KISS

Keep it super simple. What’s with these recipes lately? If I see a list of ingredients that go on like freaking War & Peace, and/or obscure items like lavender feather sage gathered at midnight under a full moon on the edge of the fairy cove, I’m gonna pass.

I actually have very childish food prefs, which is why I’ll make a great grandma. I love macaroni and cheese, first of all. It’s like the best thing ever. Put veggies in it, or not, I don’t care. Actually, I love it with mushrooms and green beans. Once I made it with tomatoes and that was delicious.

Pizza is fab food too. And I’m not a purist: I’ll take NY or Chicago, or even that weird cornbread crust stuff up in San Francisco. Don’t roll your eyes ~ it’s yummy!

PB&J? Bring it on. Peanut butter cookies are the best ~ I give ’em an edge over choc chip. Yep. My friend Peggy has the best PBC recipe in her cookbook, which hopefully she will post the link to in comments. But all cookies are good and brownies too.

Tacos. Spaghetti. Egg salad. Grilled cheese! I do not need fancy food. But I will try new recipes if they aren’t ridiculous.

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MP7&8: Two for Tuesday

No, that’s not the name of the movie! I saw two flicks last weekend and I’m gonna tell you about them in this poast. No spoilers, relax.

1. The Cakemaker. Saturday I saw this film alone because none of my friends were interested, boo hoo. Actually, I don’t mind seeing movies alone, so no biggie. This is an Israeli movie, and the credits are in Hebrew, plus some subtitles. So, if this bugs you, be aware. It also has some gay lurve scenes, not super graphic, but even so ~ this might bother some sqeamish types. Though idk why they’d be reading my blog. Anyway. I liked this movie a lot. It was a very well-crafted relationship drama, involving multiple relationships. To really grok what’s going on in the second half, it’s helpful to understand Kosher rules. You don’t have to though. Ultimately, it’s a sad movie, exploring grief and loss. Simple really, yet layered, like a cake. And there are cakes. Cookies too.

2. Three Identical Strangers. Saw this on Sunday with two friends. It’s hard to say much about this film without giving away any of the suspense, but I will say that it was extremely disturbing. My friends agree. It doesn’t seem like it would be upsetting from the brief ads, or even from the first third of the film itself, but it takes one twist and then another and another and bam! You’re left a bit shocked and definitely sad. Oh, and it’s not really a movie as much as a documentary, which I didn’t know and might not have gone if I had. Remember, I like movies to entertain me, not Wikipedia me. But I must admit I found TIS fascinating, so maybe I should be more open-minded toward docus going forward. My friends and I concur that TIS could have been cut in length ~ too much irrelevant and repetitive jabber.

Alrighty then. After these two good but downer flicks, I am ready for a fun movie! Where’s Mamma Mia playing?!

It’s Migraine Awareness Month!

Good thing I opened this reminder email to be aware of migraines as I literally just took a sumatriptan. Hah.

I haven’t done much migraine bloggery lately because nothing much has changed. I’m still suffering constantly and the pain greatly impacts my life. As my fellow migraineurs know, it’s not only the actual days of pain that ruin events, but the fear of pain and the avoidance of triggers which make us just as anxious, not to mention the side effects of any meds. We don’t drink or smoke, and we avoid loud crowded places, travel, perfume, bright sun, cold wind, etc. We try to stick to routines as best we can. I don’t need a bunch of suggestions in comments ~ I’ve been on top of migraine news for decades, have read all the ideas of things to try and give up, have tried many, and if I haven’t tried something there’s a good reason for it.

Right now, I’m on a low-carb diet, just to see what happens with respect to migraines. I was optimistic at first, but now I’m back to “normal” with a 3-day horrible wave of pain. I like the diet though in general. It feels good to eat meat again (sorry cows) and I’ve been tired of my habits for a while. Obviously sugar is bad, and my lazy way of eating wasn’t healthy (cookies for dinner!), even if I didn’t gain weight. It’s great to have salad and avos daily, cheese, nuts (in moderation), lox, etc. I haven’t actually eaten much meat ~ one small steak so far and a small bowl of beef soup. Mostly I have salad with a little chicken on top, and I eat eggs frequently. I’ve been doing this for around two weeks, though more seriously for this last week.

