Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with Caramel

This seemed like a really nice idea. Unfortunately the execution is sub-par. First off, I think the peanut butter should be on the bottom, and the caramel on top, instead of the other way around like it is. Second, the caramel flavor is not my favorite. They're not too messy, which is nice. Some caramel items get all over your face and hands. These can be eaten while walking, which is nice. The caramel just isn't quite right to me--a little too burned-sugar and not enough gooey artificial flavor. What? What do you think I eat candy for?

Overall: B

In other news, I was moron enough to engage in a stupid little discussion on a political-type blog with a smug type who can't seem to wrap himself around the idea that other people might have half a clue more than him. Why do I do it? Why can't I let it go? But I am in quite a mood from it. If you're him: dude, I am much better informed than you are about my own tax filing status and the implications therein.

surprise!

On Saturday morning we went up to Vermont for my cousin's baby shower. We got to meet my cousin JJ for the first time, she is fucking adorable, though she bites:



And there was much cake and disgusting oohing over tiny baby clothes and socks. What is it about those socks, man? they are so cute.




My cousin was really enthusiastic about the baby sling we made her. We tested it out with our eight pound cat so it should work OK for a newborn. Does she look pissed? Because she was pissed.



My cousin's due date is like March 14 or something. I forget. Which gives her plenty of time to pick a name and paint the baby's room and stuff like that. That's why we were surprised and not a little alarmed to wake up to this:



At about 1 in the morning, my cousin had horrible convulsive seizures due to eclampsia. She was taken to the hospital in Burlington and the baby was delivered around three. The kid is fine, though nameless. She is in rougher shape but will be OK. It seems like something that only happens on TV, it was such a shock. We spent the early afternoon at the hospital, where we got to see Nameless Joe but not my cousin, who was drugged and sleeping, as she should be, poor thing.

Holy crap, huh?

stank

how bad must my shoes smell that I can smell them way up here at my head?

and loudly.

Oreo Chocostix

I do love oreos, despite the way the dusty black crumbs adhere to my face, fingers, and shirt, so that someone always says "Have you been eating oreos?" The answer to that question is nearly always yes, by the way. I have usually been eating oreos. For breakfast even.
Today at CVS I saw these Chocostix. The package says "made with REAL chocolate". Even though it also said "wafer sticks", I thought they would kind of be rectangular oreos with a chocolate coating.
Sadly, I must report that they are nothing like that. I should have been warned by the lightness of the package. Oreos are a pretty hefty cookie, but this package was airy light. I am very sorry to say that in the flavor department they are also pretty lightweight. The wafer part was just nothing like the delicious chocolate part of a real oreo. It was like chocolate-flavored packing peanuts. This pathetic texture distracted me from the creamy filling, too, so I couldn't even enjoy that.
All in all, a disappointment.

I give them a D. Steer clear.

this is how crazy

I secretly sort of thought that maybe the agency isn't really quitting the homestudy business, but that they concocted this story and wrote this letter to get rid of us (just us--the rest of the families get to stay in).
it's kind of like when you think that everyone is in on a joke on you and you are left out.
Let's hear it for pathologically insecure solipsism!!
woo!
ugh.

fuckity fuck!

Our homestudy draft still not in our hot little hands, a letter arrives saying that the agency is getting out of the homestudy biz. GREAT! Maybe the social worker hated us so much that she quit. Hell if I know. So here we are! Possibly up a creek! Possibly not so bad. But couldn't she have CALLED to let us know? And how did we pick such a losing horse?

ARRR!

Pirate shirt, same technique as monkey shirt

arrr!!

Not Getting It Trophy goes to...

For not understanding "making a difference", the young man quoted in this article saying "If you want to make a difference, you'd be better off doing something that doesn't interfere with tradition."

People of the world: Please continue interfering with tradition. I thank you for it.

Loony

Marisa posted about breaking up with her best friend. That's a subject near to me, I tell you what. My real life friends glaze over if I get on the topic of the platonic breakup. Yes, I say the same things over and over. I must sound like a whining, broken record. I don't understand, it came out of nowhere, why'd she have to make it ugly, we could have just grown apart. It's a stupid story, in the end. We met in college--she was part of the small circle of friends I managed to cling to, socially awkward and shy as I am. She was a year older and knew a lot about music and drugs and that stuff while I was a babe in arms, seriously underinformed. I thought we were such good friends. I thought I would have done anything for her. She was ill with some undiagnosed mystery illness, and I worried constantly. If it had been a matter of bone marrow or something like that I would have been first in line to donate. Then she stopped calling, stopped taking my calls, turned down all invitations, sometimes rudely. I figured she was just busy or she found me boring. Then, out of the clear blue, an email accusing me of being a bad friend. Never visiting. Never calling. Never caring about her health. I was so wounded. It hurt for a long time. I went back and forth between feeling like a horrible friend and feeling like she was the world's biggest asshole. It was SHE who had been ignoring ME, right?

