currently geekling-free, but I strongly suspect that our policy of making room for each of our own "alone time" will continue even after children are born.

(Those of you with actual children, feel free to scoff at this. Please note, however, that in our case we're extremely lucky, in the fact that we have three sets of grandparents prepared to fight tooth and nail for babysitting rights, and one pair is a short car ride away and the other is within walking distance. Hooray grandparents, we thank you already!)

I am profoundly grateful we are this way.

I never want someone to get a call from me, checking up on my husband, demanding to know where he is and berating them because I didn't appreciate that he hadn't answered his phone when I called him (minutes after the game had ended!).

 I never want my behavior to remind them of lyrics from the Limp Bizkit song "Stuck":

Psycho female blowin up the phone line

You need to tighten that screw, it's been loose for a long time

Cliched, I know, but if you love something, set it free!

I heard somewhere (I forget who or where, forgive me) that your loved one should be a part of your life, but not be your life. I am completely on board with this.

If you aren't allowed to have a life apart from each other, how do you keep your relationship growing? By experiencing things on your own and as a couple, you bring more elements to the table to share with each other and gain the space needed to keep it fresh, stop taking-the-other-for-granted syndrome in its tracks.

So I believe. What about you?



Silly Sunday

One picture story is true, the other is false.


Before:

After vigorous ruffling:

Either way, he's a puffball. Just how disorganized depends on how dry & staticky the air is, and whether his human feels like torture that day.


Before: The Big B giving the puppy-eyes look for something he wants.

After: Gloating when I fall for it.

And running away in fear of my righteous wrath.

Nap Circle Buddies

Life Is So Hard

Poor kittehs. Life is so hard.

Always they be beggin' for love...

I fell in love with this fun jouncy tune the first time I heard it.

Gizmo likes it too, but he still wonders what happened to his fur coat.

(No, we didn't fail as parents again. This is an old pic but way too cutely pathetic to pass up).

What's In a Name?

In my line of work, you come across a lot of names.

My first foray into the land of cubedom had me at a desk, punching numbers into the 10-key pad while scanning the screen for certain codes to appear, over and over again in mind numbing repetition.

Well, not really mind numbing, actually, because your brain doesn't really go numb when forced to do work that doesn't really require it.

In fact, the book* I'm reading right now talks about an interesting phenomenon that occurs when people are stuck doing a task that, after awhile, requires very little active brainpower to sustain. In the story they talked about security--specifically, a guard whose job it is to sit outside an exit door and make sure that no one comes in that way. Inevitably, no matter how vigilant the guard is, he or she will be unable to maintain a state of alertness and someone will get by. It just isn't entertaining enough for your brain to scan for someone going upstream constantly, when so few actual incidents occur. The theory in the book is that it's not their fault. Their brains get rewired and they can't do it.

Literally, the neuron pathways that are being used for the boring, mundane or repetitive task get suborned into working for other parts of the brain even while carrying out the task they were originally signed up for. Neal Stephenson explained it much more hip manner via his character Richard in the book:


"The brain, as far as Richard could determine from haphazard skimming of whatever came up on Google, was sort of like the electrical system of Mogadishu. A whole lot was going on in Mogadishu that required copper wire for conveyance of power and information, but there was only so much copper to go around, and so what wasn't actively being used tended to get pulled down by militias and taken crosstown to beef up some power-hungry warlord's private, improvised power network. As with copper in Mogadishu, so with neurons in the brain. The brains of people who did unbelievably boring shit for a living showed dark patches in the zones responsible for job-related processes, since all those almost-never-exercised neurons got pulled down and trucked somewhere else and used to beef up the circuits used to keep track of NCAA tournament brackets and celebrity makeovers."


So you see, I can't be held entirely to blame that during my tenure as a data entry pusher, my brain would co-opt some neurons in favor of more hip and intriguing things.

Such as looking at the names on my reports and deciding which ones would be good character names in D&D or in a nebulous, unrealized, yet to be written novel.

First, last, middle, first middle, middle middle, it didn't matter--all were potential veins of name-ore that I could mine as I keyed furiously away. I discovered that I liked certain vowel combinations ("ae" "ai" and "ei" being my favs) and over time my list developed a certain cadence all its own. Many of the features in our Dungeons & Dragons Kortoe adventure world we created were given names from my list. One of the founders even had a name generator that would give you related-sounding names if you fed it some examples first. They ended up sounding very Greek-like, with names like Taephone and Aestrom.

