Baba Capra

the story isn't as good as the costuming

2012-01-28T09:50:00.003-07:00

If you mean something you light on fire to make your Coleman (or similar) lantern glow while you're on a camping trip, or if you mean an actual or figurative cloak (say, of responsibility), then you want to type MANTLE.

If you mean that thing above your fireplace you want to type MANTEL.

this one will keep your food cold for seven hundred

2012-01-27T08:42:00.008-07:00

I wish my gardening/chickening/goating energy burst would come in the spring, when it would be somewhat useful to me. As it is, I'm full of all these ideas with no way of implementing them.

First, I want to have a better garden. Do you remember how pretty my garden was three years ago? That was cool. But it was a lot of work, and when we had a ton of goat babies in 2010 I lacked sufficient energy to handle both the goats and the garden, and we've never reached those verdant heights since. Goats are so needy! Not really. It's rude of me to blame them for my moral failings.

This year is going to be the year. I want a good garden, and I want to put a chicken moat around it. Here is a not-to-scale drawing: You put a fence around the garden, and the chickens help keep the bugs out of the garden, plus they have a nice big area to graze in without being able to come up on the patio and poop all over it. We'll get more chickens and Emmett can sell the eggs. Cute!

The goats need a better fence, too. Ugh, fencing is the farmer's constant nagging companion. We're slowly accumulating chain link panels, which are too small for the goats to get their heads through and push them over, which they are always doing (mainly Traci). Traci's udder may explode this year. I'm concerned about it. If I could go back in time I would not have bought her, and I think the Drakes, nice as they are, charged me far, far too much for her. No way is she in the same class as Finola. Remember Finola? Oh, the times we had. Sally and Rita and Julia are all shaping up into quite good goats. They have sweet temperaments and aren't too flighty, as I found last week when the gate got left open and they all walked out and were grazing the ditch. Willa and I had to round them up, and it had great potential to become a poop-smeared fiasco, but they were very docile and walked right back in with very little fuss.

I also need to start some grapes. I heard a good idea for bending a sixteen-foot cattle panel into an arch, and letting the grapes grow on that.

This is the year. Remind me later, when I'm complaining about how hot it is.

what I thought about "this is a book"

2012-01-25T20:59:00.003-07:00

Bless Demetri Martin. I am so thankful for him.

This book is exactly like watching a Demetri Martin TV special, only longer. A TV special as long as this book would get old, so the book form works in its favor, since you can stop now and then.

My kids love this book, but don't worry, I only let them read the parts that weren't naughty. For example, there is a really impressive palindrome that's all about a nasty loser at a strip club, and I didn't let them read that.

I loved this book, and if you enjoyed Demetri Martin. Person. or Very Important Things with Demetri Martin, then you will love this book, too.

why I hate crystal light

2012-01-23T07:26:00.010-07:00

Okay, here's that commercial:

I think it's rotten to the core, and I'll tell you why. You have two attractive women on a plane, fitted into stereotypes so old they have beards. The brunette is pragmatic, businesslike, and a little caustic, the blonde is doe-eyed, breathy, and vacuous (her delivery of "it's almost bikini season" is note-perfect; a little insecure tremble, a nervous smile, her eyes opened wide with fluttering lashes).

The blonde is drinking plastic to replace the sweetness of the plastic she normally drinks--she knows. She knows that women should always, always be ashamed of their bodies, and should drink low-calorie non-foods to keep the weight off so they can look good for a man. It's the same with her hair--she's not a true blonde, but is smart enough to color her hair because blondes are prettier than brunettes, duh. The viewer is made to feel sympathy for the doe-eyed blonde when the brunette viciously attacks her for her benighted optimism that she might someday wear a swimsuit. Then comes the reveal, in which the sarcastic, ball-busting brunette is smacked down for her refusal to toe the line of body hyper-consciousness/insecurity. See, they ARE on a beach.Who's the stupid one now? The interaction when the bare-chested water guy comes up, and the blonde says in a baby voice, "I can help you with that," and starts unbuttoning her shirt as she turns and nyah-nyahs to the brunette that "I'm gonna get wet" makes me want to vomit on and slap her for being such a disgusting sellout.

It's the innocent-schoolgirl fetish, the blonde fetish, the submissive-woman fetish, the continued commodification of women and the assertion that their value lies solely in their appearance, and probably a few other misogynistic tropes all rolled into one. So if Crystal Light was aiming to reinforce offensive, dinosaurian social constructs, WELL DONE.

What are your feelings?

about to yell at a drink

2012-01-21T23:17:00.001-07:00

Remind me to tell you about Crystal Light and their awful, sexist, lookist, despicable commercial.

smorgastarta? I think you mean delicious!

2012-01-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

I love this idea I love this idea I love this idea!

a little bit of political ruminating

2012-01-19T13:05:00.005-07:00

I sometimes wonder how the media manages to cover the nomination process without cracking up. It's weird how people sort of view it as a legitimate thing, instead of a grand piece of elaborate political theater, in which everybody says and does the most idiotic thing they can to prove themselves Right or Left enough.

I think Newt Gingrich might be getting all his current campaign funding from the Democratic party, because they are so pleased with the possibility of President Obama going up against what was once (and may soon be again!) the most hated man in America.

I just want to add, and younger and more delicate readers may want to avert their eyes from this, because it is a quote from my Grandpa Max, a former POW and generally scary dude: "You can't trust those fat sons of bitches. Because if they're greedy in one way, they're greedy in another." (Emphasis his.)

what I thought about "the magicians"

2012-01-18T07:58:00.005-07:00

I can't decide how I feel about this book, whether it's original or derivative, wonderful or terrible. I do know that it's engrossing, because I read for five or six hours on Saturday. He samples freely from the mythology of Harry Potter and Narnia, but it's definitely not children's literature. If you are passionately devoted to Narnia, especially if you look upon C.S. Lewis as basically a saint, this might not be a great book for you. It's self-aware, but not in an irritating way. I had a hard time identifying with the protagonist, and he became thoroughly repugnant to me at one point. I think I'm glad I read it, but on a smaller scale it has tainted Narnia for me the way Wicked did the Wizard of Oz. I think I can get over it eventually.

what I thought about "the forgotten skills of self-sufficiency used by the mormon pioneers"

2012-01-17T07:53:00.008-07:00

First of all, that name. Woof! It's too long. But the book was ten bucks at Ye Olde Costco, so I decided to give it a whirl, even though it looked like it might be really cheesy.

There are some cosmetic and organizational problems, and in one of the chicken sections he includes a weird, unnecessary paragraph about a dream he had about the world running out of calcium (which is clearly impossible--we'll be assimilated by the Borg long before the calcium is gone), but it's full of interesting information. He talks about seed saving, perennial/self-perpetuating vegetables, fruits, chicken-keeping, wild yeast, and some other things I can't think of right now. It's a short book with some great practical advice, and if you're at all interested in this sort of thing, Provident Living as some call it, it's a good read and worth your time. Heck, it's worth it just for the bread recipe, which can also be used as pizza dough.

noisy, crazy, sloppy, lazy loafers, and while we're on the subject

2012-01-12T16:55:00.009-07:00

Like I said, I'm "remodeling" the basement, and you will not be surprised to learn that the project includes stripping off yet more ancient, vinyl-coated wallpaper. Old people, I swear. I have also found a bunch of horrible little toy nests that my children have created in corners and under beds and dressers, covered in cobwebs and dust. But every time I vow to just throw everything away I find something that tests my resolve. Like the Fisher-Price barn I bought from the D.I. when Grant was a baby. Not a one of my kids has played with it, or the castle, or the house (the one with the doorbell), or the circus train (of which I even have two sets, in case the kids broke one). I even bought them a ton of the old-style, dangerous, choking hazard Little People, and they're like, "Meh." Boy, I'm glad I didn't spend a bunch of money on eBay trying to get the Sesame Street buildings. Do you remember how cute that pink dragon was? And the blue elephant? What is wrong with kids today?

Gentlemen, you might want to check out for a minute and join us in the next paragraph. Ladies, you remember that I have had bra problems, and I'm kind of picky about my bras, because I have not a lot going on in that area, so what's there needs to be properly managed. I don't need underwires digging into my sides or giving me boobfurters, and I don't need the cups flaring out at the top and making lines in my t-shirts. So it was with low expectations that I bought a two-pack of those Maidenform bras they have at Costco. Costco is great and I love it, but who buys lingerie/foundation garments at a warehouse store? Me, evidently, because I love, love, love these bras. The straps sit just right on my shoulders, the underwire is the right size to cup and not smash, and they are very comfortable. I am so pleased. Take a chance; they're cheap, and you might like them as much as I do.

We took Grant and Ike to the orthodontist on Wednesday. I guess our orthodontist is a year older than me and graduated from the same high school, but I do not remember him. He seems competent and nice, though. It was a real picnic having all four kids in the exam room, I'll tell you, jumping and climbing and fighting and playing with the teeth models and picking out what color their elastics will be, because they are all going to need braces. I blame John. But I forgive him, because his DMBA dental insurance is going to make the four sets of braces a slightly less impoverishing endeavor. My parents paid for four sets of braces for my sisters out of pocket. Can you believe that? That's like sixteen thousand dollars! Grant gets his in a couple of weeks, and he has picked out BYU colors for his elastics, the horror. Even though navy blue isn't even BYU's real blue, their blue is that stupid smurfy royal blue, they just stole navy blue from Utah State because they're jerks. Is there anything BYU doesn't ruin? I read a comment on BCC the other day that said God allows sports at BYU to give people a real-life example of the pride cycle. Man, I laughed so hard. For the uninitiated, here's the pride cycle: I like to try to go straight from pride and sin over to humility and repentance, skipping the chastening step. Eventually I hope to cut out all the steps but blessing and prosperity.

rock for people who don't like rock

2012-01-11T07:37:00.004-07:00

Okay, I'm ready to talk about it now. John sent me a link the other day to an article about Crio Bru (there is an umlaut in their name, but I don't know how to make my computer type those). They have a very fruity website with silly health claims on it that may or may not be true, but here's the thing: it is roasted, ground cocoa beans (probably cacao nibs, technically). You brew it like coffee. Which means, and this is why I bought it (from the Harmons in Roy), that it will satisfy your craving for both coffee AND hot chocolate. Not that you have one, I'm just saying that some of us had multiple family members who drank coffee and filled the air with its sweet perfume, so coffee is conflated with happiness and security in our brains.

So much better than Postum or Pero. I can get cacao nibs in bulk from my hippie co-op, as well.

Coffee drinkers, help me out here: does a French press keep the coffee warm? Or are you left with a lukewarm drink that you then have to heat back up after it's finished brewing?

So, if I get to a point where I can't function if I don't start my day with a searingly hot cup of brewed cocoa, then we'll know that I'm in violation of the Word of Wisdom as I interpret it (ask me about my permissiveness!). At that point you are permitted to stage an intervention or something.

The goats all hate me right now. It might be because they don't have any straw in their hutches and they've eaten all the hay we used as bedding instead of straw. Who knows? Maybe they just don't like celery.

My Mormon Pioneer book has me all full of ideas for the spring, and I'm chomping at the bit to build a bigger chicken coop and get some more chicks. Maybe even a rooster again, now that all my kids are big enough to defend themselves. Ooh, I was so mad at that rooster when he attacked Willa. I just about put him into the next dimension I kicked him so hard.

Do you think I should give my parents some button quail for their anniversary? I bet they'd love that, being given a pet they didn't ask for. They're crazy about pets.

we gotta be LEADERS today, we gotta FIGHT to make things happen

2012-01-09T08:53:00.006-07:00

Good morning, everyone! I'm sure you've already done your exercises and read something challenging and stimulating, per your New Year's resolutions.

I am going to buy something so exciting today. I will tell you about it later. I'm buying it on the way back from dropping our car off at the shop to find out why it growls like a tiger and drips oil all over the driveway. Prediction: the car is broken. Bonus prediction: it will be expensive to fix.

Maybe I'll buy a VW bus. Those Dharma people seemed to love them.

Boy, it's almost like Lost didn't happen, isn't it? Totally out of sight, out of mind.

In closing, let me share with you this hilarious video. As one commenter put it, "Cocaine is one hell of a drug."

When you think about it, aren't we all in the sales business, really?

what I thought about "drive"

2012-01-05T20:27:00.005-07:00

This is an interesting book. It's certainly going to affect the way I parent, and the way I set goals for myself. I don't want to spoil it for you, but you should know that paying your kids to score goals in soccer is stupid and counterproductive. But you knew that already.

It's not gripping from start to finish, but I'm still glad I read it, and I'm considering buying or making copies of the parenting tool kit at the back. It's not just about parenting, though, in fact it's not even mostly about parenting. I recommend it.

My kids will be excited to learn that they can start getting an allowance.

mixed with zach galifianakis

2012-01-05T08:13:00.003-07:00

I told Dr. Doug as I was sitting down in the chair, "I'm sure I have a cavity!" and he had the audacity, the unmitigated gall, to remark to his assistant, who is his daughter Natalie, "She says that every time she comes in," and he totally didn't think I would have a cavity, because my teeth are always so healthy. He is to blame for my overweening tooth conceit. P.S. he was right. You will be gratified to know that I received a clean bill of health, re: the teeth. I just have worn down the enamel (probably with my fervid brushing) and exposed a nerve, is all. Slap some sealant on it, done.

Can we talk about books for a minute? Yes, let's. How long are we going to have to wait before people stop re-imagining the Three Pigs story? Three gators, three javelinas, three naked mole rats, shut up with it already, won't you? I mean, do you not find it infuriating that there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of genuinely talented children's book authors who are going unpublished because some idiot publisher keeps greenlighting another Katie Couric vanity project or "It's like the three pigs, only they're mermaids! In Alaska!" Jeez Louise, you're killing me. It's like someone saying, "Hey, people love the Beatles! So here's what I'll do. I'll sing a Beatles song, only my way!" No.