Now, years later, I realize that from her perspective, I was a bad friend, and from mine, she was too. There's really no way to fix that that I could see. As time passed, I remembered more and more times where she had demanded attention, loyalty, agreement in a not-friendly way. She was just kind of like that. It was great when I was a young stupid college student, looking for guidance from older, wiser heads. It kind of sucked when I got smarter and older myself and she would shake her head wearily at my ideas. From her point of view: I would call to invite her to a party, or out to dinner, never just to talk. I never showed up at her house unexpectedly.

Sometimes I see her in the subway and I hide or walk the other way. I think she must be doing the same thing. If I find an artifact of our friendship somewhere in the house--a photo, something she gave me, a damn mix tape--I swing between wanting to burn it, destroy it, and wanting to keep it safe forever. In that way, it's probably a lot like a romantic breakup. But with a romantic breakup, maybe you can at least feel like it happened because you wanted different things. But with a just-friend? That kind of friendship is supposed to be free of demands like that. There aren't expectations or destinations. You're supposed to just BE friends. Maybe if you have a big fight or disagreement about something, it makes sense to part ways.

I do think I got something from all those years when we were good friends. So there is that.

Maybe they didn't really like him

Maybe this guy was an asshole before, and they're just disappointed to learn he didn't die.

HA

Sassyfemme linked to this site where you can put in a picture of you and it will tell you if you look like a celebrity. I used my office photo (the one used on our company directory) and it said I look like:
Audrey Tatou (thanks, computer thing!)
Elijah Wood (Not so thanks)
Monica Lewinsky (my teeth are NOT like that, thanks very much)
Serena Williams (riiiiiiiight)

It reminds me of the photo booth thing at the arcade that will take two photos of two people and mash them together to make a "child" face. We tried that years ago and oh. my. word. The fake child was a hideous monster!! All we could figure was that because I am so tall, and she is so short, it couldn't line up our faces. The child face had two faces, four eyes, it was all crazy.

Maybe that's the REAL reason we're adopting! Ha!

I looked on the internet for a program that would do the same thing for laughs. Couldn't find one. Let me know if you know of one.

fruity

These are the fruits and vegetables I made for the neighbors' daughter who had her second birthday. I think she liked them OK. There is also a cupcake, because dessert is very, very important.

Meeting Notes: Project Status Meeting, 1/12/06

12:32: Hear sounds of conference call being initiated in conference room. Shit, there's a meeting! I have to be there!
12:33: Sidle in. Last seat available. Faces the window.
12:33: Turn to blank page on legal pad. Uncap pen.
12:34: Recap pen.
12:35: Uncap pen. Recap pen. Uncap pen. Recap pen. Set pen down.
12:37: Aha! Something I can write down! No, wait, it's already printed here on the agenda. Recap pen.
12:38: That building's roof is covered with water. Huh. It hasn't rained in days and days.
12:39: Is that someone on that roof? Nope. Just a plastic bag blowing around.
12:39: Looks windy. The flags on that roof are flapping a lot. Remember that time that they replaced the flags during a meeting? That was a good meeting.
12:40: Glance around the table, try to focus on speaker's voice. What is this meeting about again? Sneak peek at boss' notes. Aha. That thing. I can look smart about that thing.
12:40: Look smart, look smart. Uncap pen.
12:41: There goes a police car, way down there. Hm. Do they look slower from up here? Or maybe it really is going slow? Remember to ask lady when you get home. She knows these things.
12:42: Ooh, and a Police HORSE too.
12:43: Hm. I wonder what they're building over there? Looks big.
12:44: There's a bird drinking the water off that building's roof. Hi bird. Don't do that. That water has either been there a week, or is from some malfunction.
12:45: I guess maybe birds know when water is OK to drink. Like cats.
12:46: Wasn't this meeting supposed to last half an hour? Feels like time is going backwards. God.
12:48: Go over words on paper with pen. Fill in o's, p's, zeros, sixes and nines.
12:49: That building has a roof garden. Wouldn't it be nice to have a roof garden? Except for being afraid of heights. That would be a waste.
12:50: One, two, three...three steeples I can see from here. No, four.
12:51: Is that guy playing sudoku on his palm pilot??
12:52: That's a good idea, I should look into that.
12:54: Okay, I said one thing! My one meeting thing out loud!
12:55: Ok, probably should have said something different.
12:56: Is the meeting over? Time to go?
12:57: God no, they can leave but I can't? What do you mean, they aren't needed? I'm not needed, and here I sit.
12:58: Is the clock just STOPPED?
12:59: Ok, lunchtime, guys. Guys?
1:00: Timetogotimetogo......
1:01: Oh come on. Please? Doesn't someone else have the room signed out now?
1:02: tidy papers. push chair back.
1:03: push chair in again.
1:04: blah, blah, blah. HUNGRY.
1:05: FREEDOM! BLESSED FREEDOM!