The Big B doesn't know it yet, but when it comes time to name our children, some of my inspiration will be coming from this list as well. I already know this will be an epic battle for us, so I am prepared to get my fun in at the same time.

Maybe someday someone will see a name from the list, scratch their head, and say, "That's weird! This first name is my last name and it's not common, either. I wonder where that name came from."

I know I would wonder if I saw my maiden name used as a first name.

*The book is fantastic--Reamde by Neal Stephenson--and I highly suggest you check it out. It gets rolling slowly at first but when it gets going! whew! it gets going. I became a fan of Stephenson after reading Snow Crash, which not only can get you thinking, but is a rollicking funny read apart from anything else you could say about it. Oh, and it's also awesomely geeky, too.

Kittehs Love When Mama Goes Thrifting

But the Big B dreads when I go shopping.

Why?

It's nothing that bad--after all, it's not like he's typically required to *gasp* go with me or anything horrifyingly inhumane like that. I have my own allowance, so it's not like he's going to see a surprise credit card statement in the mail. I don't call or send picture messages of what I'm considering purchasing to get his opinion. In fact, me going out shopping is usually a bonus benefit for him since I'm usually gone for hours and he gets free range of the house.

I should clarify that it's not really me going shopping that he dreads, but me returning from shopping.

Because bargain-shopping and thrifting just isn't as satisfying to me unless I can share my finds when I get home. One at a time. Exclaiming over each one in an almost super sonic squeal or at the very least some excited hopping. While holding it out and extolling the benefits. And then triumphantly telling him the price until he gives some sort of acknowledgement of how great it is that I found a $200 suit for $10.50.

So you can't really blame him if he shudders when he hears the garage door open after I've spent a long day of digging through the racks.


The kittehs, however, are a different story.

I think they greet each new piece just as eagerly as I do.

New smells! Must claim new territory!


They certainly got possessive enough with the new items when I put them the couch. Both cats had laid down on the pile within minutes of each other.

Another favorite part about Mama's retail therapy for Gizmo?

He gets a new posh hiding place for himself.


The clothes I found were awesome (a heaping pile for less than $80!) but a couple of non-clothing finds were a nice touch.

Had to switch out to this purse immediately, it was so cool. It'll serve double-duty in a steampunk outfit no problem, especially if I keep the cell phone pocket out of sight.








An impulse buy I don't regret was this treasure.

You can't beat that for 99 cents, even if it is VHS. It's in such good shape!
I loved that movie. My first memories of it are being scared out of my wits by the Skesis, grossed out and frantic by the draining of the podlings, awed by Kira's ability to fly, and delighted by Fizzgig.

I had no idea, not a single inkling, that they were all puppets.

Mama loves when she goes thrifting too.

Yum

Turns out that for at least one of my nieces, cilantro takes like soap.

Too bad for her, because she wouldn't like this scrumptious dinner concoction one bit, and it's a shame she'd miss out on it.

I know we really enjoyed it. Every Tuesday my sister comes over for a night of grocery shopping, cooking, and watching our mutually favorite TV shows. (Currently Shameless and The Big C, but we can't wait for True Blood).

This is a recipe I found online, (heavily modified by me) but with a light and healthy-feeling taste that's as colorfully beautiful as it is easy to make.

Cilantro Chicken Pasta
2 chicken breasts, cubed and cooked
1 small red onion, chopped
2 tbl olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tbl cilantro, chopped very fine
1 each: green, yellow and orange peppers, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
1/4 tsp red hot sauce
salt and pepper to taste
parmesean cheese to taste
Fistful of angel hair or spaghetti noodles (or really, whatever pasta you prefer)

1. Set water to boil for noodles and heat oil in pan. Sautee garlic and onion until onions are translucent and soft.
2. Add chicken and cook until chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear.
3. Cook noodles until al dente, drain and set aside.
4. Add peppers, cilantro, hot sauce, salt and pepper and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
5. Add tomatoes and simmer another 5 minutes, or until tomatoes are soft.

Serve hot over pasta with parmesean cheese.

This dish is almost a work of art!

Although you may want to make sure both you and people you will be in close proximity with later all eat it, as the onions and garlic make a potent combination.

Mushroom Mondays

Electric blue!

