Fooddities

The words Food and Oddities should meld together seamlessly, but when you put them together it just doesn't look or sound quite right. Well, neither does this next picture:

I seem to be missing a key component from my peanut butter cup. Just for a lark I think I might email this picture to the Reese's company to see what their response is. It would be hilarious if they sent me a single mini Reese's cup to replace this one.

On a lighter note, I recently baked a very happy batch of blueberry muffins.

Remember the days?

Remember when a chemistry set was the cool gift for an aspiring science geek? Maybe a microscope with some prepared slides? We've come a long way baby:

Now we have Genetics & DNA Experiment Kits, for Biological Inheritance and Genetic Engineering - ages 10 and up! I have no idea what's in the box, but damn, what an exciting toy. It was right next to the Forensics & Fingerprinting kit. Combine those and your kids will have a CSI station set up in the living room that afternoon. Of course, who has to play Hodges in the lab, and who gets to be Warrick with the black fingerprint powder that gets everywhere? I wonder if it includes a tube of Superglue for vapor fingerprint collection, or would that be bad for the target age group?

MDSW Roundup

I had such a good time at Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival (MDSW).  I stopped for amazingly good donuts on the way up.  I also stopped by a MAC store (no, not the Apple store, although they are side by side at that particular mall) and picked up a new ridiculous shade of bright blue/purple eyeshadow.  They still don't have a good green, but did find an emerald green cream eye pencil that will do nicely.  My rainbow is nearly complete! 

As I drove up my brother's street I saw several people having fun painting a pull-behind trailer.  I wondered about it, then realized it was parked in my brother's driveway!  I did a quick U-turn, grabbed the donuts, and walked up to join in.  A few hours of paint and turpentine fumes later, check out the awesomeness they will be hauling across the country. 

We cleaned the paint off ourselves as best as we could (fingernail beds are apparently a permanent paint location) and had tasty sushi for dinner.  I've never been so full from sushi before that I thought I might burst.  Well, there were bento box goodies and ice cream too.  Mmm...mango, red bean, ginger, green tea, mochi...why do Americans only believe in chocolate and more chocolate?  Thankfully the filling dinner saved the donuts so we were able to slice them up into little wedges and enjoy them with our otherwise healthy breakfast of eggs, turkey bacon, turkey sausage, and oatmeal-applesauce pancakes.  Sure, they roll out the healthy goodness, and my contributions are donuts and mimosas.

It was a fun drive up to MDSW, until the last couple miles that added nearly an hour onto our travel time.  Gads they needed a cop at the intersection!  Once we got near enough we all piled out of the van and started walking to the festival rather than sit in traffic anymore (Thanks Daven!).  Ever had a dandelion fight?  It's really fun, although hard to attack someone if you have to run up to catch them.  Here we are at the climax of our battle - I wish the camera captured the cloud of dandelion fluff we're standing in.  I also learned a dandelion in the ear is shriek-worthy no matter who the victim is. 

I haven't been to MDSW in 8 years or so.  It was great, but less overwhelming than it felt back in those days.  I think I've learned so much in the intervening years I don't need to see/touch/do everything (oops, I mistyped 'everyone' at first).  I did learn a few things that are handy. 
1. Kilts are great as they totally replace a shoulder bag or purse and leave your hands completely free.  I wasn't sure about it at first (my brother handed out kilts left and right when we were all leaving that morning) but by the end of the day I was glad to have it.  Seriously, I had my wallet, camera, phone, notepad, pen, and snack in my pockets and then clipped all my purchases into the convenient belt clip.  There were quite a lot of kilt wearers there that day, which brought questions from some confused folks who thought we were in a dance troupe or something.
2. Golding Ring Spindles really do spin longer than any other, and are totally gorgeous.  But after using them I lost my decade-old desire to have one.  All the extra spin time is meaningless since you have to stop once you near the ground.  And the shafts are kind of tacky feeling.  It might have been because of the heat melting the wood wax, but they had a feel reminiscent of the Mongolian Grill wooden platters you put your bowl on.  It's kind of like losing a crush.

Oh, you'd rather see the haul of stuff I bought?  Special thanks to my husband for demanding that I buy whatever I wanted.  Here's the pretty yarns:

Top: Mountain Colors sock yarn.
Left to Right: Zauberball laceweight, 2 balls of Mini Mochi for alternate colorway striping, 2 skeins of Claudia's Handpaint for striped socks, maybe the Jaywalker Pattern.
I didn't photograph the blue faced leicester wools, since a camera can't capture the feel of them.  I also got a supremely awesome pendant I'll post later.