It's time for my post-Christmas home "improvement" project. This year it's going to be the basement, otherwise known as the dank pit. I don't even know where to start.

dental rakes

2012-01-04T13:16:00.002-07:00

We're going to the dentist today and I'm sure I have a cavity, which is terribly upsetting to me. It bothers me whenever I eat something sweet or cold, and I hear that's a bad sign. I don't think I've ever had a cavity before! I love my dentist, who is my uncle Doug. He is an actual dentist, not just some guy in our family with a drill, by the way. One of the things I looked forward to when we moved back here was having him as a dentist again, because I thought all dentists were good until I moved away. My kids love him too. I think his practice might be accepting new patients again, if you want to give him a buzz. Douglas R. Adams, DDS. It's not fancy with virtual-reality glasses or sleep dentistry or anything, but he will give you Trident and let you watch Spongebob while you're waiting for your turn. Plus your very own toothbrush and mini tube of toothpaste.

While we're there I'm going to ask Doug to put claws behind Willa's teeth to stop her from sucking her fingers. It's a real problem. I already asked my brother-in-law Daniel to cast her arms so she couldn't get her fingers in her mouth, but he's stonewalling. Do they want her to look like Prince Charles? See, the Prince Charles threat worked on Ike, but so far no dice on Willa. I should show her a picture to make it more real.

we are sowing, daily sowing

2012-01-02T20:22:00.005-07:00

Hey, everybody! I feel like it's been ages since we talked. How were your Christmasses? Ours was plentiful without being too extravagant, I think. Here's a suggestion for your charitable giving for Christmas 2012: the Heifer Project. There's a link to it on the sidebar. They're one of my favorite charities, and now they have a cute little online activity for kids to help them feel more engaged in the donation process, and now they even send you updates on the animal(s) you buy. It gives you the enjoyment of buying an animal without the poopy and exercise-discipline-affection ramifications.

Have you set any goals for the new year? Make sure they're measurable and obtainable, or you're just setting yourself up for failure. Not to take the wind out of your sails or anything, but: FAILURE. Like, I can't just say, "Be a better mom" or "Don't be lazy." There have to be specifics. I'll let you know once I figure out how to quantify "Manage my time better." I suspect spending less time searching the classifieds and shelter sites for dogs I have no intention of buying is a component.

What are your goals? To learn a new language (Klingon/Welsh), maybe?

jacob seems like not a great father

2011-12-22T07:39:00.004-07:00

I cleaned the oven yesterday, because I hew to retrograde, sexist gender roles. You know how I am. For a minute the door wouldn't close and I was panicking, because I need that door. I called a local appliance sales and service place, and they said, "We could send out our technician and he could maybe bend the hinges back into line." So I stopped talking to them.

But all is well, because it turns out I just accidentally engaged the hinge lock, and figured it out while I was on the phone with a guy from what sounded like possibly Massachusetts--he talked like Tom Silva a little bit. And now my oven is healed.

I am learning from Drive that I am a Type X person in some regards--the chief one being that I am situationally content. As opposed to Type I people, who tend to be content generally, regardless of circumstances. This worries me because Type X people are more stressed and die earlier and are less successful in the long run. But! I am also learning that you can make yourself into a Type I person. I will do this.

I wonder if it would be easier to say that I don't immunize Willa, rather than go to the doctor and get her immunization records. Yes. It would be easier. But then people would look at me the way I look at those crazies in Utah County who are giving us all pertussis outbreaks. If smallpox comes back, man, I will come UNGLUED.

It's amazing how similar pho breath is to Cool Ranch Doritos breath.

I have come to the conclusion that my pink grapefruit lotion from The Body Shop (which sounds like it would be all earthy and natural, but isn't) is going to have to be emergency lotion, because although I like the smell in the bottle and have no complaints with its moisturizing capabilities, it metamorphoses on my skin to become a B.O. fragrance of exceeding vigor.

I won't even stay awake to hear those magic reindeer click

2011-12-19T08:16:00.006-07:00

I want to talk about lynching for just a second. It's bad, vigilante justice is bad, right? Academically I know this, but deep in my gooey nougat center I am a vindictive, vengeful harpy with a black and white perception of the law--not civil law, moral law. So I just wonder, after all the people who've been lynched who didn't deserve it, why can't we lynch someone who does deserve it? Why can't we lynch Sandusky?

I know, I know, rule of law. Right to trial by jury of peers, slippery slope, etc. In a world where we lack omniscience it's dangerous to mete out justice according to personal or public opinion. But still. Don't you sometimes wish you could smite?

Speaking of which, I do not miss Kim Jong-Il. Do you think there might be a slap-fight between his maybe horrible sons for who gets to succeed? Do you think they might each be even worse than their father? It's worrisome. Why can't all the bad people just die? See what I'm saying about smiting?

On to better and brighter topics.

Our neighbor's guinea fowl prefer our yard to his, because his yard is xeriscaped and orderly and boring, and ours is full of weeds and bugs and interesting messes. But guinea fowl and chickens do not easily co-recreate, so it looks a lot like the Sharks and Jets out there.

Man, my brother-in-law Steven has a great bit about learning how to fight from West Side Story.

We have a buck goat staying with us right now. It's Willow-Lane Ted Nugent--remember him? Did I tell you how at his old house he accidentally got caught in the electric chicken fence (for keeping out foxes and stray dogs)? We worried that it might have scrambled his brain, but if it did, then we have definitive proof that breeding is an instinctive, right-brain behavior, because he has no trouble performing his buckly duties. But he's fairly docile and doesn't pee all over himself as much as a lot of bucks I've met. He's like the fabled Iron-Owl Bobcat of yore, the best buck in all the world. Sniff. I miss Bobcat.

But Ted Nugent is so splashy! Calico--mostly white with splashes of black and orange. I think we're going to get great color out of him. Let me know if you want to buy a bred doe by the name of Baba Capra Julia who is going to have pretty babies. Do you want to be prepared for the zombie apocalypse/EMP or not? If you can't see the link between goat ownership and disaster preparedness then I can't help you.

I accidentally kneaded my bread for a half hour yesterday. It was liquid by the time I remembered to look at it. I think I'll sue Bosch for making breadmaking so easy that I forget to do my job.

Do you think it's weird that there are Lego sets that cost two hundred dollars?

what I thought about "make the bread, buy the butter"

2011-12-16T22:20:00.005-07:00

You guys, I can't wait any longer to do a review of Tipsy's cookbook. Just buy it already. It is personable and funny and intelligent, and my whole family insisted that I read it aloud to them, they were that entertained. For someone like me, who is always trying to figure out how to sanely reduce the amount of process I eat, the book is a blessing. Who wants to be the idiot buying something that can be done better and more cheaply at home? Who wants to be the idiot trying to make something that is done perfectly deliciously and trustworthily and better by someone else? Not me, that's for sure.

Even if the recipes were all crap the book would still be a good read, and the recipes are not crap. I have made the peanut butter, the milk mayonnaise, the every day bread, the pudding, the hot chocolate, the Vadouvan mac n' cheese, the bagels, the chocolate chip cookies, and probably some others that I can't remember right now, and they are all great. Be sure you chill the cookie dough, though--I am an eager greedy, and I fared poorly. The Vadouvan mac n' cheese in particular is remarkable and addictive, and requires an inexpensive and transporting little packet of spices you can get from Kalustyan's which will make you feel worldly and sophisticated, which of course you are. Order some marble halvah while you're at it.

Tipsy is a smart woman, but aside from that, she is a woman of good breeding and impeccable taste, and you are safe in her care. If she says you can make it, you almost definitely can, but if she says to buy it? BUY IT. Unless you get a perverse pleasure from being an obstinate also-ran, in which case, knock yourself out.

treat me like a mushroom

2011-12-15T11:05:00.008-07:00

Flats are not comfortable. They are murder on your arches, and I think people need to stop acting like they're better than heels, because they're not. They just shift the damage to a different spot.

It would be nice if we lived in a world in which young girls who are considered too cognitively immature to take an abortive pill correctly could be prevented from having to make such a decision. It would be nice if all children could be raised in safe, loving, homes by responsible parents. And I don't think pre-teens--regardless of the circumstances in which they got pregnant, despite my moral queasiness about the Plan B pill itself--ought to be carrying babies to term.

Ike had a dream the other night that I bought him a dog. I think I'm transferring my own desires to him. I look for dogs all the time, and I wonder when people will stop buying puppies from irresponsible and unethical breeders. I wonder when people will stop being irresponsible and unethical breeders.

The political climate in our country is very discouraging. I keep wondering why it is that only idiots are talking, and then today on Radio West one of the guests said that it--the polarization, the extremism, the disproportionate representation of special interest groups--is due to lower voter participation. Makes sense to me. When all the normal people check out, all that's left is the wingnuts, and there's no rational voice to counter their shrieking.

I hear the Iraq War is over now.

Do you ever think about how much mess and misery could be prevented and remedied if people just acted decent?

I like Santa. I like the Wizard of Oz.

Actually, that's a lie. I don't like the Wizard of Oz. I fail to see the magic. It's certainly not worth John Connor obsessing over it.

don't shoot me santa claus, no one else around believes me

2011-12-11T20:35:00.005-07:00

I'm a pretty smart person. For example, when I read the headline, "Man Destroys House Looking for Girlfriend in Walls" I didn't even need to read the story to know that the guy was on drugs. I also suspected foul play in the shooting that happened in a church parking lot, even before the police suspected it. I am a luminary.

We're doing a present Christmas this year, and it's going to be quite an exercise in conspicuous consumption. The kids will never know what hit them! I'm pretty excited about the forthcoming glut of wonder.

So, the sourdough bread. It continues to be delicious. But: it is not sour. Not even a little bit. I don't know what the deal is. I like some tanginess, but I'll take sweet, light bread over the dumpy bricks I've had in the past. I haven't had an overflow like the first day since I started splitting the dough into thirds. The starter itself is fed with white flour, and then when I make the bread I do half white and half wheat flour. So it's not like a bread vitamin or anything. But it is delicious and chewy and soft. I recommend bread flour, which is what I've been using--Big J baker's flour, to be exact. Fantastic flour. It's the stuff my sister uses for the cinnamon rolls she sells on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the summer, and she makes like a bazillion dollars.

First off, you will need a sourdough starter. This is the hardest part, but if you read this blog with any regularity, chances are you are the kind of person who knows a weirdy who has a sourdough starter they can share with you. For example, me. I have one. I got it from Magic Wendy, who got it from a lady who wanted five dollars for it. Wendy thought that was a bit much, and she gave some to me for free. I think it's a good starter, but what do I know? If you want some, let me know. I gave some to my sister-in-law Emily the other day, so you can get one from her, too. If you don't know a weirdy, you can buy a sourdough starter on the internet. Google it and you will see.

You can make more than just bread with it--waffles, for example, that are light and crispy and soak up steaming gouts of syrup and melted butter, becoming infused with tastiness and rendering themselves far superior to hard, syrup-repelling waffles. But I mostly use it for bread.

Sourdough Bread (from The Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency Used by the Mormon Pioneers)
makes 3 loaves in my kitchen

3 C sourdough starter (he calls it "pioneer yeast," but I think that is gimmicky)
4 C flour, plus more for later (I use half whole wheat and half bread flour, but whatever you have is fine)
2 C room temperature water
1 T salt

1. Mix all the ingredients with a wooden spoon or with a mixer until the dough is thick and elastic. It's like a really thick batter at this point. Let it rest for five minutes.

2. Add flour, 1/2 C at a time (alternating between white and wheat if you wish to possibly slightly lower your chances of developing colorectal cancer), until the dough is just a little bit sticky. You may need three cups or more of additional flour. Knead for eight to ten minutes until the dough becomes smooth.

3. Let the dough rise in an oiled bowl, covered, and sprayed with oil, for at least three to four hours. I'm serious about this. At least.

4. When the dough is doubled in size, deflate it and form it into three loaves. Put the loaves into greased and floured loaf pans. Let them rise until double while the oven preheats to 350* (450* for a thick, crispy crust).

5. If baking at 350*, bake for 30-40 minutes. If baking at 450*, bake for 10-15 minutes at 450*, then reduce the heat to 350* and bake for an additional 20-30 minutes. Note: the times may be way off. Today I cooked mine at 450* for about 25 minutes and then pulled it out. Take it out when it's done, okay? You will know by the smell. Maybe take it out of the pans and cook it directly on the rack for the last ten minutes. Go crazy, why don't you?Now, here is the part that will change your life. When you slice the bread to make toast, spread one side of the raw bread with butter, then grill it--only the buttered side--in a hot skillet until it is browned and crispy. Once cooked, sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar, or spread some jam or honey on it. It is called . . . pan toast. And it is the best thing you will ever eat. I may be overselling it a little, but you have no idea how good it is. It is so much better than normal toast. It eats pieces of crap like normal toast for breakfast. I will never willingly eat normal toast again.

the plight of a doughy mom

2011-12-06T20:34:00.005-07:00

I eat too much, and it irritates me as soon as I get over the enjoyment of eating whatever it was I decided I wanted more than I wanted to be skinny. It's gross that I am surrounded by so much abundance and plenty that I have to worry about eating too much. Isn't that such a grody first-world problem?

I would really love to be skinny like my sisters and sisters-in-law, but I am weak and pleasure-seeking and indolent, so I always give up what I want most (to be slim and trim with no saddlebags or jiggly stomach) for what I want now (second helpings, continued couch-sitting). It affects my mood, so I'm a bitter, angry chub instead of a happy chub. And it's not even the health benefits that drive my desire to be skinny--I just think it looks better. I can see myself developing bulimia if I didn't hate vomiting so much, but no way could I be anorexic--too much discipline! I'm very monkey see, monkey eat.

too loud too loud

2011-12-05T08:22:00.007-07:00

I'm making a half white/half wheat batch of the sourdough today. I'm interested to see how the wheat flour affects the texture.

On Friday my sister Aleece came over and we made the bagels from the "Breads and Spreads" chapter in Tipsy's book. Would you like to see?
We are not professionals.

I'm not sure how to explain these bagels, but I will attempt. When I first cut one open, I saw that the crumb is looser than the bagels I'm used to. It looked more dinner-rollish than bagelish. We tasted them, trying to compare them to the bagels in our memories, and they tasted different. It's hard to be objective about something like taste, but here's what I thought, and Aleece agrees.

They do not taste like the bagels I know. They're chewy like bagels, but the taste is not the same. I chewed and thought, "What is different about these? What does a normal bagel taste like?"