These remind me of Avatar.

And they made me think of pussy toes for the first time in years.

I loved to run through a patch and hear the noise they made against my sneakers when I was too young to know the naughty use of the flower's name.

In eighth grade, my mom owned a consignment store and she had a retro rack that I mined constantly. For awhile I owned a lot of polyester and velour shirts and pants, but my favorite was my pussy willow shirt. I should never have gotten rid of it!

The Desert Planet Has Been On My Mind

I'd like to see a commercial spoof with him in it where he goes from a 'thopter to a sandworm to walking across the dunes perfectly still above the waist yet somehow is doing it without any discernible rhythm at all.

And of course, the ubiquitious Dune cat.

But enough joking around, time to get serious here! Prescience is no joking matter.

Actually, I am hoping my hardcore nerd herd is serious about this year's cosplay for Convergence, and that we stay seriously motivated through the next 6 months.

While we started off well enough last year, not enough momentum was kept, and whatever the reasons or excuses, our steampunk crafting group fell apart. The only one who really got anywhere was my roomate, the post-apocalyptic car salesman. We also failed to get our asses in gear for the Zombie pub crawl, which bitterly disappointed my friend the self-proclaimed Game Whore.

Something good has come out of that disappointment, however, and I'm hoping more will come still. When we made the pact not to half-ass or drop costumes before Halloween, and then we stuck with it, a seed of true hope was planted.

Our Dune cosplay dream was born again.

A few years ago we batted around the idea after seeing all the cool costumes and turning green with envy, talking about it in an excited but absent-minded way that barely went farther than that.

But the rush of Halloween and completion of hard thought, designed, and sweated for costumes provided more impetus, and although we agreed to postpone any actual dedicated crafting time until after the holiday madness was over, it wasn't long after the old year rolled over that we got together to brainstorm ideas and hammer out our approach.

Our session wandered all over the place and many ideas were thrown out there. In the way of these things, we dreamed ambitiously of total success, enough to justify applying for one of the theme rooms of our own to decorate and what we would put in it.

(One of the funniest ideas of the night involved the use of a wire cage with panty hose stretched over it to represent a shield.)

We tackled the big problems like homemade stillsuits and how to approach construction, but the little details were a lot of fun to think about as well. Things like blue sclera contacts for our eyes, maker hooks and ropes, Gurney's baliset, crysknives, the Water of Life (I even found this recipe online which will make a potent beverage hopefully worthy of the name), a miniature sandworm to bring along with us (that we might try to set up so that we can "drown" it and have it vomit forth the Water of Life for the curious & brave at Con to try), even making a scaled-down version of a Navigator's spice tank for someone to wheel around in for a bit for the masquerade or picture opportunities.

I can't say for sure how fired up the others were after our little gathering (one, at least, was already backsliding and making excuses for failing to get work done on the costume, before we've even seriously started!) but I know I have one lit under me and I've got Arrakis on the brain.

And I called dibs on Chani!

Winter Is Coming (Or So They Tell Me)

 Amazing, but true:

It was 52 degrees Fahrenheit outside Tuesday when I left work for the day, and it was January 10th.

January tenth!


I even heard rumors it was 56 degrees in Eden Prairie.

My orderly Minnesota instincts are upside down. There's patchy bits of leftover snow on the ground (first non-white Christmas in memory for me) and squirrels such as the Don are so fat, they can barely waddle along their tree-top highways.

And they seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time chasing each other in what a suspicious mind would say looks like horsing around. Or maybe that's being squirrely.

Other than a light dusting weeks earlier and a few inches on New Year's Eve, there's been zero snow. Accompanying this have been freakishly warm temps. It's like we blundered into a temporal rift and somehow ended up in March, zooming lightheartedly through December and entirely skipping January and February. I saw people going coatless yesterday. In January! It's as if we're thumbing our noses at Old Man Winter.

Or so it feels to me. I'm not mocking him, however. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop--it's Minnesota, for crying out loud! Last year we had 3-4 feet of snow already on the ground and temps were a more standard single digit or near it.

This just feels like a trap.

Not to say that I'm not enjoying it. I've taken advantage of the past few weeks of mild 40-50 degree weather to sport my last skirts and dresses for awhile, as the arctic cold I've come to dread and loathe will eventually arrive to banish them back to the closet until warmer winds prevail.