The problem with the diet overall is nausea. Besides laziness, one of the reasons I ate so many carbiful meals was not only because they were yummy but also they were gentle on my tummy. My tummy does not want salad or meat in the morning (and sometimes not later in the day); it doesn’t always want the traditional egg breakfast either. There aren’t many breakfast choices that are appealing on the low-carb plan. Luckily, I’m not that hungry on it, but skipping meals is not good for the migraine sitch. In fact, it might be triggering some of this current wave of pain. This is a dilemma that could be easily solved with a bagel, lol.

Peeps do this diet to lose weight, but I don’t know what I weigh because my scale failed (I think I got water in the battery compartment when I washed the floor) and I threw it out. I’ve been too lazy to buy another one. This is a really bizarre turn of events! I’ve never been sans scale, and I’m curious to see how long I can last. I do have a doctor’s appointment coming up, so it’s not as though I’ll be completely in the dark.

I can always hope for a new miracle cure. The drug companies are always researching new migraine meds ~ our heads are big biz. I guess I should feel lucky that there are so many of us suffering together.

 

Stripey C00kies

My dad loved stripey c00kies. Not sure why I have a pic of these actually, but I found it while searching for something to poast for the “sweet” photo challenge and decided to use it instead of cupcakes (since I don’t feel like going through the gallery to check which cupcake pics I’ve used already). I still love stripey c00kies too. There’s just something so nostalgic and wholesome about them for me.

Wishing all my blogfans a happy Valentines Day!

~*~

Photo Challenge: Sweet

Twelve Years Gone By

Please excuse my lack of bloggery… I was busy attending my daughter’s wedding. ❤

I seem to be out of writing mode, which will change shortly as I’ve rejoined a great prompt group that meets weekly, plus September always motivates me. I’m a student at heart. New school year, crisp notebook, let’s go!

But in the meantime, I wanted to say something, so I decided to turn to my trusty old Ultrablog archives. Apparently I said nothing 10 years ago (hard to believe), so I went back 12 (I don’t like elevens). Twelve years ago I was married, had two children living with me, and for some bizarre reason went to see the Dukes of Hazzard movie.

Now, if you had asked me point-blank an hour ago, Paula, did you ever see the Dukes of Hazzard movie? I would have said no and I would have probably even denied knowing there existed a Dukes of Hazzard movie. But archives do not lie! And if Google Drive says I saw a movie, then I saw it. I suppose in the scheme of things that forgetting the Dukes is no great loss. I hope I don’t forget anything important however, such as a subthread from Game of Thrones.

I said I liked the movie except for Burt Reynolds being miscast as Boss Hogg. I also said the TV Roscoe was funnier and I was disappointed that “Boots” played over the credits at the end and we didn’t get to see the sexy car wash scene. I have no idea what I meant by that. The Nancy Sinatra song? Wha? I suppose I could look all that up, but someone will know, so I’m not going to bother.

I really miss when my online writing friends blogged instead of blopped on Facebook. FB is junk food for writers ~ and not even the good junk food like tacos or Oreos, but the worst junk food like those skinny yucky pretzels. You can sit there for hours and eat a million of them and you’ll never be satisfied, only thirstier and thirstier.

Silverado Country Fair

Rob and I went to a fair yesterday in Silverado Canyon, about 25 miles inland. It was so hot out! My car temp was 106F when we headed back. Despite that, the fair was really fun. We saw a bunch of cool art, met some of the artists, and did a craft ourselves. I was really pleased to find some dangly kitty earrings made of real silver, just like some I lost years ago, for only $10. I polished them at home and they look adorable.

Here are some fair pix…

Donkey looks sad all cooped up. There were cute goats too and their owner said they’d been “debutted,” which made me feel too bad to take their pic.

Rob is weaving by crisscrossing various blue yarn strands in a grooved cardboard disc. I did one too in browns and called the result a monkey’s tail.