Let's see if you guys agree with me in my description of a typical bagel.
Dense
Dry
Bland
Requires toasting to be halfway enjoyable
Feels like lead in the stomach once eaten

Do I have that about right? An acquaintance used to bring Einstein bagels over to the apartment of a thing I was dating in college, and they were, to a one, awful. They were all the stuff I said above. I've had many, many grocery store bagels (fresh and frozen) and bakery bagels over the years (to be fair, none from a respectable bagel purveyor), and I do not like the bagel.

Tipsy's bagels were different from ordinary bagels in that they were soft and moist and flavorful and could be eaten straight and not suffer. Add some butter and you've got a delightful snack. They are also lighter than bagels. So they were delicious, and vastly preferable to every bagel I've eaten before, because the ways in which they are different are ways that make me hate other bagels, and the way in which they are the same (chewiness) is the only characteristic worth retaining. But the question is: are dryness and density required attributes of an authentic bagel? Because if they are, these are not bagels. If they are not, these are the only bagels worth eating.

So I'm torn. I liked these bagels a lot, but I am ignorant of proper bagel composition, and maybe I don't appreciate real bagels. Are they real or not? Is a bagel by definition a gross thing? If not; if this recipe in Tipsy's book is what bagels are really supposed to taste like, then it's just one more reason to be irked at the food industry for selling us mediocre garbage, and one more reason to be irked at ourselves for paying for the privilege of eating the mediocre garbage.

why do birds suddenly appear?

2011-12-01T13:06:00.008-07:00

Tipsy may have been the only one who expressed an interest in hearing about the sourdough bread results, but I know she was really speaking for most of you. That's okay--I understand your secret passion for bread research and development. So I will oblige. But first, some sauerkraut: Looks tasty! Did you know that sauerkraut is very good for you? It won't be ready for another two days, though. Let me know if you want to come over and eat some. Behind it you can see my sourdough starter and John's brownish gook which he is taking for his voice, because he is a delicate flower who bruises easily. And if his instrument is damaged that means no new countertop for me.

I let the dough rise for three hours, and that was hugely important, I think. The bubbles were very strong. I think the use of Big J Mill baker's flour was another important detail.
Look at those bubbles! That is gorgeous dough. Previously the windowpane test has mocked me more often than not, but with this dough I could have made a six-foot picture window for my dining room.

I formed it into two loaves and let it rise for another little bit--it was supposed to be a 90-minute rise, but I couldn't let it get that big, since it was already spilling out of the prescribed two loaf pans. Next time I'm using three pans. I baked it at 450* for ten minutes, by which time the loaves had already doubled in size, then lowered the heat to 350* for another half hour. I took the loaves out of the pans for the last 5-10 minutes, because I wanted a good hard crust on the bottom.

The oven spring on this bread was astonishing. I've never seen anything quite like it.
Don't they look like muppets? The crust is amazing; crispy and chewy, and the interior is soft and stretchy. This is unquestionably the best white bread I have ever made--or tasted outside of a professional bakery.
But there is the issue of appearance--I think splitting it into thirds would have helped immensely.

Two days later it is still soft and chewy. I've made slice upon slice of pan toast with it, and it is heavenly. I'm going to gradually switch it over to wheat, at which point I expect to be elected Bread Queen of the House in Perpetuity.

I will post the recipe once I figure out if wheat flour, another teaspoon of salt, and three loaf pans make it the perfect bread for granolas, hippies, helicopter parents, industrial-food conspiracy theorists, and bread pigs. That's a lot of masters to serve. I don't know if I can do it, but I'll give it my best.

I will seriously lose my entire mind

2011-11-30T23:07:00.001-07:00

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

and now, googol, I've really got your number

2011-11-29T09:05:00.006-07:00

Today I am doing a very exciting thing, which is making bread completely from sourdough starter, no yeast. No yeast! This has never gone well in the past. Always it is a squat, dry brick. I'm trying to manage my expectations. I am using a recipe from the incredibly smurfily-named "Forgotten Secrets of Self-Sufficiency Used by the Mormon Pioneers" (review coming). So far the dough is smooth and pillowy and fragrant. But it could still turn against me.

I finally found some good bread flour so I can make Tipsy's bagels and do my real review of her book as well. I want all interested parties to put it on their Christmas lists, so I will try to hurry.

Last night my sisters and I dipped chocolates for the first time. It was a mess, and that was with ready-made fondant mix. They are the ugliest chocolates known to man. But in tasting one just now, purely for research purposes, I realize that I now have the tools and technology to produce my very own Cadbury eggs, with decent chocolate. Let me describe for you my anger when Hershey began making the famed, once-sublime U.S. version of the Cadbury egg: imagine a galaxy consisting entirely of suns, and all of those suns going supernova at the same time. That was my anger. Of course I am exaggerating, but only a little. I hate hate hate Hershey's chocolate. But according to my sister Troy, who is in high school and read something about him, Milton Hershey was supposedly a really nice guy instead of a robber baron like some I could mention, so I'll give them a pass. I won't buy the eggs anymore, though, because the Hershey formulation makes my teeth hurt. CADBURY! RETURN TO ME!

reflections on the monday after thanksgiving, 2011

2011-11-28T08:22:00.003-07:00

I'm not saying that shopping on Black Friday means you're a dumb dummy, I'm just saying that of the people we know, the family who most feverishly pores through the ads--highlighting and circling and dog-earing pages, assigning different stores to each family member to maximize their manpower, slavering that "you can't afford NOT to go! they're giving stuff away!"--is the same family that declared bankruptcy a few years ago. That's all. I like a good bargain myself, and sometime during the weekend we always end up at Al's Sporting Goods to buy some shoes. But so far the Friday morning after Thanksgiving finds me doing the crossword and drinking hot chocolate with my kids at Grandma Maxine's kitchen table while John and Grandma do the sudoku, and I intend to keep it that way.

My grandma scoops the last shreds of the egg whites out of the shells with her fingers, because she once heard someone say that you get the equivalent of another egg's worth of whites for every dozen eggs when you do that. I know what you're thinking: She's nuts. That's what I thought at first, too; that she was wasting her time on something so dumb with so little return, but this is a woman who managed, as a divorced mother of seven children and full-time teacher, to not only hold on to a working cattle ranch, but to pay off the many tens of thousands of dollars of debt her former husband had gotten them into. So maybe she's not nuts. Maybe she's disciplined. Maybe she knows that the little things matter.

Probably the first step in an effective defense against child pornography charges is to shave off your mustache.

I support your right to not vaccinate your kids. I agree that there is some weird stuff in there, and it bugs me. I think there should be scrutiny and perhaps revision of the vaccine schedule, but I'm still going to be super pissed at you if one of my infant family members gets polio or measles.

I think a senior dog is the way to go for us.

They didn't come out and say it in words, but before my parents got a Wii my kids used to greatly prefer going to John's parents' house. Also there are cousins their age on John's side, cousins with whom they can fight with about whose turn it is to use the Wii and GameCube.

The basement is not as horrid as I thought, now that the shelves are out. I think we might be able to salvage it, if someone can come and replace the ducting.

what I thought about "the botany of desire"

2011-11-21T08:17:00.003-07:00

BORING.

Pardon. That is an overly simplistic summation of my feelings. I began this book with excitement to learn more about how humans and plants have co-evolved over the centuries, but my excitement was squelched almost instantly. I don't know why this is. I think I'm safe saying that I'm a big Michael Pollan fan, since I loved The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, but this one left me cold.

Here are some interesting things I learned:

Apples don't come true from seed, so a tree you grow from a seed will most likely be nothing like the tree the apple came from.

The bi-colored tulips that fueled the Dutch tulip craze were that way because of a virus, and as soon as the Dutch growers figured that out, they pulled any infected tulip they found.

Modern marijuana is a hybrid of two different Cannabis strains, supposed to give you a better buzz with fewer side effects.

The potato that all the Irish were growing before the blight was called the Lumper.

Here are some things that irritated me:

I didn't like the way he interpreted John Chapman's motives as though he had any idea what he was thinking. That makes him just as bad as the effusive John Chapman fanboy he meets and superciliously dismisses in the book.

I didn't like that he didn't tell me if modern bi-colored tulips are also infected with the tulip breaking virus. I had to go to Wikipedia to find out that that is not necessarily the case. This feels like lazy research.

The marijuana section was not nearly as interesting as I thought it would be. I got sort of bored when he started being all navel-gazey about the effect of hallucinogens on the great thinkers of the past, and on himself.

The potato section was fascinating and I have no complaints about it. Excepting the potato section, the book was boring and felt sort of amateurish and cursorily researched. The apple section was hard to get through; I had to stop reading the tulip section for a while and go straight to the potatoes; I forced myself to finish the tulips with great difficulty; I couldn't be bothered to finish the marijuana section.

Not a fan of this book. But since it was one of his earlier works, I think it shows that he has improved with age.

why doesn't batman dance anymore?

2011-11-17T08:07:00.005-07:00

I've been helping with the assembly of the new playground at the unpark. I never know in situations like that if the guys are wishing I would just go home and stop getting in the way. I think I've been helpful, but who can say? I know it took me twice as long as anybody else to dig a hole for one of the support poles. Thirty inches deep, they are! Curse my inferior upper body strength. Our former mayor, who is a reporter for the two newspapers in the area, came to take pictures of the process yesterday, and my pants were falling off in all of the pictures she took. When in Rome, you know. Hopefully she'll get a marker and color over my underwear.

Last night I had a nightmare that I had lice. It woke me up at 4:30 and the rest of my sleep was fitful at best. It's probably my worst fear, next to kidnapping and assault. I googled "lice" on my phone as soon as my alarm went off, and from what I read I don't think I actually have lice.

you can lead the way

2011-11-14T06:27:00.003-07:00

Have I shared with you yet my testimony of down bedding? I have one. Down bedding elevates a regular bed to a bed of supreme comfort and warmth. It helps even a so-so mattress seem more inviting. It is the only true way to sleep. A secret: much of my down bedding is more correctly described as feather bedding, because I got it from Ikea on purpose. Feathers are cheaper than down, and plenty warm for me. Feathers and wool make the best comforters and blankets, in my experience.

I am making pies for a Fakesgiving dinner this Saturday--do any of you have a splendid traditional family recipe that you love beyond compare and would like to share with me? I've got my heart set on grape or gooseberry. My sister Aleece and I made pumpkin and chess pies on Friday. We were doing a taste and texture test of conventional pumpkin pie to see if the Herd Family Way is truly the best. Short answer: it is. For the chess pie we used Tipsy's recipe that she was kind enough to share with us, and I much preferred it to the conventional pumpkin. Those Southerners do not screw around with their pies (Tipsy is not Southern, but chess pie is). It is eggy and rich and sweet--sort of like those dim sum custard pies that are usually disgusting, but were incredible at the dim sum place Tipsy took me to in Chinatown--and I loved it immensely. I also made a discovery: I think what kills restaurant pie is keeping it cold. I put the uneaten portion of the pumpkin pie in the fridge, and when I sampled it a few hours later the crust, which had previously been delicious and flaky (aside from the hated soggy bottom), was super, super gross. Dry, chalky, bland. Truly terrible. Actually inedible--I threw it away. So now you know: don't refrigerate your pie.

We got an American Girl doll catalog in the mail last weekend, which seems very Big Brother to me. It feels like an invasion of my privacy--do they buy hospital records? Old Navy receipts? They should know that I think their dolls are a wicked, homogenized extravagance. Who do they think they are, the Frye Company? Pshaw.

why don't you ask mr. owl, for he is the wisest of us all

2011-11-11T07:13:00.006-07:00

I'm not positive--but I'm close to positive--that my sister Claire's friend Melany was on the bleeding edge of the owl craze. She may even have been the instigator. We may never know. But what we do know is that I bought some hair clips from her for my niece Eliza three years ago, and I swear she had in her inventory an owl clip. Maybe I bought the clip. Sarah would know. If I did, it was the cutest thing in the world of baby hair accessories, because that's how Melany does it. Here is her Etsy shop, if you're curious. She is truly gifted.

But back to my point: what is the deal with owls? Yes, they're cute, but people are ruining it! There are too many now, everywhere I turn! So many owls that I'm sick of them! This needs to stop. Everybody, just settle down about the owls. Stop cupcaking them for those of us who already liked owls before the madness started. Some of us like owls for their nocturnal predation of vermin and Tootsie Pops, as well as their beady eyes and swivel heads. We haven't forgotten the True Meaning of Owls.

high/low, or mundane/horrifying

2011-11-10T10:41:00.007-07:00

Probably one of John's most favorite things is when he comes home and finds that I've made some irreversible change to the house--carpet and linoleum torn up, shelves demolished, furniture thrown away. I know this about him, how much he loves sudden, uncomfortable change, and that's why I'm downstairs taking out a weird set of shelves built along one wall of what we call the toy room. A 1923 house is what it is, and the basement can only be improved so much, because there are so many pipes and ducts and electrical conduit running along the ceiling, but I must remove the shabby, holey carpet and wallpaper, and at least paint the walls.

The Penn State thing is killing me, and the riots opposing Paterno's firing are bizarre. What should have happened when Mike McQueary walked into the locker room is this: he should have opened Sandusky's head with a ball bat and called the police while he was taking the kid to the hospital. And here's what should happen now: Sandusky should be executed. McQueary should be charged as an accessory after the fact, and Paterno, along with the rest of Sandusky's associates, should be investigated as well and charged if necessary. The idiot college students who are rioting in support of a man who colluded in the rape of children should be sentenced to community service volunteering at a safe house for victims of sexual violence.

so crazy it just might work

2011-11-09T08:17:00.006-07:00

This post of Tori's is one that I really needed to read.

In other news, I dreamed last night that I went to an Aerosmith concert with my parents. They opened with "Livin' on the Edge," and Steven Tyler was shuffling around onstage in a mangy-looking brown duster, a ratty fedora, and aviator sunglasses. He was not nearly as charismatic as I assumed he would be. It was weird. I didn't dream long enough to find out if my parents liked the show.