I'm just not going to rub my pleasure in the weather in Old Man Winter's face. I figure those first days of teen and single digit days will cow me into a chittering and trembling wretch quick enough without daring him to do worse.

You see, I think I've figured it out. This is all his doing, after all.

Normally we get an incremental adjustment to the temperature as the holidays pass by and the new year rolls in. By the time the really cold months hit, we're acclimated (as much as we can be) to the below zero temps and frostbite-inducing winds.

The reverse of this effect at the waning of winter is one that leads to seemingly outandish behavior, when out-of-towners may witness native Minnesotans going about their business in shorts and flip flops on a mild March day.

No wonder we're a puzzle to outsiders. The same 45 degree temp in October that sends us scurrying for fall jackets has us cavorting as if we're in the Bahamas when it occurs on a sunny March day.

This insidious but adaptive process helps us survive the winter. This year, stripped of our protective acclimation, I fear that when the cold does finally arrive, it will seem all the colder for the easy respite we've been given so far.

Be afraid, be very afraid, for Old Man Winter is puffing his icy cold breath our way and smiling maliciously.

My only consolation is the fact that his plan has a severe backdraw--we're already over a week into January without a below zero temp or even a day below 20 degrees! We're practically there, baby, yeah!

But let's not get too excited, remember. He's a cantankerous old man, Winter, and March is still within his domain and he can make it a real bitch.

*All of these pictures were taken yesterday by the Big B when he got home from work. Is there anything sadder looking than a bare yard in the middle of January?

Chrismas Eve Success!

I woke up a nervous wreck Christmas eve morning.

"Where's that recipe? I NEED that recipe!"

The Big B is watching me dash around the house, opening drawers and rifling through papers like some sort of espionage expert.

My dad's side of the family was coming for Christmas Eve.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

Despite having hosted Thanksgiving earlier this year with my immediate family, I was still nervous about hosting for the extended family. My family at Thanksgiving are non-judgemental and easy going...but on my dad's side, we were always the black sheep, and the judgement is subtle but there.

Friday before the fateful day we went to Momma's to celebrate and my mom and sister did their best to assure me I'd do fine.

It wasn't convincing me (nothing could), but as long as my mom was willing to take my frantic calls for help that day, I was stopping short of pulling out all my hair in nervous anticipation. Knowing my sister would be there to help in the kitchen was also a boon that kept me from the edge of insanity.

My mom passed along some uneaten veggies to me when I left Friday night and borrowed me a platter for the ham since I don't own one.

But by the time all the relatives arrived, I was ready.

Actually, I was ready before they started arriving, and that made me start fretting that they werent't here yet, and where The Hell Were They? I had tried to time the meal just right so that it would be nice and hot for everyone and now that I was ready, no one was here!

Oi Vey! (as Momma would say).

Finally everyone arrived and I started anxiously making the raisin gravy for the ham, stirring vigorously away with my whisk. I shooed non-essential people out of the tiny kitchen (thus ensuring that my uncle couldn't trap me in the kitchen like he had done to my mom for so many holidays before) and called the Big B to come carve the ham.

"I don't know how to carve ham!" he says to me, blinking expectantly.

"I don't care! It can't be that hard."

"Can't you just do it?"

"Ask my dad to help you, then."

"YOU ask him, he's your dad!"

I turned to him and gave him my best glare/exasperated/desperate look. "Listen here! I have other stuff I need to do right now! I don't have time to do this; this is YOUR job, figure it out!"

For a second it looked as if he were going to argue with me some more, but my look must have been a good one because he just grinned and went to find my dad. Soon he was busily instructing my perfectionist hubby on how to carve the ham properly.

My sweetie; he genuinely always wants to do everything 100% right, and even if this is sometimes used as an excuse ("I don't know how to cook!") I have to love him for his anal-ness.




Things went well. The gravy turned out superbly (thank you Momma!) and somehow all 17 of us fit into our tiny space for dinner. Then it was time to do some quick clean up and then present time.

The Big B had a funny idea to play a trick on the relatives. I was freaking out because I couldn't find our Yahtzee game, and we needed dice for the White Elephant/Dice game present exchange for the adults. When he heard me freaking out about not being able to find the dice, he gives me a level look.

"You DO realize we're D&D'ers, right? That means we have a shitload of 6-sided dice."