Pilgrims crushed

Every year, people are killed like this, but this year seems particularly bad.
It's scary to me to imagine embarking on this journey knowing that it could end with you under the feet of the crowd. And think of all the old ladies and other frail types there...the very ones who are at the tail end of the crowd when sundown approaches, because hello, they walk slower.
In West Africa, people I talked with would say that it was those "big, strong" pilgrims from Indonesia, which seemed funny, because compared to me, the average Indonesian is a wee slip of a thing. Moroccans that I talked with about this also believed the problem to lie with some other, shovier, pushier nationality...Sub-Saharan Africans and Asians, they might say. Ethnic predjudice aside, come on. The problem is that there are so many people, and so small a space, and the deadline...I wonder if this happens as much when hajj is in the summer and there's more daylight?
There's got to be a better way of crowd control...I know the bridge was widened at some point, but someone needs to step up and make some big changes. You shouldn't have to take your life in your hands to fulfill this requirement. It's tough enough already.

Neologist

One word I really always want is a nice simple word meaning the opposite of "favorite".
"Least favorite" is weak, "most hated" is awkward. I want something that's instantly understood.

Another one I need is a single word to express one's envie de pisser as it were. We have good solid words to express other physical needs: thirsty, hungry, even--ahem--horny. Peey? Weey? "Pissy" being already spoken for.

Klutz

My poor right hand will be a claw of scars when I am old. Behold this weekend's injuries:
1: Papercut
2: Hideous blood blister--pinched in folding chair
3: One papercut was not enough
4: Oil-splatter burn (blistered)

incoherent

When I read old posts, they sound strange to me. They sound terrible, actually. A year from now, when I look back to see what I was doing a year ago, I'm going to be surprised by how sloppy my notes are. Sheesh.

We've put out a call for photos to the family, for pictures that we will be using in the "photo album" the agency wants. I still haven't settled on a style or layout for the whole profile. I'm leaning toward having three sections: about both of us, about me, and about her. This lets avoid awkward phrasing like "Shirky loves to make shirts with monkeys on them. We think monkeys are funny." Who's the narrator there? It makes no sense.

The social worker told us not to read other people's profiles, because it would influence ours. Since she gives SUCH good advice, I read a few online. Some are--forgive me--lame. There, I said it! They're lame! And get a haircut, shaggy!!

Ahem.

Some are not so lame, but none of them really sound like anything I would write. (Not incoherent enough, I guess) So we're starting from scratch here. It's slow going but it will get done.

spinny

Monday night I couldn't sleep. For many years I have suspected that I take longer than average to fall asleep. But that night I was still awake hours after getting in bed. I lie there solving problems in my head, going over things, inventing stuff. It would be great, if I weren't so tired in the morning.
So last night, anticipating the same thing, I took an antihistamine (you know...benadryl AKA CVS brand Sleep Aid). I may have slept better, I'm not sure. But this morning when I woke up I was so insane. I could barely stand. I dropped things, stumbled, and my head, filled with helium, whirled around the room. So no more of that. I felt nuts.
Yesterday I made a cool shirt with a monkey face on it. I've been making things lately. Made a bracelet out of old coins from my travels, and a gym bag. And a scarf, which is good because I've lost my usual scarf. I don't know why I'm possessed with the need to make stuff. I'm sure it will wear off soon, so I better get some cool stuff out of it meanwhile.