A few of the things that are giving me grief today:
1. The mess at Penn State--what in the world is happening there? Why did the eyewitness wait a day to tell Joe Paterno about it? Why did he tell Joe Paterno instead of the police? And I mean, innocent until proven guilty and all that, but of course Sandusky worked with at-risk youth--because they lack a strong family support system and are much easier to victimize.
2. It was an incumbent sweep in our city council elections yesterday. John won the 2-year term, which is a mixed victory, but I hoped for more backlash against the good-ol'-boys who wanted to bless our community (the part of the community not near them, naturally) with a smelly biodiesel plant run by a porcine charlatan.
3. Long, sparkly, square-tipped acrylic nails on a little girl in Ike's first grade class. The child cannot use her scissors or color or write her name because of them, and I'm like, "Really, mom?"

Last night John texted me that he'd lost his phone, and I said, "Find it." He texted back, "Don't you mean, 'Find it, councilman?" That's how he told me he won the election. Maybe he is already drunk with power. He'll be putting in gravel pits and biodiesel plants before we know it!

I like voting

2011-11-08T11:42:00.002-07:00

Go vote, everybody! It's fun. You get a sticker and usually a piece of candy, plus you get to have a say in local politics, which is where your voice counts the most.

If you live in Honeyville, you can vote for John, who is fair and kind.

who buys guacamole, anyway?

2011-11-04T12:33:00.003-06:00

By the way, here is Tipsy:

She's quite famous, don't you know?

then I hold my nose, thusly

2011-11-04T09:18:00.008-06:00

This is the dog I went and played with last Friday, and almost she persuadest me to become a dog owner again. She is so sweet and loving, with a pleading face and very soft fur. She has scarring on her head, and her ears have been cropped incredibly short--probably a bait dog. I just loved her to pieces.

Poop. Shedding. Walks every day no matter what. Dog smell.

Okay, I'm better now.

Magic Wendy and I took a pie-making class this morning. It was interesting--the guy made the crust in a stand mixer, which I would never dare do. But I used to think I would never make pie crust in a food processor, either, and I've long since crossed that bridge. He used shortening, which made me all boo-hiss at first, but said he prefers lard and thus won himself back into my good graces. He used a French rolling pin, which I have never gotten the hang of using, but I practiced with his and finally figured it out. My mom's is about three times the diameter as the one he used, and I could just as well use a log. Here is a Hyperbole and a Half-esque picture, except not as funny or good: Stupid fat rolling pin.

I'm thinking of moving the dressers out of my room and putting in a floor-to-ceiling wall closet thing. I think it would be an improvement, if only to remove the temptation of stacking clutter on top of the dresser.

there won't be a hook in sight at the codfish ball

2011-11-03T10:04:00.008-06:00

When my kids ask me to buy stupid junk for them I need to stop saying, "We can't afford that," which is not technically true, and start saying, "We don't want to spend our money on that." Saying we can't afford it implies that we would buy it if we only had the money. This is misrepresentation. I don't like buying stuff for my kids because they just break and ruin it. I much prefer taking them on vacation, because the likelihood that the four of them will ruin Oregon or Florida any way other than metaphorically is slim.

I took the slavery footprint quiz yesterday, and it says I have 61 slaves working for me, which I don't think is correct. Don't misunderstand me, I'm pretty sure my purchases are financing enslavement, I just don't think I have more than twice the national average of slaves (which is 25), because most of the places where I got dinged were places where I do most of the work myself--hey, wait a minute. What does that mean?

I hear from the Facebook that Tipsy is going to be on Good Morning America tomorrow morning at 8:30. I encourage you to watch, because then you will see how delightful she is.

eyes burning like coals

2011-11-01T15:47:00.006-06:00

Wow! Thanks for this!

I have watched—generally with a mix of disapproval and concern, on a few rare occasions with approbation—as, one-by-one, my high school girlfriends jumped into marriages at the super-mature ages of 22, 23, and so on. Women who had seemed so driven and talented, so capable of achieving things beyond a comfortable small-town, nuclear family existence, are settling into and, in my not-so-humble opinion, for, just that.

--J. Bryan Lowder in an article on Slate today

It is gratifying to see the "just a housewife" bigotry raise its ugly head again. How foolish of these women to waste their lives on merely raising children! I know the reason I got married and had children is that I'm just too darned stupid and shiftless to achieve "things beyond."

Neat guy, this Lowder fellow.

He's got a point, of course--girls who marry young before getting a good education are selling themselves short. But the patronizing tone really grates--I was graduated from college and had been working as a tech writer for a year when I got married at the "super-mature age of 22," and it was after I married John that I did my best growing and learning.

What does he really know about these women and what their drives and talents are, anyway? He is a pious nag with his "disapproval and concern." He should shut up.

just really mad about chocolate today

2011-11-01T13:36:00.006-06:00

Here's the thing: brownies and hot fudge pudding cake and all other chocolate desserts need to taste like CHOCOLATE. I'm so sick and tired of people making this crap that only indicates its intended flavor by being sort of brown. One time about five years ago I had some hot fudge pudding cake at a relative's house and it was dark brown but totally flavorless. Such is my first world entitlement that I actually became angry about it. I still get angry when I remember it. Ask my family how I get about store-bought pumpkin pie. Look, either bring a dessert or don't. Bring a pie or don't. If you can't make it well, don't make it, and don't buy it. Have someone else do it who will do it correctly.

Authors of children's books need to stop rhyming. Unless your pen name is Dr. Seuss, which it isn't because he's dead, it's gimmicky and I am not impressed. I look through the books my children ask to check out, and if they rhyme I immediately reject them. If one accidentally gets through my filter and I end up reading it at storytime, I will change the words so they don't rhyme, or purposely read in the wrong meter to mess it up.

When my children grow up I'm going to have to either move to California or get rid of my chickens and goats so I don't have to carry water buckets through the snow. When they read this they'll say, "You only had kids so you'd have someone to do all your work for you!" And I will say, "You're right. It is how I am teaching you to be good people."

I think Willa has pica. Yesterday at Costco she ate her sample cup, and then last night she ate her Nerds box. How could a child who refuses to eat anything but the Doritos she steals from the neighbors be suffering from a mineral deficiency? Search me!

a flibbertigibbet, a will-o-the-wisp, a clown

2011-10-31T07:33:00.004-06:00

Rex and Groceries have started crossing the road, so it's only a matter of time before they're squished. This makes me sad in advance. I hated them so much when I was bottle-feeding them and wiping their bottoms with paper towels to get them to poop, and encouraging them to eat solids by sticking my fingers in the canned cat food. There was very little about cat ownership that I enjoyed at that time. Plus Skiver was dying. It was a mess all around.

But now I love Rex and Groceries. They are terrific cats. Yes, I would prefer it if they hadn't ever pooped in the house--this is mainly Groceries--but they are soft and friendly. I think they made Skiver's death a lot easier for us. Even Emmett likes them. Emmett has been decidedly cool toward animals ever since he was bitten, unprovoked, by our niece's horrible purse dog--a poodle, of course--when he was a toddler. He didn't even like Skiver at first. He used to come wake us up in the middle of the night and say, "THE CAT IS IN MY BED," and we'd have to go make Skiver get out. But he gradually softened, and now he slings Rex over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and takes him downstairs with him at bedtime, and lets Rex sit on his lap and lick his ears. It warms my heart to see the child who used to shun all animals curl up in a chair with a cat and a book.

Plus they are so useful. They caught a mouse just on Saturday. I wish they wouldn't cross the road, but trying to keep a cat in your own yard is like trying to hold a moonbeam in your hand or something.

bye, bye li'l sebastian . . . you're five thousand candles in the wind

2011-10-30T01:16:00.009-06:00

TRUMPET FANFARE!

Well, friends and neighbors, according to the pencils which I numbered from one to fifteen, and from which John selected while his eyes were closed, commenter number 6, also known as All8, has won the very fun, handy, useful, dare I say life changing "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter" cookbook. Congratulations, All8! If I know you at all, this book is very well suited for you, methinks. I believe I still have your mailing address from a couple of years ago when I sent you some soap? Or something? Oh, remember when you gave me some jam? Everybody, All8 is probably the best jam maker of all time. Sour cherry . . . spiced peach . . . it is her superpower.

I'm sad the contest is over, though. "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter" giveaway contest, we hardly knew ye. Sniff! I wish I could give a copy to all of you. If Tipsy's publisher would just send me a whole box of them I could be like Father Christmas and give them to all you worthy souls. I can see why Oprah got the way she did--giving stuff away, even something small like a cookbook, is very intoxicating. Imagine the high she got from giving those cars! Same with Bob Barker. I bet that's what kept him so Dick Clarkishly preserved for so long--the giver's high.

Thanks for participating, everyone. It was fun to read what everyone likes or doesn't like to make. I've only bought buttermilk a couple of times. Sometimes I culture my own, but mostly I just use milk with lemon juice in it. I would like to do a comparison of pancakes made with store-bought buttermilk, milk and vinegar/lemon juice, homemade buttermilk made with culture, and powdered buttermilk.

Why can't I give away a hundred books?!

I was a teenage monster

2011-10-28T07:43:00.007-06:00

John has a joke he sometimes tells that goes something like this: One day Noah's son Shem came up to him and said, "Dad--there's a pair of snakes that hasn't multiplied at all! It's still just the two of them." "Okay," said Noah. "I'll go have a talk with them." A few days later Shem was checking on the animals again, and he noticed those same two snakes, only this time they had tons and tons of little baby snakes, slithering all over this piece of wooden furniture with four legs and a flat top. Shem ran up to Noah and said, "What's going on? Why weren't those snakes multiplying, and why are there so many of them now?" Noah said, "Well, they were adders. So I built them a log table."

BA HA HA HA HA!

That is a math joke that I don't even understand. I probably didn't even tell it right.

A post that Tori has up about the salted caramel trend (that is good and righteous, but unfortunately about to become a victim of its own success) reminded me how much I hate cupcakes, and how ready I am for them to be over, and how there are people who don't realize that the trend has spent itself who are still starting cupcake businesses, and although cupcake shops may continue to make money for a while, especially in places like Utah where we're a good 1-5 years behind on food trends, the cupcake thing has peaked and is going into its twilight years. Cupcakeries better start some smart diversification and line extension. Pies are the next wave, and I'm not sure what's coming after that. Let me think about it for a while. Welcome the pie, is what I say. I'd love to see a pie shop that makes an edible pie. Heck, I'd like to start one--note to Huffs: let's have that be a sister business of our set-menu restaurant.

As Tori implies in her post heading, it's the same thing with bacon. I don't think bacon will see as vituperative a backlash as I foresee for cupcakes, because it is such a worthy foodstuff, but we all need to settle down about bacon. Sometimes there isn't enough fat on the bacon, and those times make me irritated. Tipsy has a great bit about bacon in her book--I'll go find it so I don't butcher it in the retelling.

Here we go:

At some point in the last few years, bacon became everyone's naughty best friend. Even vegetarians love bacon. Dieters love bacon! There's a bacon-of-the-month club and I went to a trendy restaurant where cake was served topped with candied bacon. It was insanely delicious and also insane. People wear T-shirts silkscreened with strips of bacon and get tattoos of pigs on their biceps. Bacon, bacon, bacon, enough with the bacon. I feel about bacon the way I do about Tina Fey. Sometimes I get sick of the adulation and want to dislike bacon. Except, of course, I can't. It's bacon.

--Jennifer Reese, from "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter"

This is truth. Do you see why you need her book?

Anyway, like I was saying. Shut up, cupcakes. You are stupid and always have been because you wreck the 2:1 frosting to cake ratio. Shut up, cake balls and pops. You are moist and delicious, but you are a trophy wife.

I have it! The next trend should be old-fashioned doughnuts. Not raised doughnuts, cake doughnuts.

What food trends do you want to go away? What food trends do you love or want to see? Am I off-base about the cupcakes and cake balls/pops? Do you like fatty or meaty bacon?

who wants a present? a really cool present?

2011-10-26T07:34:00.009-06:00

My friend and yours, Jennifer Reese--known on my sidebar as the Tipsy Baker--has written a superb cookbook. I have read it from cover to cover, and although I am waiting to do a complete review until I've cooked something in every category, this is what I can tell you: I was reading it aloud to my family on the way to John's parents' house for dinner on Sunday, and they were enthralled. If I stopped to swallow or read a recipe they exclaimed, "Keep reading!" That's because she is a great writer, and the personal anecdotes are charming and engaging. It's a lovely book, and although my recipe testing is not finished, I know you're safe with at least the Vadouvan Mac N' Cheese, Isabel's Chocolate Chip Cookies, Everyday Bread, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Pudding, Cocoa, Vanilla Extract, Ricotta and Lard.

The premise of the book is that there are some things it's worth it to make yourself--a lot of things--but there are things that others do as well or better, and you don't need to waste your time on that stuff. I was illuminated and validated. It's a wonderful book. I want you to have it. And it turns out I have an extra copy!

If you would like to win your very own free, brand new, pristine copy of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, here's what you need to do: in the comments, tell us something about food. Something you love to make, something you hate to make, something you thought you had to buy but found out you don't, something you thought you could make but found out you'd rather buy, an interesting or little-known fact about some food . . . anything about food.

The contest will go until Saturday, October 29th at midnight, at which point I will randomly select a winner, and mail you your very own copy of this cookbook that, regardless of the high esteem in which I hold Tipsy herself, is now one of my Kitchen Standard Works.

how often have you been there? often enough to know

2011-10-25T11:34:00.003-06:00

I have a guest post up at Feminist Mormon Housewives today that you can read if you've got a hankering.

deutschland, deutschland, uber alles

2011-10-24T08:00:00.002-06:00

Last night I was drinking from the bathroom faucet after brushing my teeth, and I noticed the barest whisper of chilly water, which means winter faucet drinking season is almost here! It's my favorite faucet drinking season of all. Our bathroom is on the north side of the house, where there is a tangle of Pyracantha and dogwood that spans the house from front to back, so it is perpetually in the shade. Therefore, the bathroom faucet water is always the coldest water in the house, and therefore the best-tasting. But in winter it becomes ambrosial.