We stayed to the end of the festival and by that point were trudging along after a day of dizzingly hot weather.  I knew how hot it was when I realized I'd drank 3 quart-sized lemonades and a bottle of water and never had to pee.  Here's part of our band heading out.

I'm so glad I got to go with such a fun group of people.  Maybe we can all meet at Estes one year...

A childhood dream realized

I remember being a kid and seeing Badge-A-Minit ads on TV. Oh, did I want one! I knew it would be the most awesome thing ever if only I could get one. But they were stupidly expensive for a kid, and I didn't get one. When I was in high school I again thought it would be great fun to have, but even with my own money they were still stupidly expensive and I did without. Now that I'm an adult, I again wished I had a B-A-M, decided to buy one, and went to the website. Wow. They're still stupidly expensive. Sure I'd pay 30 bucks now, but 70?? No wonder I never bought one in all the decades I've wanted it. I was telling a friend about my lifelong Badge-A-Minit dream and she opened the website on a whim. Damn if they weren't having a sale on them - the same price they were in 1988! Finally within my justification price range! I ordered it right then and there.

It's a bunch of rainbow color-coded rings and a hand press made out of a sturdy fiberglass-like plastic that reminds me of these weird chunky alphabet blocks we had as kids. The blocks were about twice as big as the classic wooden letter blocks, and hurt like hell if you threw one at someone. I have a imprinted memory of what it feels like to be clipped on the side of the head by one. I think it was yellow.
Anyway, in honor of the 2010 blizzard, I made a pin using my new B-A-M. It's a snowman sledding and he's completely filled with joy. Arms outstretched, heart lifted, smile literally ringing his face. I'm wearing it to work tomorrow.

Ale tasting

My parents came down for a visit and I thought it'd be fun to have an eclectic mix of beers for me and Dad to share. He said he likes brown ales so I went to the local wine shop and told the manager what style I wanted. It was great being led around the extensive beer section having him pull bottles off the shelf explaining why each choice was special. He pulled a Dogfish Head ale down and I commented that I didn't really care for DFH beers. He seemed stunned, knowing that my tastes are similar to his, and said DFH is his favorite brewery. He handed me a bottle, saying I needed to taste it. He saw my hesitation and dragged me over to the counter to open it, saying I *had* to try it. He poured us each a healthy dollop to drink. It was pretty good, and I promised I'd give the brewery another try. So here's the array I ended up with. My favorite was the Boont amber ale. Dad & I had a fun time working our way through the lineup over their visit. They were all very different, and a few times we traded glasses after tasting each other's choices. Best of all, they're about 1/4 the cost of my normal Belgian ales. I'm pretty sure I'll be doing a similar style-tasting in the future for other varieties. Anyone want to join me?

Waiting at the crossroads

In my quest to pack up as much as I can, I'm going through all my old stuff sorting it into keep-sell-donate piles. And I find myself spending quite a lot of time playing with all the things I've saved over the years. I still have my sticker album and spent a while looking through all the collected stickers from my childhood. I was amazed how many distinct memories the stickers brought up, and how oddly fun it is to peel them off their backing and stick them down somewhere. Can you still buy stickers? I may need to buy some more.

I also have my favorite kid book that I made my mom read me every single night. Over and over, until I had it memorized and knew if she tried to skip a page to shorten the agony of reading the same book yet again. I can still quote about the first two thirds of the book. Given that it's a progressive repeating book, that's saying a lot. I wonder if my parents still have it seared in their memories too. "Big. big brown. big brown bear. big brown bear blue bull. big brown bear blue bull beautiful baboon..."
I'm willing to bet money they do. Never did figure out why the baboon was dressed in a tutu and pointe shoes.

Wanna guess how long it took me to pack the box containing these items and the rest of that shelf? Good thing I have a month to go.

Jewelry - nom nom nom

So the Pub has these fabulous onion rings. The kind that even people who don't like rings will devour. Reminds me of this restaurant my parents used to take us to as little kids. I feel like we went there somewhat often, but all I remember are 3 things: Dipping lemon wedges in sugar packets when we were getting fussy because the food was late (How cool Mom was for teaching us that!). Peeling the bubbly cheese off the outside of bowls of french onion soup. And the onion rings. I didn't like the onion itself so would break the ring and pull out the wriggly onion and put it on Mom's plate, then eat the savory crispy batter. The Pub's rings are like that, but I'm happy I enjoy the onion part now as well. In fact I always root around in the basket for the endcaps that have a high onion ratio. Juicy, sweet, crunchy, soft inside - so fantastic. One night the onions they used were particularly large, and turned into Oniony Bangles. I wore them a few minutes, then the silly got a hold of me and it came time to eat them. Cell phone photography in a dark bar - Brilliant!