Duh! I laughed and sent him to the office to grab 3 sets of 6-siders. When he returned with them he gives a mischievious smile and says, "Let's play a trick on the relatives! Tell 'em we're gonna use 20-sided dice this year; that'll keep the dice game going on a loooooooong time!"

We giggled together and when it came time for the dice game, he was taking out the garbage and I run up to him asking, "Are you going to do your announcement?"

Little did I realize at the time, but my dad and his fiance heard this comment, and got entirely the wrong idea from it.

B told me to do it myself and he'd be right there, but I was so excited I rushed my words and got only blank looks from everyone when I told them "we want to spend much more time with you this year, and as you know we're D&D geeks, so rather than regular dice, we'll be using 20-sided dice instead! Good luck getting doubles this century!" and I laughed, a bit maniacally, I'll admit.

Dice jokes just aren't as funny to non-gamers, I guess!

After the game was over, my dad and fiance pounced on me.

"What's the big announcement?" and their faces were a bit nervously concerned and exuberant between my dad and fiance, respectively.

"Oh, nothing, we just wanted to play a trick with the dice since we're D&D nerds." Right after I said it, it dawns on me that perhaps they thought we might be announcing that we're pregnant.

"I'm not pregnant, don't worry!" I rush to assure them. My dad's face instantly clears with relief. He really wants me to finish school before kids.

Eventually, all the relatives were gone and it was just my sister, her boy-toy (who's an excellent potato peeler, and received praise for this all night, so much so that it has become a running joke now), the Big B, my dad and fiance.

We celebrated our own little immediate family celebration, wished my dad Happy Birthday (he shares his day of birth with Jesus. I always figured he got screwed as a kid, with cheap relatives telling him 'Here's your Christmas/birthday gift' so we always make sure to celebrate his birthday as well as Christmas) and enjoyed some coffee and conversation.

Then the day was over, and I could finally sit down.

Thinking on it afterwards, I don't know why I was so anxious. It went fine, all the aunts, uncles, cousins and Grandma were proud and happy and everyone brought something to share so in reality I didn't have that much cooking to do at all. My Grandma was so proud, when I asked her to say Grace before eating she told me she couldn't, or she would start crying! which almost made ME cry, because she's a tough lady with all her wits about her still at 89 years old (hooray genetics!).

My aunt gave me a hostess present and she and Grandma both gave me some Christmas-themed platters and bowls so that I would have more for the next time. One of the platters from my aunt were still filled with yummy dessert bars. Nom nom nom....

The next morning we went back to Mom's for a nice brunch before going over to my mother-in-laws.

And I brought my veggie tray from Christmas eve and the dessert tray. The Big B's mom hosts every holiday and doesn't even ask anyone to bring anything, and having just gone through the nerve-wracking experience myself, I figured she'd appreciate the gesture.

Plus I don't need those sinful dessert bars staring at me every day for the next week, tempting me with their sugary goodness.

This got me thinking about what the holidays actually mean, after you scrape off all the commercialization and greed.

Most especially the past few years, when the non-wealthy (read: most of us) are stretching each and every dollar as far as it can possibly go, an economical Christmas could end up being sad or pitiful.

Instead, that holiday magic seems to wrap itself around your soul and people who love each other pull together, doing little things to help each other.

It may just be something as small (yet incredibly important) as a mother soothing a nervous child on taking over adult responsibilities, quietly answering questions, providing recipes, lending various kitchen implements and giving her some veggies to use for her own hosted holiday.

It might be something as thoughtful as giving a hostess gift to a young adult, so her Christmas decoration collection grows that much bigger.

It might be that same young adult becoming wiser and more appreciative of what the mother adults in her life have done to put together a holiday feast for numerous relatives each year. Taking that warmth she felt from all the help given and paying it back to another hosting mom.

No matter how tight the wallets have become, hearts don't have to be.

I'm proud of our economical Christmas. We may have felt that we weren't spending enough on the food or gifts, but when it's all over, the true present is the love you feel, no matter how large or small your holiday was.

This is that elusive spirit they talk about, and I can see why it infects so many people.

I know this is a bit tardy, but after the holiday season is over and the long months of winter loom before us, no holiday in sight until the leaves unfurl again, I feel it's more important than ever to have some warmth to sustain us.

Happy Holidays and New Year, everyone. May the year 2012 bring you all the laughter, love, warmth, hope and happiness you desire.