I drink from the faucet because I find cups in the bathroom to be needless furbelows. Frankly, I like the taste of water straight from the tap, and I'll go to my grave drinking it that way, unless I have a stroke and can't walk anymore, and the nursing home workers won't hold me up next to the sink because they are too busy stealing my identity. I feel like that last sentence has too many commas. I'm suspicious of commas. They are sneaky and always trying to use their powers for evil.

John's sister is moving, and a woman in the ward she's moving into wanted her to bring a calf, like a live Jersey calf, with her--you know, she's already driving across the country, so why would it be a big deal to bring some total stranger lady a cow? And that right there is why I could never be a real hippie. There is a large subset of the hippie population for whom the concept of personal property does not exist. For them, all resources are community resources, which is a fine idea, but not terribly respectful in practice. That's why the United Order doesn't work--there's always some jerk who holds back the cream from the communally-owned milk cow, or uses the community's corn to make mash liquor and doesn't share, or drops her kids off on your street and assumes that somebody will take care of them while she goes shopping for the rest of the day.

this again

2011-10-21T10:54:00.004-06:00

This is a good post, but I disagree with him that hamburgers are hamburgers and fried chicken is fried chicken. A grass-fed hamburger on a Lee's bun is not like a Big Mac. Oven-fried Appenzell chicken is not like KFC. Yes, there is too much snobbery and classism in food politics. But it's not snobby or classist to say that the nutritional content of the homemade burger or fried chicken meat is better. I believe this. But in addition to that, I believe that the food choices we make have ethical and moral as well as dietary implications. When I fry an Appenzell chicken at home, I know what that chicken's life was like, and what's in the breading--flour, salt, pepper and paprika. When I grill a Bingham beef hamburger, I know that the cow ate grass and silage, not grain and antibiotics. This doesn't matter to everyone, but it matters to me. I saw a comment on some article I read the other day that said the government should subsidize healthy food, not junk food. I think just not subsidizing the junk food would be a good start. It might help us balance better.

what I thought about "the illustrated man"

2011-10-19T17:12:00.005-06:00

This was a re-read for me, by my boyfriend Ray Bradbury, only it feels cheap to call him that, because he's so much more than my boyfriend. He is probably my most cherished writer. If you follow my tweets you may have seen my upset last week when I thought I had lost my signed copy of "Something Wicked This Way Comes." It was a bad day until my mom said she had borrowed it.

"The Illustrated Man" is a great collection, most of the stories strong, with recurring themes about censorship, human nature, the role of technology in our lives, how to gain self-worth, how to parent, love, forgiveness . . . I don't know if there is any important life lesson you can't learn from reading Ray Bradbury. What a treasure. I love him.

what I thought about "haunted"

2011-10-19T17:07:00.002-06:00

I can't recommend this book. It's a collection of short stories, many of them stomach churning. There are a couple that I didn't get, and maybe it's because I'm not smart enough, but deep down inside me I think it's because they weren't written as well as the others--there were holes in the narrative. There are some very compelling themes, and meat for discussion, but it's in really rough territory in places. Really rough. Like, smut kind of rough.

ever see a man say goodbye to a shoe?

2011-10-19T15:09:00.004-06:00

I'm just looking at dogs on the internet again. I don't want one, but I sort of want one. I would like a beagle again, only this time one that doesn't run into the road, and will chew on somebody's face if I need it to.

I watched Buck this morning--instant play on the much-maligned Netflix! It is inspiring. It's why I started looking at dogs again. He says the same kinds of things that Cesar Millan says, that animals manifest the problems of their owners, and that the way you learn to treat animals translates to how you treat people, etcetera. I have found that to be true with goats--they are training wheels for children. Animals, at least the animals I know, respond the same way children do. But the nice thing about animals is that when you make mistakes, if you fix them the animal is rehabilitated fairly quickly, compared to a child. I learned that from Finola. So you can practice proper parenting--staying calm, being firm and encouraging--on animals, and it's easier to repeat it with your children, who will be much slower to respond. Maddeningly slower. But the animals will give you hope and strength to carry on! You should probably have a dog or a horse or a goat.

The kids and I went out for breakfast at noon today. We are shiftless idlers! But we did fold some clothes and do some superficial vacuuming beforehand. Now they are at Crystal Hot Springs soaking up the trace minerals, luckies. Then tomorrow we're finally going to finish our patio extension and put a real gate in the goat pen that they don't sneak out of, and on Friday I'm going to learn how to do a cat eye for real. Fall break is the best!

I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

2011-10-17T16:12:00.003-06:00

Who loves cults? Brandon Flowers, that's who. He loves babies, too.

iridescent socks with the same color shirt and a tight pair of chinos

2011-10-17T11:19:00.006-06:00

At the beginning of this school year I sat myself down and did some thinking. I thought back to school years past, specifically the lunch-making portion of school years past, with mornings full of complaints about the same lunch over and over again. Homemade peanut butter and homemade jam on homemade wheat bread, with a piece of fruit. The end. And I decided that I could not take another year of that. So I made some changes.

I buy sandwich bread now. I was making five loaves of bread a week, and I always felt really stingy and rationed them, because I didn't want to have another day in the week that I had to bake bread. I still make bread for eating at home, but for sandwiches I started buying Dave's Killer Bread and Harper's Homemade right as I found out that good ingredient lists were no longer adequate, but that the bread had to be made with soaked grains. Oh well, I guess we'll all die.

I buy lunch meat. Emmett and Ike still like peanut butter and jelly, but Grant likes meat, and I'm not equal yet to the task of cooking my own meat for five days of sandwiches.

I buy sliced cheese. Yes, it's more expensive. Maybe a lot more, but I don't know for sure because I don't care.

I buy juice packets. I usually don't approve of juice, but if it keeps my kids from gazing forlornly at their classmates drinking pink milk, it's a fair trade.

I send treats. Sometimes it's a cookie, sometimes it's candy. Right now we have a huge bag of mini candy bars--the little square ones--and I send one in their lunch box every day. Yeah, kids eat too much candy. But again--if it helps my kids feel less put-upon, I'm okay with it.

I bought some good sealing containers to send sliced fruits or vegetables in.

I bought lunch boxes--Grant and Ike both got metal, Emmett got a soft zippy one with a hard plastic insert. Insulated bags are a giant headache. I was sick and tired of their lunches getting smashed, and the seams filling up with rotten fruit.

The whole purpose of making lunches is to help my kids learn to love and want healthy food, but you have to be really careful. If you are too austere your children will probably just rebel and eat candy bars and pop for lunch as soon as they get to junior high. I'm sure you all know the family in your town with the really strict, earthy parents who won't let their kids watch TV or eat junk food, and what do their kids do whenever they go to someone else's house? Watch TV and eat crap. Forbidden fruit is so sweet.

I had to compromise, both for my own sanity and my children's long-term ability to govern themselves. The lunches are not as healthy as I would like, but they beat the heck out of school lunch, and the kids don't complain anymore. They'll probably still eat candy and pop and plastic from McDonald's when they are teenagers, but I'm hoping the siren song won't be quite so powerful.

what I thought about "the chosen"

2011-10-13T14:12:00.005-06:00

What a beautiful book. I saw it on the library shelf and thought, "All right, I guess." I'd heard of it, of course, but had no idea what it was about. I thought I might hate it. But I don't. I don't even want to say anything about it, because I want you to experience the same joy of discovery I did. Please read it.

oh, darlin', I was blind to let you go

2011-10-13T10:19:00.007-06:00

When I was in high school, the summer between my junior and senior years of high school I went with my AP Spanish class to Mexico for three weeks. We saw Mexico City, Teotihuacan and Acapulco, and spent two weeks with host families in Toluca, while we were attending a school in the city and studying for the AP Spanish test. The first morning with my host family they served lukewarm shelf-stable milk and cantaloupe, my most hated fruit at the time. But I looked at it and knew that to refuse it would be horribly offensive, so I took a deep breath and muscled it down. Now I love cantaloupe. They also served me sopa de calabaza, and some soup made with a pig's backbone. I loved those. I've successfully replicated the sopa de calabaza, which was basically zucchini bisque, but the pig's backbone eludes me. I ate white shelf-stable cheese, chicharrones, cerebros and orejas and a bunch of other pastries I can't remember the names of. I went to a quinceanera where my friends Aimee and Jaime got drunk on the classic combination of rum and Coke. Mexico is where I learned that enchiladas in Utah, at least twenty years ago, are completely unrelated to enchiladas in Mexico. It's why I openly laughed at my roommate in college who said her mom makes enchiladas "the real way, like Mexicans--with cream of chicken soup and no sauce."

One day when I was driving home from school with my host sister Laura and her mom, we stopped at a little store where they had slabs of fudgy-looking stuff in all different colors. Laura's mom bought some for us, and that was my first taste of penuche candy. I obsessed about it and brought about five bricks of it home from Mexico with me. I have sought it in countless Latino markets all these years since, and have finally found real chicharrones, but not penuche. Well, like an idiot, I signed up to bring penuche to a Relief Society activity we're having tonight. We're learning about Latin America, so I thought, "hey, appropriate!" Why did I sign up to bring a candy I can't make or buy? Not sure. But I scoured the internet and made a failed batch that is caramel, broke my hand mixer, then tried a different recipe, and it is perfect. It's just like I remember. I almost wept at the exactness of the texture and flavor, which is nerdy of me, but I couldn't help it. It had been so long, and it brought back such wonderful memories of Mexico.

I used this recipe, and followed it almost exactly. I did have to beat it a little longer than four minutes.

Now that I can get chicharrones, tamales and chiles rellenos that taste like I remember, and make my own penuche with comparative ease, is there anything missing from my life? Yes, but not much.

san francisco trip, day four

2011-10-13T10:17:00.001-06:00

We got up and got ready and went to the airport and came home.

san francisco trip, day three

2011-10-12T07:05:00.004-06:00

Remember back in the olden days, when the internet was all fresh and new, and online socializing was in its infancy? There was no Facebook, no Myspace (remember that?). We were just figuring out that we could use the internet not only to ignore email queries from our parents who were wondering what malfeasance we were perpetrating at college (exploring the steam tunnels under USU's campus), but also to communicate with perfect strangers of unknown character with whom we shared interests, like TV or Magic: The Gathering. This behavior was initially frowned upon, because of the chance that someone might go all Single White Female on you, but has progressed to the point where people are rarely murdered by their online acquaintances, and in fact often prefer them to their real life friends, because their real life friends keep asking them for rides.

Thank goodness for the internet, because I have met some truly lovely people. For example, Tipsy.

On Saturday I met Tipsy for the first time. We've been friends ever since I went googling for Sumida's first name and found her blog. I think she is smart and funny and creative and warm, and I admire the daylights out of her. She's great.

She picked me up in front of the hotel, and we began our all-day conversation and eating/shopping trip. It was delightful. We ate dim sum, which included an egg tart that rivals any custard I've eaten, and Vietnamese yogurt, which is sweet and delicious and my new favorite thing. We saw some more crazy grocery and housewares stores, and those little bamboo steamer baskets are going to be my financial ruin--they are so cute! Can you imagine having a big stack of mini steamer baskets, all filled with little personal-size pies? I can't stand it! We saw the Golden Gate Bridge, and Lombard Street, and the beach, and all sorts of beautiful houses. San Francisco is just a really cool place.

I feel weird telling you about Tipsy's house and family and goats and chickens, because it seems all name-droppy, like, "Uh, I'm super famous, just like MY FRIEND the PUBLISHED AUTHOR, WHOSE HOUSE I HAVE BEEN TO and WHOSE FAMILY I MET," so I'll just say they're all lovely, and her goats really liked my boots, because they have good taste.

It was a fun day, because I got to do all three of my favorite things (talk, eat, shop). I hope to someday repay her kindness, and show her around my own stomping grounds, including the pond, the cemetery, and the pasture up the hill where Aggie used to poop.

san francisco trip, day two

2011-10-11T09:19:00.006-06:00

The main reason John and I go on vacation is to eat, so we put careful thought into our meals. For breakfast we ate at Honey Honey Cafe & Crepery (I like saying "crepery" and making it sound like "crappery," because I am a twelve-year-old boy inside). We got Crepes Suzette and Crab Cake Florentine. John hated the crab cake, because his was gross and old-tasting. But the eggs and hollandaise and crepes were all great. We recommend it. I'd love to show you pictures of it, but unfortunately we never downloaded the pictures, and John left the camera on the Caltrain, so . . . no evidence of Honey Honey, or Yuet Lee, where we ate lunch, or anything else in Chinatown, or Little Delhi where we bought naan that has ruined us for all other naan.

We walked past Union Square, which was very boring to me, and looked in Neiman Marcus a little bit. I got an idea that my bishop the bootmaker could make for me an orange purse for fifty or a hundred bucks instead of $1800.

San Francisco's Chinatown is far more impressive, at least to me, than New York's. It's squishier and that makes it seem more vibrant to me. There were all manner of exotic fruits and vegetables and flopping fish and frog legs and roasted ducks hanging in the window, plus gaudy, extravagant chandeliers, and hilarious shopkeepers who will tell you with a straight face that they just started carrying the teal color dresses--which are called "cheongsams," no idea how to pronounce--only for a month now! They are ruthless negotiators. It was great fun.

We met a man on the street who recommended Yuet Lee to us, because it was good food and we were dressed appropriately for it (he looked disparagingly at our attire while saying this). We got roast duck with noodles and sweet and sour pork. The duck noodle soup was not quite as delicious as the one I ate at Great NY Noodletown, but it was still good. Duck skin is hard to beat. The pork was good, too, and while we were there the staff all stopped working and sat down to lunch together, and one of the guys had a really deep, gravelly voice like Oscar the Grouch with emphysema, and he got into what looked like a mild to moderately heated argument with a customer. That was fun, too.

We walked back to our hotel, stopping along the way in a skeevy part of town where Little Delhi is. We waited a million years for our naan, and on the way back to the hotel a homeless man asked us for some food, and John gave him the rest of the naan. We're big old humanitarians. John almost missed the bus that was taking him to the conference. I had a nap in the hotel room, then watched Anderson Cooper try to figure out why the crazy religious nut was being mean to the less-crazy religious nut, then I went to a beautiful mall where I bought fancy chocolates and ogled shoes for a long time.

