novimnet

08:23 am: goodnight goose
I went canoeing on the Concord river with Bob and Aimee yesterday! It was a bit chilly out, but we only got cold toward the end, when it got dark. Sometimes you just have to put on your long johns and deal with it, otherwise you're going to be stuck in your house from November until April.

We stopped at one of my favorite thrift stores ever, at St. Anne's Episcopal Church. It's run by a bunch of sweet old ladies who take forever to ring you up, there's two floors of awesome super cheap weird shit. I've been shopping there ever since I could drive!

We packed plenty of provisions... pumpkin spice cupcakes, hot toddies, cider, and tiny sandwiches.


Aimee serving up the hot toddies


two kinds of plaid... what of it?


climbing the observation tower at Great Meadows


Bob and I got in a cat tail fight, which is why I'm covered with white fluff...










We paddled back mostly in the dark. It was a bit brisker than we'd anticipated, but still beautiful.

09:51 am: living fossil


I am holding a gingko leaf, which comes from a tree that looks pretty much the same as it did 270 million years ago. Do read this fascinating plant's Wikipedia page.



I saw Blackheart Procession last night with Terence at the Paradise in Boston. I like a few of the songs but was in general not thrilled by the new record, Six. I liked the show. Here is our rager face:



We are raging so hard! There are less than 40 people here! This show was over by 10:30!

Work has been irritating. I probably spend more of my waking hours with my boss than with my boyfriend. This complicated, intense relationship has been forced on me when all I really wanted was exercise and a paycheck. My eye started twitching again last Friday.

12:14 pm: french tickler


Although I prefer Emeril's light, eggy waffle recipe to Alton Brown's earthier version with whole wheat flour, Alton has him beat in the costume department. For those of you not familiar with the popular Food Network show Good Eats, it involves a lot of puppets, field trips, and hilarious characters such as Lactose Man, the Mad French Chef, and the inspiration for my Halloween costume this year, the Waffler. Eh... just watch the first two minutes of this:



To get sturdy waffles, I intentionally over mixed the batter, then let the waffles sit out in the hallway for a couple of days, then cut them to the shapes I wanted and sprayed with the same clear coating I use on my resin hearts. Breakfast abuse! Then I used a whole shitload of hot glue and stuck them to cardboard backings and then attached them to my costume. I spent about $40 on a mini skirt, utility belt, cheesy polyester cape and knee pads. As far as retarded looking getups go, it was pretty comfortable and even durable- I walked around in the rain on Saturday and only started shedding waffles after midnight. Truly, the most challenging thing about this costume was keeping my kitties from nibbling on it.

On Friday night I went to Scurvy Dog and then Muldowney's with Jeremiah, who was dressed as Max from Where the Wild Things Are. He won $50 somehow and I got wrecked and had to spend most of Saturday watching zombie movies and eating BBQ. Then on Saturday I went to E&O until last call, then joined Chris at his friend's party, which wasn't thrilling but gets an A for the effort put into the haunted house set up in the basement. Halloween, possibly more than any other holiday, should be about DIY'ing it up.

I sold my old station wagon last weekend for $100 and immediately spent all of it at the liquor store. It made me sad to clean out all the garbage, Polaroids, fake flowers and campground maps from the Beast, but maybe it will motivate me to clean up the Volkswagen and make it my own. Does anyone know someone who will make me a giant decal shaped like the letter B?

I tried out a vegan chocolate cake recipe I got on a card at Whole Foods and made these cupcakes... a whole lotta NO. They look fine and rose okay but the flavor was nowhere and they had a weird gummy finish. It pissed me off because I could have just made a vegan version of the chocolate cake I've been making with my mom since I was 5 and it probably would have come out great. Whatever, I still got to use my Halloween sprinkles...





I let Lauren ice the rest. Julian helped. I put the cupcakes out for Chris's rehearsal, protected by this mysterious Pyrex force field I found at a yardsale...



Snuggling with Ricky


another Halloween card


I made this skirt.

11:00 pm: poison pumpkin
I was super sick last week! It freaks out the customers because they know my germy hands have made their sandwiches, mixed their scones, and counted their money and there's not a fucking thing they can do about it. At some point this year, you will be sick. End of story. Chris randomly decided he felt like making a chicken stew this week, so that was pretty great, Brendon was standing by helping him make the roux and telling him when to add everything. It was the best possible thing that could have happened.