We decide to take a cookie break…

Zomg! There’s a cookie in my cookie! It’s like a turducken… or would be if there was a PB cup on top of the Oreo. (Bakers, take note.)

Rob won a yellow monkey in the beanbag toss! Lookit his long fluffy tail! The monkey’s, not Rob’s.

Rob gave the monkey to me (aww, thanks!) and we decided to name it Donovan ~ Donny for short. Can you figure out why?

I wuvs him. 🙂

I bought a toy for Gatsby, and as you can see… he’s utterly thrilled.

After the fair, Rob and I went to see Mission Impossible ~ Rogue Nation at the $3 theater to get some A/C. Fun movie! And the freezing cold Coke Icee hit the spot.

What a great day. I love fairs.

On Round Flat Objects

Roy asks a very important question regarding Oreos… do we call the crispy cookies “disks” or “discs.” (I called them “discs” in my poastie here.)

I pondered this question mightily for a few seconds and then realized… I haz no fucking clue. So, off to Google I went. Apparently this is an eternal question that has been boggling the brains of peeps for years.

The Grammarist says they’re interchangeable, except for puter stuffs, though his examples lead me to believe that the cookie object should probably be a disk. His commenters, who all sound smart, both agree and disagree. OK.

Wikipedia has an interesting entry on the origin and evolution of the words, mostly focusing on technology. Plus it says that disc is more popular in the UK. Perhaps I was channeling a Brit, hopefully Hugh Grant.

Grammar Girl only talks about the words in puter and medical usage, not the cookie world. Hmm.

Oxford Dictionary backs up Wiki with respect to English-English vs. American.

Overall? I kinda think I should have spelled it “disk,” since I’m American. RAH RAH!

Thanks Roy ~ this was fun! 🙂

(And yes, I use a tilde instead of a dash in informal writing because I’m cool like that.)

OH NO… COOKIE DOUGH!

 

 

You are not hallucinating ~ Cookie Dough Oreos exist and I haz them. I almost passed out in the grocery store when I saw the package, and of course I grabbed it immediately, with my first thought being… I shall review these for my peeps!

 

 

Just look how incredibly adorable they are!

 

And they are absolutely delicious! The cookie is crispy and chocolately, which enhances the dough flavor. It really tastes like cookie dough, all buttery and sugary, but better cuz of being snadwiched between the nommy Oreo discs.

Look, I know I’m going to get some Oreo purists muttering about the olden days of basic Oreos. They turn up their snoots at Double Stuf… they think Golden Sandwiches are blasphemy. Heck, they probably wouldn’t even touch a cute Halloween Oreo. Well, you know what I say to these folks? GROW UP! You can’t keep everything the way it was when you were 5 years old, for Pete’s sake. Time marches on. Deal with it.

(Personally I can live without Birthday Cake Oreos. Meh.)

My daughter had the brilliant idea of putting some CD Oreos in the fridge to see if they’d taste like a roll of cookie dough. I did that today. They were superb!

 

 

Cold Cookie Dough Oreos on my pink KindleFire ~ pretty fuckin’ artistic, wot?

I can only hope that my Ode to Oreo poast here comes to the attention of Mr. Nabisco himself and he sends me all the Oreos to review because I would do that for you people! Yes, yes I would.

Also, most of the time I can’t even find any of the awesome new special flavors, so it’d be great to have them FedEx’d to my door. I’m especially interested in the coconut fudge cremes and Mega Stuf.

Thanks! 🙂

Safe Haven, Part II

So, I’ve been noodling on this Safe Haven novel by the famous Nicholas Sparks (Part I of my reviewish thingie is here). The entire concept of the book is much like a novel I read a while back called  Running Wild by Linda Howard and Linda Jones (except SH was published first). Makes sense then that I’d do a compare and contrast ~ spoilers will abound, so if you’re planning to read either book and want to be surprised, you should exit now and check out some otters.

1. Basic premise. Heroine runs away from her life to escape Bad Man (abusive husband in SH and crazy stalker date in RW) and ends up in a small town in the middle of nowhere (North Carolina in SH and Wyoming in RW). She takes a job as a waitress.