When John got back we ate some okay pizza and wonderful frozen yogurt at Blondie's. There was a man leaving as we got there who was shouting, "BLONDIE'S IS DEAD! YOU'RE DEAD TO ME!" They laughed at him because he was on drugs.

san francisco trip, day one

2011-10-10T07:15:00.014-06:00

Thursday was filled with running and almost-lateness and anxiety sweat. Let us not speak of it, other than to say that traveling with John is powerfully frustrating and stressful until you get to a place on your itinerary where there are no hard stops. If we were on Amazing Race together it would be the death of our marriage.

We dropped our things off at the hotel, which was like a Victorian Motel 6, with shared bathrooms and cupboard-sized rooms (I didn't mind it and would stay there again, and hence spend more money on food and clothes, as long as there are no bedbugs, knock on wood). Then we took a cab down to the pier and boarded our ferry to Alcatraz. It was Fleet Week, so on our trip there and back we watched the Blue Angels perform death-defying stunts in their jets, and John nearly had a joy seizure. We wandered around and admired the accommodations on Alcatraz, listening to the audio tour. We had to keep skipping ahead because we were trying to make the ferry back to San Francisco so we wouldn't miss our dinner reservation, which bummed me out. Some of Thursday's stress can be blamed on me, since I put Alcatraz and Chez Panisse in the same day, with not a lot of time to spare.

John is thinking, "What a great view!"

I am learning what happens when people get sick of spaghetti (hint: riots).

I wish I had been able to spend four hours at Alcatraz, it was so fascinating. I would go there again tomorrow if I could. Very interesting.

Against all odds we made our reservation, and our perfect dinner began.

I don't look like I was just fretting in the cab, plucking at John's sleeve and begging him to call the restaurant and hold our reservation, do I?

Everyone from the hostess to the servers to the kitchen staff was friendly and gracious, and the hostess took us on a tour through the kitchen, and showed us their meat locker. The kitchen is incredibly calm, with nobody swearing or throwing things, or even sweating perceptibly. Everyone was working quietly and efficiently at their stations, but they smiled and happily answered questions and talked about their dishes. I was overwhelmed by it all, to be honest. It was one of those experiences where after the fact you think, "Oh, I should have said that!" But it is too late now, and they'll never know how impressed I was. Not that they will suffer. The way I have described it so far is thusly: I have had dishes as good as those I ate at Chez Panisse, but never better, and never an entire, impeccable, flawless meal. The pictures were taken with our primitive camera and do not do the food justice, but I have no interest in lugging around one of those albatross cameras.

Figs and house-made prosciutto.

Onion tartlet.

Halibut.

Lamb with ratatouille and onion rings.

We forgot to take a picture of the granita with peach sherbet and peach slices. Oops, accident. And I will say that the peach was not as good as a Brigham City peach, but since I had been eating Angelus peaches the day before, and Canadian Harmony peaches the week before that, it was a competition they had no hope of winning. They can't help it that California peaches are inferior.
Everything was perfectly cooked, seasoned, sauced and garnished. I really can't describe it properly. There was very little conversation at our table, because John and I were just making food noises most of the night. The people at the tables near us were all eating like, "This ain't no thing," and I guess it's nice for them that they've eaten there and at similar caliber restaurants enough times that they're unaffected, but I feel sad and irritated that they take such gorgeous food--food into which such careful thought and preparation has been put, food that many people are not lucky enough to eat--for granted. I guess I have an immature palate.

Then we went to Andronico's, and I was envious of the variety of cheeses and bought some sheep's milk yogurt.

scoob and I can just keep the party going here

2011-10-07T10:19:00.002-06:00

I don't have time for a full recap of our perfect meal, but here is a shot of me in front of the fire where they grilled the lamb. You may be able to tell from my expression that I'm a little bit excited about everything.
And here is the outfit I wore, which was just right. I think the zebra would have been great for the weekend, but I would have felt overdressed in it last night.
I don't know how people could ever be blase about that food, but places like Chez Panisse help you to understand why California people act like they do. You know what I'm talking about. You guys, I bought sheep's milk yogurt last night, which was right next to the bottles and bottles of raw milk available for just anybody to buy at the grocery store. How could they not feel superior to the rest of us?

maybe there were a few less patients than I said

2011-10-05T09:54:00.007-06:00

I have a fun exercise for you guys today. I'm trying to decide what to wear to Chez Panisse tomorrow night, and obviously, as if I even need to tell you, I hate everything I own. But I will shoulder my first-world burden and soldier on. Here are three outfits, each with two shoe choices.1. Yellow/navy skirt, white/navy shirt, double wrap belt made by my cool bishop, brown Mary Janes or oxblood boots

2. Navy knit dress, brown striped cardigan, Mary Janes or boots

3. zebra dress, black shirt, stilletos or boots

Which of them do you think? Any of them? None of them? Should I tell you which is my favorite, or will that pollute the data pool? I think the second choice is kind of a dud, but it does look decent on. The platform Mary Janes are very elongating and slimming.

Help me, internet friends and acquaintances! You can answer in the comments, the sidebar poll, or both.

the bridges were burned now it's your turn to cry

2011-10-04T10:38:00.005-06:00

This is my spice drawer. The labels are handwritten because I'm not anal-retentive (about that), and they are alphabetized, otherwise it would be MADNESS! In the comments Eric brought up a very good point--you can buy a tiny bottle of whatever herb/spice for around five dollars, or you can buy a pound of it for about a dollar more. You see the wisdom in my jars.

It has made me wish for more drawers, however. Unfortunately there is a cabinet directly beneath this drawer where I keep my flour and sugar and cocoa powder, so I can't extend the spice drawer. I still keep the lesser-used ones in a spice carousel in the cupboard above this drawer. This is irritating to me. I like uniformity of organization schemes.

Here is a picture of some tomatoes from our garden. For perspective there is a wide-mouth jar. Here is a picture of the co-op spraying our field with poison. I felt super great about it, obviously, because it felt like letting Monsanto get to second base. But currently I don't know of another (practical, appropriate for agritainers) way to get rid of the alfalfa so we can put the field in oats for two years.

product may stay: ben & jerry's late night snack

2011-10-03T12:32:00.005-06:00

When I was in college I used to buy Ben & Jerry's Wavy Gravy ice cream on the rare occasions when I was feeling particularly flush with cash. Evidently they discontinued that flavor, while clunkers like Cheesecake Brownie linger on. Who wants sour chocolate? Now I buy Ben & Jerry's even more rarely. I don't like how they try to act all virtuous and high-end, which I think is a little disingenuous, to be honest. Because if you take a quick look at the ingredient list, it's just as full of fillers and crap as, say, Dreyer's/Edy's. That's what inclusions, fair trade or not, will do for you. Their inventive flavors are the only thing that legitimizes their ridiculous prices. And that is what brings us here today.

Have you eaten the Late Night Snack? Have you partaken?

I bought some today. I tasted it. It is fantastic. It is a perfect marriage of salty, rich and sweet. It is a wonderful flavor with terrible power. Do with this information what you think best.

do you have the time to listen to me whine about nothing and everything all at once

2011-09-28T11:13:00.010-06:00

It's been a while since I pontificated about something about which I am not actually knowledgeable. So here we go.

1. Gays in the Military
It seems weird to me that DADT was ever a thing. Why wouldn't the military want any good soldier who is willing to serve? Is there any real data implying or proving that homosexuality endangers soldiers' lives? Because of the sexual tension or whatever? If so, heterosexual men and women shouldn't serve together, either. In any case, I suspect that the expiration of DADT will have very little effect on the amount of sex being had by any of them.

2. Pacification
All you moms out there who, for instance, buy or make special bread for your kids because they don't like seeds: that's fine. But constantly caving to your children's illogical demands that they not be served food they see as unappetizing is not doing them any favors. If you allow them to steamroll you all the time, you'll end up in a place where they'll only eat mashed potatoes and ketchup. What about your desire to cook and eat something new and challenging? Don't you deserve validation? Compromise is good; complete acquiescence is not. Serve them the lamb curry in a sweet onion-tomato sauce (which is not even weird, Emmett). Sure you'll have to fight them now and then. So what? Eventually you will win--silent disgust is an improvement on vocal disgust. They'll be better, less entitled people for it, and if they're Mormons, they'll be less likely to offend someone who tries to serve them balut or chitlins on their mission.

3. Gay Marriage
Here's my overly simplistic solution: Everybody pairs up with the CONSENTING ADULT of his or her choice. If you get married by a religious figure, it's a marriage. If you get married by a secular figure, it's a civil union. Everybody gets to see their loved ones in the hospital and receive tax breaks. The end. Should a college education be a requirement? Maybe.

Is marriage being diluted? Yes, but it happened long ago, when the government got involved in a religious ordinance, and when the practitioners of traditional marriage screwed it up by being selfish and immature. So if you want to fight this battle you're going to need a time machine and a magic wand that makes people not be jerks.

4. Spice Jars
I keep my spices in a drawer next to my stove. But they were always rolling around all over the place, and the drawer is too shallow to stand them upright. I love those wee metal spice canisters with the clear lids, but they are overpriced, and that is a stupid way to spend money that I could otherwise spend on another pair of boots, or maybe an icicle crown. So I bought a bunch of wide mouth jelly jars and put my spices in them. Cute, orderly spices next to my stove, for less than a dollar per jar. And now I can buy bulk spices in fancy foil bags! It's one of the best kitchen decisions I've made.

That's what I have for today. I realize that I form opinions hastily, whether or not I have all the facts. Please inform me of any errors you see in my reasoning. I kind of have a stomachache about this post.

that golden dress is not doing her any favors

2011-09-27T07:58:00.009-06:00

I apologize if you've already seen this, but it is so worth watching even if you have. When we watched it I was laughing so hard I thought for a second I was going to suffocate. When he really hits his stride, right at "Hmm. I'm surprised at the concern!", and goes into the stream-of-consciousness rant, it is absolutely golden. The first part is too long, and there is a fair amount of salty language. Probably don't watch this with your kids or in-laws.

not the first discussion

2011-09-21T15:32:00.003-06:00

Hey! Did you know that Mormons are big old a cappella nerds? 'Course we are, myself included. My beef with it, though, is that the way popular songs get arranged for a cappella changes their sound--the chords get weighted differently, and the emphasis ends up on a different note, so it feels all wonky to listen to it and makes me sad I'm not listening to the real song. This is most pronounced with women's groups. Not sexist, true.

However: look at this. Well, look or don't look, but definitely listen.

Yeah, it would be nice if there were more bass and percussion, but still. That note that starts on 1:23ish? Wow. The lead singer is One of Us, if you were wondering. Hey, Mormons may be judgmental prudes, but some of us can sing.

It's good to see that hot pants are making a comeback? Curse my drumsticks!

what color are their hands now?

2011-09-19T20:32:00.009-06:00

I hate PTA, you guys. I don't think it would be too bad for most people on the "board," as they grandly call it, except maybe the treasurer and secretary--those both seem like crappy jobs, too. And maybe those are all the jobs . . . sad! But there is so much bureaucracy and meetings and paperwork and minutes and budgets and yeas and nays and battling with the faculty . . . I do not understand it. Anytime I go to a meeting it's like being in a war room, where they're strategizing a perpetual death match with the teachers who keep asking for money, greedies! Seems like it's pretty much a tree-killing busywork generator.

Grant's basketball coach says "cotton-picking" as an adjective. Like, "Gimme that cotton-picking ball!" I didn't know people still did that. Don't get me wrong--it feels nice in your mouth and everything, with the same syncopation and hard consonants as mother-effing, minus the swearing. But it's probably equally offensive in the right company.

I went over to Magic Wendy's yesterday to make a buck rag for Tipsy, and I have goat pen envy now. Their setup is so nice, with straight fences, gates that close all the way so the goats don't escape, a nice keyhole feeder, and no piles of wasted hay mixed with goat and chicken excrement. Sigh.

Six years ago, give or take, the Relief Society in my Lehi ward had a demonstration on making jalapeno (pretend there's a tilde) jelly (taught by one Emily Mortimer, so call her if you want a piece of that sweet action). At the time I thought, "Who are these crazy people? Who would eat such a thing?" I tried it, and it was okay, but sort of weird, what with the hot and sweet. But everybody else was throwing babies about it, they thought it was so good. And it came to pass that it was totally a gateway drug, because last year our friends the Shipps gave us a jar of habanero jelly (really jam, because it's all chunky and jammy), and I thought I could choke it down, because I'd been introduced to jalapeno jelly. The more I thought about that first time I ate jalapeno jelly, the better it sounded, and the more I started to crave it, and then I opened up the bottle of habanero jam, and it turns out that I love it. Sugary hot pepper jelly, like, why did it even get invented in the first place? But it did, and here I am, with nine jelly jars of jalapeno jam that I made yesterday with Jeny Shipp and our friend Melissa. And it is delicious to me! It goes along with my theory that the older you get, the weirder your food becomes, because your taste buds are all dead and you have palate fatigue. Pretty soon I'll be eating actual garbage. Emily's fault. Jeny's fault.

well I tried to make it sunday

2011-09-15T10:18:00.003-06:00

So, what is the deal with horses? Are they trustworthy or not? I wasn't really afraid of horses when I was a young child, but as I got older they freaked me out more and more, and now, even though I love a good gallop, there is always a tiny fear in whatever part of the brain makes fear that I will be bucked off and have my head stomped on and die from brain damage, or be kicked and die from internal bleeding. Horses can smell fear, you know. I think they can smell arrogance, too.

I know horse people on both sides of the fence--those who believe that certain horses are bomb-proof and can be trusted absolutely, and those who believe that no horse is completely trustworthy. In my opinion, a horse is an autonomous being who despite all his training may one day decide not to do what you tell him to do.

We went riding for YW last night, and the combination of horses, 12-year-old girls for whose safety I was responsible, a number of younger children, and everybody climbing on and off and running in and around the horses' legs was almost too much for me. I think I have aged five years since yesterday afternoon.