On Sunday I decided I was sort of feeling better and that I wanted to carve a pumpkin, so Chris and Lauren joined me for the ride out to Henry Steere Orchard in Smithfield to pick some pumpkins. Picking season for just about everything is coming to an end at this point in time, so my hopes for a nice long hunt through a field of pretty pumpkins were a little flattened when we had to pick them out of a pile. We got three modestly sized pumpkins and a couple of apple cider donuts, then on the way home Chris took Lauren to an open house at the fire station where you get to sit in a fire truck and eat an overcooked cheeseburger while I visited the church bazaar across the street. I love that townie shit.



We came home and did some carving. Julian helped.

04:01 pm: FABULOUS FALL WEEKEND
I spent last weekend at Aimee's very cute new apartment in Salem. Almost every time we're together, Aimee and I make a pact to eat as much fucking garbage as possible, and I believe this past weekend was an unprecedented success.

Saturday: Topsfield. The Topsfield Fair is the country's oldest agricultural fair and while I'm sure they do what they can to keep it fresh, Aimee and I go for the same things every year- pet the goats, admire the produce, ride the Tilt A Whirl, and eat godawful food. I got knishes, apple cider donuts, and a plate of vegetable tempura that totally called me on my shit: I can't eat a pile of fried stuff the size of my head. I just can't.

























On Sunday we woke up early and went to the Todd Farm fleamarket. I found a sifter, a bag of plastic charms, four tiny glass bottles with corks, and two purses, all for under $10. We came back to Aimee's and washed down puff pastry french toast, fried green tomatoes, and bacon with a couple of screwdrivers, then went to Russell Orchards in Ipswich to pick apples.











Our ideal apple picking experience involves taller trees and climbing ladders, but for the most part we liked this farm. They had a nice little store, a hayride, and farm animals to visit, including this huge mean ass pig that weighs over 1,000 pounds:















We went back to Aimee's and started drinking and rolling out puff pastry. We wrapped apple slices in bacon, and made two kinds of apple turnovers, classic cinnamon sugar and crystallized ginger. We felt sick as hell. Mission accomplished.







Still feeling sick as hell on Tuesday, I went up to Boston with my friend Jeremiah to see Alton Brown at Brookline Booksmith. Aimee's husband got me the hookup for tickets to his Q&A at Coolidge Corner a month ago and grabbed me his new book Good Eats: the early years. It was an awesome experience all around! The Q&A was entertaining and the two and a half hour wait in line for the signing was worth it- he signed one of my Blue Heaven pie dishes and my book and took a picture with me. He asked about my fish bone earrings and what does the B stand for and I reassured him that he need not attempt to spell my last name. He was super sweet and in amazing shape and I must say... I like him even more now.





Suckling pigs to rabbits, ice cream men crushed into steam, playing triangular Scrabble with Orthodox Jews, cinnamon rolls made from challah dough. I don't dream when I take ambien during the week and I guess my dreams get backed up.

08:26 am: undertow






Blackened catfish, chicken wings, more pumpkin spice cupcakes. Chris cooked chicken wings for the first time last week and they came out great! Last night I made chicken stock and crystallized ginger.





I want my house to look like the RISD nature lab! And I get excited about fall leaves but then wonder what I can actually use them for. I found a handful of assorted tiny frames at my favorite vacation thrift store, York Community Thrift in Maine supercheap! "Little Belt" shed his face intact, so when Brendon came home from the boat I gave one to him, snakeyface pressed in heartshaped frame:



In their Random Shit For A Dollar section Target has these cool hole punches and I was feeling sorry for myself so I bought a pumpkin and a leaf. Once when I was little, my best friend Brenda-Lee slept over (she slept over almost every weekend, but I never once visited her house) and we spent almost three days making paper doll chains out of construction paper and scotch-taping them to the ceiling in every room of the house. This weekend I am hoping to partially recreate this memory when Aimee and I visit the Topsfield fair, go to the fleamarket at Todd Farm, pick apples, and make more stuff like this:

08:07 pm: the joy of faking


Pumpkin spice cupcakes with maple icing and crushed pecans. I've made this recipe a couple of times and it's a certified Man-Pleaser. I figured out that if you're not going to use the whole can of pumpkin, you can freeze it for a year and it will be fine. Lauren helped ice. We ate all but five out of a half-recipe, I left them out on a plate under a heavy pyrex mixing bowl so that if Brendon was around he would feel welcome to have some. Chris and I came home to find my last Depression glass plate in pieces on the floor and my douchebag cats licking all the icing off five mutilated cupcakes.