25 things - cheating post

Ok, I'm finally back online. I've come to terms that it is ok to crate the puppy while I'm home to get a bit of time free from chasing her around worrying if she's about to pee. We started puppy obedience classes and the teacher said that the dog should be crated any time you're not able to keep an eye on her. Even an hour free from that makes such a difference. Alas, I haven't had the time to corral my thoughts into any interesting blog posts. So I'm going to cheat and steal the 25 Things meme that's going around Facebook. You had to post 25 things about yourself, I went for the completely random and useless route:

1. My hair was straight until chemo made it curly.
2. I love thick Belgian ales - tripels and such.
3. I'm a dog person - no cats, no kids
4. If I get to the gym at 6am I consider that late
5. I used to dye my forelock blue, and am seriously considering doing it again.
6. I love the Harry Potter & Little House on the Prairie book series
7. I love trail running with my dog.
8. I knit at stoplights
9. My favorite constellation is the Pleiades
10. I can only sing in tune if I impersonate a cartoon character (Cartman & Homestar are great)
11. I love my family so much it sometimes makes me cry
12. Metallica is the best concert I've ever been to
13. Leeks are my favorite above-ground vegetable
14. Sweet potatoes are my favorite underground vegetable
15. I have a pair of socks I knit with wool from a sheep I helped shear instead of going to my graduation ceremony from graduate school
16. I can cross and uncross my eyes individually
17. I enjoy camping without any modern equipment, even a tent.
18. I would love to visit Colorado
19. A major goal in my life is to have a perpetually tidy house, but it seems contrary to the lifestyle I enjoy living.
20. I obsessively can (put up) food during the summertime. Especially unusual things like pickled fruits.
21. I rarely eat food at the correct temperature - cold beef stew & room temp water work great for me.
22. I was less than 30 feet from Obama during his speech at the Roanoke rally.
23. I usually remember things the first time I hear them
24. My only irrational fear is of falling
25. My toenails are nearly always blue.

No catchy title, just good fun

My sister-in-law just came for a visit (well, my brother was there too, but she & I went off on our own). We had a delightful time starting at the local wine shop for their weekly tasting and buying some rare & unusual wines with my brother. He met up with an old friend there and we went our separate ways. Our next stop was to the local donut shop (a request from my bro) to pick up some stunningly fabulous donuts. Not even sure how to accurately describe how wonderful they are - small batch, freshly made, soft inside with a crisp tooth on the outside, worth breaking any diet for.

Then on to the local yarn store, where we sat on the floor pulling together colors for our next 2-row projects. We unconsciously were holding the potential yarn balls the same way, and laughed when we saw the result. I think she got the one on her thumb in the end. I found a perfect colorway combination, but the yarn was just a bit crispier than I'd like so I talked myself out of it in the end. The women are not very welcoming at this shop, so we left and went next door to Starbucks (stopping by the car to pick up a donut) to knit and chat. I think we spent a couple hours there. The conversation was great and it was neat that we were working on essentially the same project in different colorways-you can see my scarf below. When are they going to invent teleporters so we can get together on a regular basis for craft-chatting?We got the crazy idea to go back home and dye some self-striping yarn ourselves, since I didn't get any at the shop. I do this regularly so it's not that crazy, just the spontenaity (good god that doesn't look spelled right) that made it seem so. We haul out my warped warping board and begin winding the yarn to prep for dyeing. She was an extremely helpful assistant during the winding process. After we finished we talked about what colors we wanted, and neither of us were definite about anything. So we bundled it all away for future use and went out to dinner with the guys. We already have too many plans for the next time we see each other (in a few weeks!).

A departure from the ordinary

After being turned on to Panacea81's fabulous makeup tutorials on youtube, I've had fun experimenting with different looks. She does such a great job guiding through eye makeup applications (including celebrity looks) that you quickly gain the confidence to do your own. I first got comfortable with black/brown smoky eyes - a "natural" look for parties and such. Then I went out and got a bizarre color palette for bellydance makeup, including screaming electric blue, fishscale green, purple, and white. Here's my first trial, although the colors are even more vibrant in person. I may need to try different lighting for the photos. It's also very hard to photograph your own eye, I wish I was looking the other way. Still, it gives you an idea of what I'm doing with some of my free time nowadays. Never thought I'd see the day where I not only wore a ton of blue eyeshadow, but actually posted photos of it online. But it's loads of fun, and I'm quite pleased with the eyeliner too. Now I just need some long feathery false eyelashes and I'll be good to go. Heh, this is totally ridiculous compared to my normal level of makeup. Wonder if I'll ever have reason to wear it outside of a performance?