2. Stolen ID. Heroine steals/fakes a new identity when she starts her life over because Bad Man is a cop who will not only find her if she resurfaces for one second under her old name but also kill her. He will also have immunity, natch, being a cop, or so she believes. She must therefore act secretive and weird, which intrigues the hero.

3. Hero haz problems! In SH, Alex is trying to run his business and take care of his two kids, but the wife/mommy has died ~ oh noes, now what? It is so hard doing all this alone. In RW, Zeke is trying to run his ranch and take care of his aminals and men, but his cook wants to retire ~ oh noes, now what? Should he hire that secretive, sexy new waitress at the diner? Omg, decisions…

4. One slip-up. In SH, all it takes is one kind word from a neighbor to get Bad Man Kevin hot on Katie’s trail (IIRC, this is way similar to Sleeping With The  Enemy). In RW, Zeke’s old cook does an internet search on Carlin, which pings Brad and lets him know that someone in WY is looking for his honey.

Here are some major differences in the novels.

5. The Bad Men. While both Kevin (SH) and Brad (RW) are horrible creeps, Sparks took the time to make Kevin an actual character you can feel some degree of sympathy for here and there. It’s interesting, in an awful way, to take that journey down to NC with him. Brad’s just a cartoon Bad Man.

6. The Good Guys. This is the opposite of the Bad Men. In SH, Alex is bland and boring; while in RW, Zeke is sexy and exciting. Alex is way too nice for a romance novel hero ~ then again, Sparks says his books aren’t RNs, but “love stories.” Gak. Okay.

7. Motivations. Sparks does a good job in laying out his protags’ motivations. Katie needs to escape the abuse; Kevin wants her back ~ and they both love each other (or did at one point) in a sick way. This is all believable. And even Alex’s sweet gentle kindness is believable, though not very sexy. The Lindas didn’t do quite as well in this area. We’re supposed to believe that Brad, a cop, went totally bonkers after a couple dates with Carlin, and began trying to kill her when she turned him down. Now I know guys can be nuts ~ we’ve documented that right here on this blog, but EVEN SO.

8. Sex. Now this is weird. RW is a typical contemporary romance novel in that it contains a good amount of steamy sex between the hero and heroine. SH has none, zero, zilch. Actually SH has no sex between the hero and heroine, but what it does have are abusive sexual encounters (mostly fade to black type) between Katie and Kevin. Don’t you find this odd? Here’s a purported “love story” (not a “romance novel”) where there is no sex between the two main characters during the time of the story, yet there are descriptions of sex between other characters. It’s almost like Sparks is saying that his protags are too pure to be sexual.

Well, whatever. There’s enough room in the world for Sparks’ love stories as well as sizzling hot romances, right? It’s funny though that the Sparks’ books are respected and made into movies while romances are still best hidden away in brown paper bags. I mean, it’s perfectly fine to read Safe Haven out in the open while eating your lunch in the office despite the fact that there is a cute couple on the cover about to kiss, but I wouldn’t bring Running Wild to work with the shirtless cowboy cover since I know what all goes on in there. That’s meant to be read in secret while eating DS Oreos.

Twelve Twelve Twelve

People are all excited about this triplet of a day, though I think 11/11/11 was better because all the numbers were the same. Be that as it may, I heart the number 12.  Follow that link to find out a whole bunch of cool things about 12.

Twelve is a sublime number, a number that has a perfect number of divisors, and the sum of its divisors is also a perfect number.

Twelve is the atomic number of magnesium.

There’s a bunch of religious yaddery to do with 12.

Has anyone seen the film The Twelve Chairs? Absolutely hilarious.

And of course there’s a baker’s dozen, which isn’t 12, but 13, which reminds me that my oven always burns cookies, making me sad/mad. To console myself, I bought some pink shoes off Amazon this morning.  That has nothing to do with 12 obviously.

Tomorrow is Thor’s Day the thirteenth. This means nothing, except only 8 more days until the end of the world, so use them wisely, wouldja? Kthx.