Screwing around in my garden... I still have chard, raspberries, and more green tomatoes than I know what to do with. Hopefully I will have brussels sprouts soon and at least a few butternut squash.







When Chris and I go to Trader Joe's we alway get so excited about all the junk food we buy that we end up eating half of it on the way home. Limeade popsicles, Joe-Joe's and milk, orange-flavored gummy pumpkins from France, all fought over in the front seat on the drive back from Warwick. Does anybody else do this or are we just gross?

03:18 pm: dark as demerara
a six dollar bill, an old hair salon, caught in the undertow of paralytic sleep. I asked you to wake me, but we couldn't find each other...


(Martha Stewart Living)

Photo booth sillies from Labor Day weekend in Salisbury Beach





Look, I made some cakes that weren't horribly ugly! My roses are still stupid but I'm doing better. I like doing the 4" cakes because you don't have to ice the sides. People buy them when they've forgotten someone's birthday at the office, or if they're a particularly indulgent parent who doesn't mind if their kid eat something three times the size of a normal cupcake in one sitting.



Aimee got me a lovely cast iron baking pan for my birthday in little shapes, I tried out a new cornbread recipe in it from the new Martha Stewart Living, it tasted alright but every one of the wee breads was a bit raw in the middle. It didn't stop me from eating the whole batch, or Julian from trying to swipe the last one...



I will have to keep looking for a good recipe that shows off the cute shapes of the pan. A couple more photos from the Concord river trip a month ago... Aimee took these. I'm so excited for fall! This weekend I am trying to pull together an apple picking and baking thing, next weekend is the Topsfield fair, and then at some point before it gets too freezing I am trying to get Chris to take a weekend with me in Portland, Maine. Tell me where the fun stuff is in Portland! Or some other nice place in New England, maybe.

Bros before hos, everybody.

11:09 pm: franconian flumes
Camping in the White Mountains! We stayed at Lafayette campground in Franconia state park over Friday and Saturday night.

Campground: not awesome. Charging an additional fee for parties including more than four adults is usual, but we believe charging for more more than two is unreasonable. Aimee was particularly disappointed that the sites were gravel and not pine needles or sand, and although we were lucky and got a relatively secluded spot, most of the sites were much too close together with barely any cover from the neighbors. This place doesn't make the list and next time we are in the area, we will be checking out another spot.

NONETHELESS. The trip was excellent. The weather was great, crispy dry fall days and close to freezing temperatures at night. We had to stop at Walmart so Aimee could get a proper sleeping bag, but there was no spoiled food or bugs. On Saturday we visited a couple of consignment and antique stores, then went canoeing on Echo lake. On Sunday we visited the Polar Caves on the way home, which very satisfactorily meets my criteria for classic, cheesy attraction from the golden age of American tourism. They have deer you can feed, assorted ducks, peacocks and pheasants, a fake maple syrup farm, and a rock garden where Aimee stole fistfuls of moss for her terrarium projects.

Patni having some breakfast


Aimee and I ate a pound and a half of bacon over the weekend.




rt. 93






planting a flag on an island in Echo Lake




BBQ ribs!


this looks retarded but it feels really awesome




Patni has a mouthful of whiskey






feeding a bastardy deer






rock garden










large sap!


Ladyscouts fern


More photos at Aimee's flickr and my flickr (just ditched my novimnet space and bought a pro account)

08:03 pm: Hello again
Chris has been on tour since August 15th. He came home for less than 20 hours yesterday, and although it was very nice to see him, he did a couple of things that really hurt my feelings and made me feel stupid for making a special trip to Trader Joe's to get him his favorite cereal. I love him dearly and would do anything for him, but I wish he would stop taking that for granted. He will be home for good in a couple of days and I'm looking forward to things being better.

Here's what I've been up to:

Finished my Wilton class! All my cakes came out hideously ugly and having to make icing with meringue powder filled me with rage, but I did learn to make a rose. Hurray.