We're having meatloaf tonight. Ike requested it for his birthday, which was last Saturday. By the time we went to two soccer games and emasculated some goats all our time for making dinner was shot, and we had to spend the remainder of the afternoon shame hiding and making a birthday cake which cracked into a bunch of pieces when I tried to unmold it, so we had trifle instead, and I must say, chocolate cake and chocolate and vanilla puddings go very well together, especially when hot. Emmett made a Star Wars scene out of Lego to decorate the trifle for Ike and make it more celebratory--Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting in pudding lava, floating on Lonchera cookies. It was quite a thing.

So we're having Ike's birthday meatloaf tonight instead. Can you imagine meatloaf without ketchup? Disaster! Speaking of which, I really like Muir Glen ketchup. Try it.

come make your own contribution to this melting pot

2011-09-12T12:00:00.004-06:00

My grandparents grew up in the depression (the real one, not this fake baby one we're having now that is TOTALLY FAILING at giving us an equine rags-to-riches story). My grandma washes and re-uses disposable dishes and utensils. She will not listen to our silly arguments that she is defeating the whole purpose of disposable products. She also refers darkly to my grandpa's refusal to eat leftovers and thinks that he is woefully profligate.

John's parents have some spoons that have accidentally gotten caught in the disposal, so their edges are sharp and jagged. They will not throw them away, because John's mom is like my grandma. His dad is artistic and used to purposely put things back in different cupboards after he'd used them, so as to not stifle his creativity.

I don't do those things.

Per Tori's request I have put a new poll on the side. I hope you guys aren't sick of talking about PBJ sandwiches, but even if you are, it would be nice to have your input. I love this kind of stuff.

quotes they SHOULD be putting in vinyl, part 1

2011-09-09T20:26:00.003-06:00

Justin Boots and I have buried the hatchet. They apologized graciously, effusively and repeatedly; I forgave them and told them they shouldn't put plastic in ANY boots, not just the "Handcrafted in the USA" ones. I'm sure they'll get right on that.

Now, for our new series. I think vinyl lettering is twee and smurfy. For me--you guys are going to have to make your own choices. But anyone who's seen my house would I'm sure agree that vinyl lettering here would be lipstick on a pig. ANYWAY, there are a number of quotes that I love that if I were a vinyl lettering sort of person would be on my walls in a trice. So, here is the first one:

"It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over."
--Edna St. Vincent Millay

this has an antique mystique that's so rare in new clothes

2011-09-07T11:06:00.003-06:00

Well, the PBJ poll is closed. Let's discuss the findings. People who do it my way were the majority, true, but I was amazed by the strong showing of peanut butter + jelly on the same slice, then topped with a bare slice. That amazes me, because it seems like it would make a big jumbly mess, with the different consistencies of the toppings. But maybe it marbles it, and makes it more delicious--I had not thought about that. Maybe I'll try it. Most of you wipe the knife in between, except for a few of you whom some (not me) would call gross. That's why you do peanut butter first, really, because if you do forget to wipe, it's thicker than the jam. Peanut butter will not get into the jam, but jam will absolutely get into the peanut butter. It's a cross-contamination concern for some. Not me, because I keep my peanut butter in the fridge, and anyway I like to walk on the wild side.

This morning I put cream on Emmett's germade cereal and he raised a big stink about it, and I told him he was welcome for all the good food I make him all the time, and maybe if he's lucky he'll get kidnapped by some really horrible people who never feed him at all. It's Emmett's and my thing we do--fight about food.

We have a tomato that is pure, brilliant orange, somewhere between a cantaloupe and a mango in color. It is delectable. I want to grow it next year. It is called Amana Orange.

wouldn't it be nice if we were older?

2011-09-06T07:40:00.002-06:00

Justin Boots has until the close of business today to send me the direct message they were so concerned about, and then I'm going to have to take steps. Twitter steps. It might get ugly. Because I haven't heard a peep from them, and it's not like I want them to name a pair of boots after me (I wouldn't want my name sullied with their poor quality, for starters). I just want an apology. I want them to apologize for making cheap, shoddy boots, and for allowing their service reps to be snotty to their customers.

I am belaboring the point here, I know, but there is a reason people buy cowboy boots from a company like Justin. It's a brand they recognize as real cowboy boots, not something they could get on the clearance rack at Payless or T.J. Maxx. There is an expectation of quality, and for the boots to perform like a twenty-dollar pair of throwaways is a betrayal of trust, quite simply. Is the few cents they saved putting plastic in the shaft worth that? Is the time they save not training their employees to be civil worth it? Is that how little the name "Justin" and the company's history mean to them? WARREN! What were you thinking?

Sorry. I get very overwrought about things like this.

It's raining today, and if I lived in Seattle I'd be thinking, "Great. Looks like another day to fight suicide fantasies." But here in the blooming desert it's welcome. It means that fall is coming, which means cool temperatures and no swamp cooler making my clothes smell mildewy and pumpkins and turkeys and Jack Skellington. Yay!

I just wanted to get a look at that cute little outfit you have on

2011-09-01T12:33:00.001-06:00

Emmett's soccer coach has scheduled hour-long practices on Tuesdays and Fridays. This is in addition to the Thursday and Saturday games. If I may be frank, that is abusive of both his players and their families. This is a rec league. Let's not pretend that these kids are hotshots whose parents are seeking validation. Four hours a week playing soccer, not to mention the driving? Plus I've got another kid in the league whom I'll have to schlep around? Pass. We'll go to one practice a week and he'll like it.

Yesterday I got my hair cut (Grant and Emmett agree that they liked my long hair better), and as soon as I walked in my hair lady said, "Layne! Don't buy Justin boots! You should have stuck with the Ariats!" See. She knows. But since I tweeted them my disgruntlement, Justin Boots is now following me on Twitter and has requested that I follow them so they can send me a direct message and see how they can help. Word of advice: if you've tried the normal lines of communication and are still being treated poorly, tweet about it. Many companies have employees specifically hired to watch out for them online, and you'll get results way faster, because Twitter is so public and can reach so many more people. They know that their reputation can get bombed almost instantly.

There is a new Latino market in Brigham that will soon be getting real, true chicharrones, which prompts the question: Is there anything more delicious than crispy fat? I submit to you that there is not.

That Dinosaur Train show is so dumb. I hate it. That T-Rex is going to eat his adoptive parents as soon as he gets big enough, and he should.

I had to go to a PTA meeting today, and let me tell you, PTA is a trip. The more I learn about it the more I regret having anything to do with it at all. But schools run better when the parents are involved, and I guess we all have to do our time in the mines. So I'll do it, but I won't enjoy it. Kelly, if you're reading this, I want you to ignore what I said. PTA is great, and by the way, do you want to help with Red Ribbon Week?

been a long time, on a crooked road

2011-08-30T14:39:00.002-06:00

A video I just watched of Tipsy making a sandwich has made me curious. Please do the poll on the sidebar, or I may die. Of curiosity, like the cat.

regina coeli laetare

2011-08-30T07:54:00.004-06:00

Well, yesterday was the first day of school and I already feel like I'm on a freight train hurtling along the tracks with all of the wheels coming off, so that's pretty neat. I need my kids to grow up just so I don't die of a coronary.

Why has no one invented a seamless sock yet? All my socks have a little seam end right on the fattest part of my little toe, and it gets squishy and painful. I wish I were a sock magnate, and I would right this terrible wrong.

Last night we went bowling for family home evening. There was another family in the lane next to us (copycats!), and the dad was one of Those Guys. He brought two or three of his own balls, had his own bowling shoes and a fancy wrist guard thing, and was all intense when he bowled, spinning the ball and whatnot. He berated his kids about their "approach," and generally was a big dummy--and the thing is, he stunk! Willa, a four-year-old, out-bowled him. She out-bowled me, too, so there's that.

The baby goats hate their worm medicine. Why don't they understand that it's tasty? I thought they were herd animals, so why don't they follow the examples of Traci and Hazel, and stomp all over each other trying to get more than their fair share?

I think it might still be too hot for soup, which is a bummer. I found a recipe for a pumpkin, barley and sage soup that I really want to try. I guess I'll make it anyway, and we'll sweat and be happy about it.

Why does lunch meat smell like farts?

Peach season report:
Redhaven, Regina and Glohaven are all on right now. Go buy some! I haven't had any of this season's Glohavens yet, but I've had Redhaven and Regina. My pick is Regina, only because the Redhavens stick to their pits just a little bit.

how I came to have a blood feud with justin boots, part the second, OR product may not stay: justin L9909 boots, or any other justin boots ever again

2011-08-26T21:44:00.006-06:00

So I bought those stupid Justin boots and started wearing them, and right away I was a little miffed. The color was a little too red for me (like a sorrel horse-boo!), and they looked kind of cheap, and after I wore them the first day they were kind of itchy in the back of the shaft. But soon it was summer, and I don't wear boots very much in the summer, cowboy or otherwise. Then last night I put them on to wear to the rodeo, because who wants their sandals to get all dusty and poopy while they're watching steers get their heads twisted clean off? And they were so itchy in the shaft that I took them off to see what was going on. Well, inside the back of the shaft, sewn in there in a misguided attempt to add strength, is a piece of plastic that has cracked and is flaking off in sharp little shards. Absolutely unacceptable. This is why I buy leather shoes! So to have a boot that SAID it had a leather upper pull a fast one on me with a cheap little hunk of plastic digging into the back of my leg? WHAT THE CRAP IS GOING ON? If I'm going to live in the first world, I'm at least going to have decent shoes.

So I called Justin this morning, and straight out of the gate I knew it was going to be bad. The girl who answered the phone was sullen, she had no apology about the boots giving out on me after a mere five months, she said they don't ever take boots back and that I had to go through the retailer, and that was it, even though I politely voiced my opinion that it was a craftsmanship issue and therefore not the retailer's problem. Whatevs. Would it have killed her to say, "Oh, we're so sorry. That shouldn't have happened. Give the retailer a call and let me know if you have any trouble." But instead she lost me as a customer forever and ever, and gained instead a foe who makes up for her lack of actual power and influence with rabid vociferousness and intensity.

I called Zappos in annoyance, and they took the horrible turd sandwich that Justin had just given me, and they threw it away and washed their hands, and they said, "We're so sorry about that turd sandwich those mean people gave you. Here, have this bowl of juicy, perfect, sun-ripened peaches instead, and while we're here, let's print out a return label for those nasty boots and give you expedited shipping FOREVERMORE." They are wonderful, those Zappos people, and I am buying some replacement/rebound boots from them tonight. And they're probably going to be twice as expensive and have a big old gaudy shaft, and they will not be Justins.

Justin boots. Product may not stay.

how I came to have a blood feud with justin boots, part the first

2011-08-26T15:07:00.009-06:00

I have a lot to say today, or at least I did when I was sitting in the bandstand at the county fair with my children. It was probably some really moving stuff about home and roots and the dignity of honest labor, but I've forgotten it all now.

What I do remember is my new blood feud with Justin boots. Do you sometimes wonder how I have the energy to sustain all these blood feuds? Me too. It's a lot of work, and sometimes I have to let other things slide, like mopping the floor or serving those who are less fortunate. But it is important enough to me that I'm willing to sacrifice--because I honor my commitments. I'm sorry, it's just the way I was raised.

So, here's the thing. I have not worn cowboy boots that much in my life. I grew up in the country and have attended many a rodeo, and I dig the Western mystique and all that, but it must be admitted that there is a lot of embarrassing ugliness to be found therein. Country music, on the whole, has gone to a very bad place where they celebrate ignorance and xenophobia and carousing and loose morals and general redneckery. Of course they're singing "Sweet Home Alabama" all summer long. Durfs. Pukes are pukes, and being American does not bestow dignity upon undignified behavior.

Also once I wore my pearl-button shirt and boots (with spurs, which makes my blood run cold to remember) to elementary school and was serenaded all day long by one of the boys in my class with the chorus of "Rhinestone Cowboy." I don't think he was really trying to call me a poseur, and I'd be willing to bet that I'd spent a fair amount more time on a horse than at least half of the kids in my class, but because I actually knew what the term "rhinestone cowboy" meant, it was that much more devastating--that someone might think I was all hat and no cattle! That, combined with my growing awareness of the ookiness of the typical cowboy boot wearer . . . exit cowboy boots for a couple of decades.

But then six years ago I had to replace a pair of Chelsea boots I'd worn out, and I was in Smith and Edwards, and there was a pair of Fatbaby boots, and I did have livestock now, and I needed something practical for wearing in mud and snow and poop, and the price was right, and I was weak, and I found myself buying my own pair of cowboy boots for the first time in my life. There was a little shame at first, until I reflected on the practicality of my choice, because I do live in a mucky place, I do own both chickens and goats, and besides, I'll wear what I want, thanks.

So my first pair of boots were Ariats. Here's what I said before, and I'll say it again. They are the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. And that first pair lasted me five years. But finally the tread wore out and I had to replace them, and I thought I'd try out the Justin L9909s, because they were the same shape, looked to be of similar decent-but-not-investment quality, and they were ten dollars cheaper. This was in March of this year, as in five months ago.

there's a lot about me you don't know

2011-08-24T07:53:00.005-06:00

I didn't realize this, but apparently goats can unhinge their shoulders to get through tiny spaces. At least my goats can. I blame Lovely Rita, who has led them all into misbehavior, and now they all squeeze between the fence panels and the gate, a space that is only five inches wide at the most. I've always heard that a fence that won't hold water won't hold goats, and it seems to be true. Jerks.

Yesterday was the receiving of exhibits at the county fair. It was a sad year for us. Ike entered a pathetic little handful of cherry tomatoes of different sizes and stages of ripeness. I entered some wonky cinnamon gumdrops and the ugliest loaf of bread in the history of baking. Grant entered some beautiful oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that he made entirely by himself, except for some words of wisdom from me about "you need to soften the butter" and "are you sure that's all the flour?" He did a great job and alone among us deserves a blue ribbon. My mom entered a harvest basket that is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, full of squash and crimson long beans and onions and tomatoes--it's breathtaking. The kids were bouncing off the walls with excitement and we had to keep tracking them down to ensure that they weren't being abducted by the carnies, who from their appearances are all pervs and druggies. Ike went into the small animal exhibit and wants a pet rabbit now, because he has this idea that rabbits aren't stupid and boring. Wrong!