Patni and I went camping in Pittsfield State Forest. It was not necessarily a great trip, but it was interesting- we called the state police on creepy neighbors, got drunk in the tent and played Monopoly, and got lost several times on the way to Wahconah Falls. As the rain we'd been putting up with for the entire weekend turned into a downpour, we sat in the car trying to decide to stay or go and finally, said "fuck it", donned fashionable black trashbags, and decamped in record time. We treated ourselves to greasy pan-Asian cuisine and a scorpion bowl in Lenox, I got a mild case of food poisoning while staring down a three hour drive back to Providence. We spent the next day hosing off our equipment and lying around in our underpants watching Reno 911.









Um, well of course there were shirtless underage boys...










adorable kitty at the convenience store near my house


decadent breakfast! puff pastry french toast with wild raspberries + fried green tomatoes


I spent over a week intensely prepping food for my birthday party, and it was a great success! My blackberry tarts came out soggy and the pinata did not explode as gloriously as I'd hoped, but I got nice presents, met some people from the internet, and matched the decor nicely.

























































The next day I left for Ogunquit with my mom. There was like, a fucking hurricane happening while we were there, but we still visited thrift stores and went out to dinner. There isn't much to be said about Ogunquit as it basically never changes. Beautiful gardens at the Sparhawk, champagne, my favorite New England beach, marzipan.













On my actual birthday I went to the zoo and then got bee boong at Apsara.

enchanted toadstool princess douchebag


they had real elephants too, I swear


what kind of an asshole came up with this thing?


Labor day weekend, Saturday night! Hot date with Aimee in Salisbury beach. We ate fried food, drank tequila sunrises, played skeeball, watched fireworks, and spent more money on the photo booth than on anything else.

















Last night I went to Patni's fashion show and wine tasting fundrasier! She is flying to San Francisco in October to run a marathon to benefit the leukemia/lymphoma foundation and she has to raise a few grand to enter. The crowd was about half Garment District people, which is always a little bit fun and a little bit horribly awkward. Terence agreed to be my date at even wore a suit! Everybody looked amazing.





Could she possibly be more fabulous?


Nefertiti's "Vixious"


Eddie Kent's last show!


Her fundraising page is here, if you want to help!

September 18-20: camping at Franconia Notch state forest, NH
October 10: Topsfield Fair
October 13th: Alton Brown at Brookline Booksmith
??? apple picking

NOM!

09:23 pm: but the dream lives on!
R.I.P. Mayor Quimby.

09:01 pm: Gotta keep on top of my life, gotta keep on top of my life.
Lost teeth growing back, doors that won't lock, a beautiful blind woman. Disastrous weather for Chris's tour, tornadoes, floods and blizzards, I can only hope that this is a reflection of my anxieties and not one of those weird instances where, despite totally not believing in that shit, my dreams predict the fucking future. I think he may have neglected to bring a sweater.

Retarded shit my cats have done lately:

- ate half of my silicone pastry brush
- barfed and then proceeded to fight over who got to eat said barf
- tried to get into the tub with me
- somehow got turquoise icing on their fur

I have purchased a jug of Cuervo for general troublemaking purposes during the next couple of weeks. I have applied an expiration date of August 31. I have already started prepping food. I decided against champagne because I remembered at Aimee's wedding there was a champagne toast and nobody wanted any, so she handed me the bottle and I drank it all by myself, gave her husband a hard time and then passed out in her bed at 10 pm. I have mailed out my invitations:





Potential menu, almost entirely vegan:

- hot pepper sesame peanuts
- harvest pot pie puff pastries
- stuffed mushrooms
- mini pecan/blackberry pies
- gingerbread and chocolate cookies
- fruit plate, probably watermelon
- tequila shots with lime slices

I might do chips and salsa just so I can use my stupid chip 'n dip plate.



My cake for Wilton class, being nibbled on by my dumb cat. This is what it's supposed to look like. I wasn't psyched about having to make a cake with a rainbow on it, so I took it upon myself to pick stupid colors and recycle as much as my practice icing as possible. I think it qualifies as a certified Cake Wreck! I'm mostly have a good time with the class, but my issues are 1) they make you buy SO MUCH shit! Luckily I can borrow some things from work, like a turntable. and 2) their techniques are for the most part not practical for food service use- no professional baker I know smoothes their cakes with paper towels, or keeps three different consistencies of icing on hand.

Ok, bon weekend, bitches!

07:36 pm: adrift


Canoeing yesterday with Sela and Aimee: first trip of the season, and it couldn't have been more perfect. The weather was gorgeous and after wrangling the canoe onto the roof of my car (I sprang for a couple of $8 "roof racks" aka self adhesive pipe insulators ), we put in just about as everyone else was beginning to leave the river. Aimee brought lemonade and ice-tea flavored vodka, I brought tiny sandwiches (white bean, cucumber and tomato; turkey, bacon and avocado; peanut butter and apple) and sangria, and Sela made us these amazing little desserts out of almond-ginger cookies, chocolate peanut butter and peaches:





















While I was waiting for Sela and Aimee to arrive I picked blackberries behind my mom's house. I was a little worried that the wonky weather would ruin the crops, but they're just a little late this year, still perfectly enormous and juicy! By now I'm sure you all know that if there's an attractive homemade pie in the vicinity, my attention will not be elsewhere- but blackberry pie is what I hold out and occasionally even dream about all year long.



Chris and I had my birthday dinner early, at Louie Fuller's, because he will be away. I would like to think that he will remember to call me on my birthday. I am not particularly confident that he can get through the process of buying a postcard, writing a message, addressing it properly and affixing a stamp. Oh, well. I had the rendered duck breast, which tasted like bacon and came with caramelized onions and baby arugula; he had barbeque wild boar. Everything was lovely, and not like anything it would have been sensible to make at home. We had been a bit disappointed by our sampler platter a couple weeks ago at WB Cody's BBQ in Westerly when we decided that we probably have done it all better, armed with our new copy of Alton Brown's I'm Just Here For The Food.

I got new glasses after a goddamn three week wait:



THX MASSHEALTH. I blame you for most of my problems.

07:23 pm: learning to lie to you better


I'm using my new job as an opportunity to pretend I'm someone completely different. Never before in my life have I responded to the question "Hello, how are you?" with "Excellent, how are you?" when asked by a customer, but some sad desperate need for approval has developed that makes me want to be that nice girl at the bakery that dresses like a grandma and makes those apple-cinnamon scones you love. I talk to people in stores more often now and try to take advantage of inconsequential social interactions with strangers to practice tricking people into thinking I am a normal, decent person. I am going to make Newport my town, I've started scoping out trashy Asian restaurants with liquor licenses and dive bars where I can get hammered at three in the afternoon. I'm building up a healthy layer of denial. Everything is fine. Really.

I can't believe how busy I am! I have all these little things I do at night to expedite my 4:45 AM's, like dishing out catfood, prepping my omelette pan with chopped vegetables and laying out my clothes for the next morning. I stopped waiting up for Chris. After everything is done, I light candles in the living room and have a drink while I wait for the Ambien to kick in, it's best when it is about to rain and the wind blows through the windows, threatening to set my ugly-ass curtains on fire. Sometimes when I watch Lauren and her father is out at rehearsals or at the bar with his friends, she comes to bother me at 10 or 11, occasionally crying, asking when is daddy coming home? I tell her you could spend your whole goddamn life waiting for a man to come home.

Julian bit the shit out of my finger on Monday, I was trying to wrestle a cheese sandwich he had stolen from Chris away from him but it was crusty bread and he had a really good hold on it! I asked my mom what I should do because it was slightly infected, and when I told her I was waiting until the next day to go to the ER, she messaged Chris on facebook and told him to make me see a doctor right away. Then she called me at work and told me I could lose my finger. WTF, mom?

I'm planning my birthday party, I'm sending out invites soon! Here is a list of things there will be:

- tequila shots
- champagne toast
- vegan/vegetarian hors d'oeuvres
- cheesy party games
- YOU, hopefully

Please email me your address at dentedcanoe@gmail.com for a fancy invitation! As usual, please consider the time and effort that it takes to schlep out to Allston your present to me, and don't stress about buying me anything!

07:53 am: into the thorns
My new job at the bakery has been pretty great. Two people quit last week so I asked for my review early, I got a raise and was offered full time work, 6-2, Monday through Friday. Weekends off! Exciting! Friday will be my last day at Gourmet, they were very understanding about me leaving and told me to come back anytime...

My boss worries me a bit though, she's a nice enough person but she spends too much time at the bakery and the cracks are beginning to show. She has a hard time prioritizing, so she'll ask me to make muffins and then in the middle of that ask me to make coffee or boil her pastry bag tips or frost cupcakes. You have to find little ways of dealing with these kinds of people, one thing I have found helps is if I just tell her what I'm going to do. "I'm going to put the croissants out, make ice and then work on the scones, ok?" "Perfect!" Hopefully my obsessive organization will be just what she needs.

It has been a good year for berries. My gooseberry pie did not come out so lovely (sour and soggy), but Robyn and I visited Lincoln Woods and picked about two gallons of raspberries and then went swimming. Yesterday I went to a croquet party at Eddie Kent's house and made this vegan raspberry-ginger tart:





I kind of just made it up, it's a basic pie crust with a layer of the eggless cake from the Alton Brown upside-down cakes (I couldn't use a custard or frangipane because of the eggs), then a layer of icing laced with powdered crystallized ginger mixed in to act as a "glue" for the berries, then a corn syrup, water and brandy glaze, then a fine dusting of 6x sugar and more powdered crystallized ginger. It was my first time making a tart, overall I am really happy with how it came out, but I wanted to taste a bit more ginger in it.

The party was lovely, Eddie Kent is an old friend from the Garment District who does the window displays there and lives in an adorable house in Taunton with his husband. I got tipsy and ate three hotdogs, then played croquet and got my ass kicked by a ten year old. Patni, Rebecca and I all showed up dressed alike:















Julian tried to climb up onto the counter while I was dishing out the food... he ended up on the floor with cat food all over himself. Since he has proven time and again that he is incapable of cleaning himself properly (we nicknamed him Dirty Bird), he got a bath.





My Wilton cake decorating classes start this Wednesday! Also, potential Ladyscouts schedule for the next month and a half:

August 21, 22, 23 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday): camping in Western Mass
August 28 (Friday): birthday party at Terence's house; food, booze, juvenile party games
August 29-30 (Saturday + Sunday night): getting drunk in Ogunquit with my mom
August 31 (Monday): My birthday... no plans yet
September 5 (Saturday): Salisbury beach; tequila, skeeball, kareoke, fried food
September 12 (Saturday): Patni's fundraiser fashion show
September 18, 29, 20 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday): camping in New Hampshire

08:37 pm: cucurbita pepo


I do still have two kitties, but Julian is more hilarious so he gets in pictures more.

After my godawful gigs at the Shrine and Cuban Revolution, I'm afraid to get excited about it, but I got a job! Paula, the woman I used to drive to work in Framingham, left her job there, found an apartment in Middletown, and got a job at the Mad Hatter bakery in Newport. I was a little bit jealous, so I asked her to think of me if she heard of any other openings there. I emailed her a week later and she told me the job was too hard, the owner had made her cry and she quit after a few days and became a hotel maid at Howard Johnson. The next day I had a delivery in Newport for Gourmet, so I stopped in at the bakery with a copy of my resume and got hired on the spot. Uniform-free, weekends off, artistic freedom, and days that start at 4:45 AM. This is my new life.

I grew some weird carrots:



I didn't plant any of these but I decided they are mine:



In an attempt to remind Chris that we are not brother and sister, I am trying to plan a Romantic Getaway for us this weekend in Vermont. I have never been to Vermont before, so tell me where the cool places are! I'm thinking about camping at Woodford State Park and canoeing in either the Sherman or Harriman reservoir... and I want to hike somewhere with either a waterfall or mountains.

For some reason, I bought a gallon of molasses the last time I was at Restaurant Depot, so tonight we made these awesome pork chops. We get so obsessed with Alton Brown's recipes, it's ridiculous.

Inexplicably, here is a picture of me stroking an emu:

09:05 pm: trouble, thy name is...
I got wrecked drinking sangria in Boston last night in the parking lot behind Church

then I went to Shaw's to steal some soup, but they didn't have any

so I shoplifted an entire rotisserie chicken and a pan of cornbread.

I am aware of how totally retarded all of this sounds, so I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I am only posting this because of Aimee.

07:24 pm: through sun and wine
I think I may have a job? I am cautiously optimistic, since I have landed a couple of somewhat deplorable positions since April and this could very well end up being equally horrible. It's at the Mad Hatter bakery in Newport, and while I'm pretty happy to be working at a bakery again I am aware that getting up at four in the morning may completely ruin my life. Hopefully when Chris gets a job his hours will not be completely opposite. Even though he is always around, I don't feel like I see much of him...

I grew a couple of rude-looking summer squashes:





I think Ricky will be ok. I checked out the split in his mouth and it seems to be healing over. He is definitely a different cat now though... he has mellowed significantly.

I got a book about Jewish folklore at the library the other day, it was literally the first book I saw on the shelf when I was waiting for a computer to print out my Rasoi coupon. I like the stories about Joseph the Golem. There's a lot of shoving people in sacks and girls getting stolen away and people lying to each other about ridiculous crap. And like dude, a mute zombie slave made out of dirt. You know this is a porno waiting to happen (you know I just Googled "golem porn" to see if it already has).

P.S. It's Bastille day. Va te faire foutre.

P.S.S. I will be at the Homegrown fest at Church of Boston (near Fenway) on Thursday... come hang out and do shots in the back of a VW Golf with me.

10:43 am: split rip kittymouth


Me and my carload of dirty socks drove up to Tewksbury yesterday, mainly to retrieve Ricky and Julian sans balls but also to do eight loads of laundry and screw around in the woods out back. The air was sweet and damp. I discovered five or six patches of blueberries and came home with just enough for a pie. I stayed until past midnight waiting for the dryer, while I was sitting around I responded to about fifteen ads on craigslist, including one for Old Navy that quizzes you on cargo pants and appropriate sportswear combinations.



When I got back from work this morning and started putting away dishes, Julian was pestering me- alone. I couldn't find Ricky and felt my stomach drop when I saw the window open in the bathroom and the corner of the screen dislodged. He'd snuck out before the same way about a month ago, but had walked around the roof and turned up unharmed in the hallway. He wasn't so lucky this time. I walked around outside banging their dishes together- always a sure bet to round up the boys- and he emerged from under a bush with a bloody nose.

I rushed him to City Kitty and they determined that he somehow managed to take a hit to the face- his nose was swollen and the roof of his mouth had split right in half. I unfortunately had to decline xrays. They gave him injections for the pain and swelling and said that he would likely heal on his own, and if not, they could stitch him up on his followup appointment. He is laying low at home now, remnants of dried blood crusted on his nose, breathing fine, which is the biggest concern.

I am really angry this happened. Everybody was home when he snuck out the first time, and everybody was also home when Minou died THE SAME EXACT FUCKING WAY. I asked everybody in the house to be more careful with the windows because it is both heartbreaking and obscenely expensive when kitties get hurt, and somehow I still come out looking like the asshole. I know that these were accidents. I forgive Chris and Brendon for being careless because I want us all to have a good relationship as housemates and because I like them, but I really don't know what I will do if Ricky doesn't pull through. I can't handle any more bad news.

P.S. My glasses just snapped in half

03:06 pm: twister!
Before she left my former roommate planted a Pixwell gooseberry bush in the garden, months ago it began producing hard, sour little green berries; tasting them was not completely unlike licking a spatula covered with melted unsweetened chocolate (shut up). Only recently have they begun to soften and develop a reddish blush, a Google search turns up conflicting opinions as to when veiny little bastards actually become ripe enough to stop tasting like floor. At the moment they taste like sort of disappointing grapes.



A lot of the medical buildings I deliver to for Gourmet look exactly alike, and even if I've been there before I frequently have to ask the receptionist to point me in the direction of the kitchen or conference room so I can set up the food. There are a few, however, that stand out- the one with a hallway painted with a mural of dogs seated at a Parisian cafe, the one with wood panelling and vinyl furniture from the 70's, waiting rooms with particularly spectacular aquariums, and oh yeah the one in Johnston with the scary steampunk stair-chair...



Unfortunately it looks like you need a key to use it, but I would really like to know how old it is. And possibly have a scandalous picture taken while riding in it.

I was talking to someone about phases and decided that at the moment I am calling my aesthetic "horny 4H girl". This of course involves a lot of plaid, vintage prints, braids, clovers, baking and phallic vegetables. Inspirations include the Lost Girls, family photo albums and the Topsfield Fair.