Yesterday was also back to school night at our elementary school, which felt a bit like being pummeled for two hours. It was hideously hot in the gym, and the line of parents stretched out forever, and I have no idea what I'm doing. Next year when I have to be the PTA president is going to be a real treat for everyone, I'm sure. Emmett and Ike have teachers who look like they're going to be great. I've applied for Emmett to be in the gifted and talented program so whenever I am around other parents I can sigh dramatically and declaim how difficult it is having a gifted child. I'm worried about Willa in preschool--I think she might be terrible. I hope Mrs. Jones survives. Grant is in my mom's class, which should be a thrilling adventure. Smart, hard-working kids always love my mom, so as long as Grant brings his A game he will have a great time.

I want to wallpaper our back hall with atlas pages and light it with an antler chandelier painted a crazy color. John thinks I'm nuts, but really I'm a genius.

The children are building a Lego chess set. They do this every few months or so, and they get all excited about it until they figure out that once they move the pieces they have no idea which are knights and which are rooks and pawns, etc.

stop this beat is killing me

2011-08-18T09:32:00.002-06:00

I don't need season passes to a waterpark again for a while. In case you were wondering.

One of my most favorite parts about being a mom is storytime. I'm sure all of you do it as well, unless you're negligent parents who should of course be jailed . . . you aren't, are you? On really hard mom days storytime might be the only positive interaction we have, which makes it that much more important. Like the church folks say, it's the time when you least feel like praying that you most need to do it.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that if you don't currently do storytime, I think you should give it a whirl and see how it works for you. It's wonderful to cuddle up together on the couch and fill everybody's brains with sweet, juicy knowledge. It's also an opportunity for indoctrinating your children with your worldview in a format that they find palatable.

I need to make some more goat wormer, but this last session of swimming lessons--eight o'clock in the morning, can you imagine?--has eaten us alive, and goat wormballing has fallen by the wayside next to bread baking and meal cooking. Since I've never seen evidence of worms in their poop I don't know that they need it, but the internets tell me that all goats have at least some worms. Hmm. Seems gross to me.

This is what I wonder about skunks: do they have a constant supply of stink? Like, in a little stink bladder? What happens if they blow the wad on a dog or something? Can they blow the wad, or does it come out in doses? If they can blow the wad, how long does it take them to fill the reservoir again? I think these questions could be answered by a book on mustelids (which family includes both wolverines and badgers, and did you know that wolverines are bigger than badgers?), or Wikipedia. If I remember, I will tell you what I find out. If you find out first or already know, then you tell me.

everything he says is true

2011-08-15T10:37:00.004-06:00

Dear readers, I want you to know that I loved Rise of the Planet of the Apes. This has been the best movie summer of my entire life, I think.

To celebrate my enjoyment of super-intelligent apes, and the ethical quandaries they present, I want to share something wonderful with you. I'm afraid I might have already shown it to you, but I think that quality cinema deserves repeated viewings. It is this (if you are a shelter-y mom like me, be warned that there are some swears):

I would say it's some of Dave Foley's finest work, but like anyone can even know that, Napoleon. It's like trying to choose your favorite child.

is there nothing I can take to relieve this bellyache

2011-08-12T07:22:00.007-06:00

I was worried at first that maybe Hellboy ate the cats, but I'm relieved to know that is not the case.

Whenever I see a bald guy with a beard wearing Transitions lenses I assume he's a pervert.

Those wire cage thingies at the bottom of cold pack canners are dumb. They're hard to use, and they just make the jars sit funny. Spend the two bucks and buy a jar lifter.

I made pickles by myself for the first time today. I have always scrounged off my mom before, but today I took the leap. The kids helped stuff the jars and put dill and garlic in them. If they turn out crappy I'm blaming the kids.

My sister Claire is coming home to visit next week, and I asked her to bring me some of that Trader Joe's O-shaped pasta, because I love funky shapes of pasta, and her Trader Joe's doesn't have them! What a rip. In New York last year when Claire and I went to the Chelsea Market I bought some mushroom-shaped pasta at Buon Italia that was the cutest thing you could ever hope to see.

There are people out there who make me wonder how they do it all--garden, preserve, homeschool, clean the house, parent kindly and patiently--and then I remember that they aren't funny. They're so freaking earnest and starry-eyed they make me want to barf. My sense of humor has cost me a lot, mainly meaningful relationships with people who would have a softening effect on my caustic personality.

I saw one of those idiotic copy-paste pledges on Facebook a while ago that was lecturing us to not take other people's rights away if we don't want our own taken away, and as an example it used, "Don't like pornography? Don't watch it." Right. Because aside from the fact that it makes people less sympathetic, less humane, and more bestial, I guess pornography is a victimless crime that doesn't infringe upon the rights of others. Because countless women and children aren't abused and tortured every year just so some piece of human garbage can fulfill his selfish desires. Good night, people are stupid. Do they even know how to read anymore?

If the climate change findings really were falsified, that is terribly upsetting. I don't know why the only voices on the issue are extremists who are so rabid about their position that they're willing to lie to get their way. Can't we all just agree that however the polar bears met their untimely end doesn't matter, because we are still pretty poor stewards of the earth? Can't we just do better and stop ruining the only place we have to keep all our stuff?

Sometimes I want to judge my fellow church members for taking their five-year-olds to violent movies. But then I remember that I have bourbon in my food storage. Agree to disagree!

because children are basically just animals you can train to do the work you don't want to

2011-08-09T22:10:00.007-06:00

I'm sorry, but I think it's ridiculous that we have the so-called seven deadly sins, and not a one of them says a thing about dishonesty. I mean, they've got gluttony and greed, which seem like pretty much the same thing, don't you think? Just lack of control of carnal appetites, right? And then there's sloth, envy, wrath, pride and lust. And envy and lust overlap quite a bit as well, do they not? So, to my way of thinking, there are really only five, maybe five and a half deadly sins. Could they not find a little room in the inn for lying?

I don't know. It seems like maybe the guy in charge of designating the seven deadlies was not paying very close attention. I bet he didn't even read the ten commandments, because I'm pretty sure there's something about lying in there.

Do you sometimes wonder if this is the beginning of the end?

only the lonely know why I cry

2011-08-08T13:47:00.005-06:00

I just ate an ice cream float with ginger ale and ginger ice cream. I expected it to be a slam dunk, but it sort of wasn't. It was okay, but I'd rather have something else.

I have a Twitter follower--I don't know why he follows me, I have no idea who he is--that I thought for sure was a spambot, but John says no, that's just how Evangelicals talk. He says Mormons talk weird, too! Is that true? Is it weird to talk about being divinely inspired to buy aluminum foil? Okay, if you say so. But at least we don't talk about having love affairs with our instruments. Because talk about gross!

Sometimes I wish I knew Ray Bradbury in real life. But then I realize that he would think I am a big dummy and it would be embarrassing.

about as high as a building oughta grow

2011-08-07T21:21:00.011-06:00

Did you know that Harmons is the coolest grocery store? Not being privy to their board meetings I can only assume what decisions were made in the last few years, but it seems to me that they could see that the low-price grocery store arena was going to become much smaller, and rather than try to compete with Walmart, which is a fool's errand in many Utah towns, they created a niche--a grocery store somewhere between Whole Foods and Macey's. Harmons stores--the good ones (NOT the Five Points Harmons)--are long on quality and short on piety, unlike some Whole Foods I could mention; although, I have loved every Whole Foods cheesemonger I've talked to. They are all charming and friendly and generous with knowledge and samples.

You may not know this about me, but I love grocery stores. When I lived alone I used to wander the aisles of the Provo Fred Meyer for hours (it's where I first learned that you could have lunch meat sliced to order), and then when John and I started dating and I found out that he was the same way? Made for each other! We went grocery shopping on our dates all the time, and a zenith in our England trip was visiting the Five Lane Ends Morrisons and Asda (Stonehenge: eh). Even now that we are boring and old with a million kids and too much to do with not enough time or money we accomplish only about half of what we should because we choose to go grocery shopping together, rather than divide and conquer. Maybe that was off-topic, but I wanted you to know that I actually have spent some time thinking about grocery store quality, so when I say that Harmons is cool you will know that I am not screwing around.

But on to our story today, which is that Harmons and UEN partnered and created a Cheese Passport in conjunction with UEN's Cheese Slices program. Each Monday they talked about a different cheese, and you could go in to Harmons and sample that cheese, and have your passport stamped. Once your passport was filled you could redeem it for a twenty-five dollar cheese plate, filled with the cheeses of your choice. I learned about it at the dairy class I went to--remember the one where I wanted that lady's sheep?

They had a big kickoff event where they had a lady come from the Vermont Butter and Cheese Company (their cultured butter alone could put my family in the poorhouse, because my kids ladled it a half inch thick onto both sides of the baguette slices), and I've been back every week since to have my passport stamped, even though the Roy Harmons has been sold out of practically every cheese on the passport. But they were good sports and stamped me anyway.

It took a long time. It's not admirable or anything; it's not like I was digging ditches. I would have been in the neighborhood anyway, because Costco. But still. I did something that took a long time, and I bought a lot of cheese while doing it, because I felt bad being all, "Hey, stamp me. See ya, sucker!" Again, I realize that buying cheese is not a really truly sacrifice.

But I want you to know that I got my passport filled, and on Saturday I went to the beautiful new Harmons in Farmington, which looks like an English grocery store, and bought a CRAPLOAD of cheese. I think I had nine different cheeses. Blues, cheddars, runnies, thicks, all of them superb. I had to pay for about half of it, because twenty-five dollars only goes so far, you know.

I used the cheese to bribe our family to come help John move the chicken run to the other side of the milking parlor. The bribery was absolutely necessary, because the chicken run is a welded metal cage that weighs a frillion pounds. We had my sister's husband and three of John's brothers and a nephew helping with the actual heavy lifting. After the boys got the run moved, almost herniating themselves in the process, we retired to the indoors to stuff our fat faces full of cheese. And I sat there, eating nine different kinds of cheese with some of my most favorite people in all the world, and I thought, I have a blessed life.

or a wig with curls, or another chance

2011-08-03T20:20:00.008-06:00

We keep a galvanized tin? aluminum? who cares? bucket next to the kitchen sink. It's where we put vegetable ends and peelings and uneaten pieces of toast and globs of soggy cereal. We call it the slop bucket, and when it gets full Emmett takes it out to the chickens. Today the young women were over helping me make dinner for a lady in our ward who just had a baby, and every time I walked past the sink I kept smelling something like a rotten potato went poop. Finally I figured out that it was the bucket, which had a thick layer of furry gray mold on the bottom. I'm not proud.

I find that after John has played the simplified version of "The Entertainer" a few times, and by "played" I mean "slaughtered," I have to go and play something to alleviate the aural irritation. It's like a song ending on an unresolved seventh--you just don't feel right. Years ago our friend Jenny told him how her mom always taught her piano students to play "The Entertainer" with the fourth note a half-step sharp, and he was enchanted, and has played it that way ever since. I bet Judy is up in heaven just laughing fit to bust at how maddening John is being.

Tonight at Fat Fighters they were talking about snacks, and about how we need to make sure we're giving our bodies the proper fuel at snack time. The instructor used as a bad example a Twinkie and a soda pop--that's not good nutrition, we all agreed. So then we went through a list of possible snacks, and how we can use the "power foods" to make them better fuel, and one of the choices for a reasonable snack was sugar-free pudding. How, class? How can we make sugar-free pudding more filling? What are some power foods we can add?

Will someone tell me what is the difference between a Twinkie and sugar-free pudding? Because I'd love to hear how one grouping of plastics is good for your body, and the other grouping of plastics is not.

were beans really the first crop?

2011-08-02T09:47:00.003-06:00

We're in the middle of school shopping. I guess I have no idea what current styles are, because I keep trying to get Grant to like certain shoes and certain shirts, but no dice. I'm almost starting to regret getting the velour tracksuit and the ridiculous boob job. They don't even work! I'm still a clueless mom!

Grant wants athletic shoes that are so durfy-looking, like he's going to work out at the gym. Stupid! Why can't he just like a nice, colorful pair of Sauconys? Why does he even watch "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" if he's not going to learn from it?

We finally found a pair on Amazon that both of us could stomach. I bet once he tries them on he will realize my superior fashion sense and defer to me henceforth.

Why isn't there a wood/plastic mechanical pencil hybrid? It would make me feel a lot better about myself.

and great shall be your joy

2011-07-31T22:15:00.003-06:00

It would be nice if you guys could check out this beauty and make a comment opposing it.

What can I say, I have Libertarian leanings. I have strong opposition to anything that makes the job of farming more expensive and more difficult. For industrial agriculture this will not be a problem, but for, say, all the independent, small-scale farmers I know and buy my food from, this is a killer.

And you guys know how I feel about centralized agriculture, right? HINT: hates it, precious. Thinks it's dangerous and short-sighted, precious.

Please grow a garden.

make him pay fifty dollars every day

2011-07-31T12:42:00.005-06:00

Yesterday was my birthday. Thank you, thank you. You're too kind. I am thirty-five now, which seems like kind of a boring age. It's not young anymore, and not old yet--right? We'll see how it goes. So far it's pretty rad.

I am a simple creature, with simple pleasures. I like eating and watching stuff, so yesterday was perfect. We went out to dinner with some friends at a terrific, pricey but not extravagant restaurant, where they make their own practically everything; then we went to a tenth anniversary party at a spa, where I got a free massage; then John and I went to Cowboys & Aliens, where I learned that for reals, you do not mess with Daniel Craig, and that Olivia Wilde may be the new Megan Fox, a development I welcome and embrace. Those toe-thumbs are so unsettling . . . but as I was saying, Cowboys & Aliens. I liked it. I think it's better than Super 8, even though the aliens have a severe physiological design flaw that you'd think they would have evolved past if they're so great.

Grant's birthday card said:
"Dear Mom,
You are the best mom I have ever had, my other moms have been mean, that is why I never wished them a happy birthday. I love you."

Is he the coolest son of all time? I think so.

Plus, I almost forgot: Thurl Bailey was at the same restaurant we were last night, and he can probably eat whatever kind of food he wants! So we must have good taste.

it's why I like the smell of cow poop

2011-07-29T14:23:00.001-06:00

By the way, I think everyone, everyone, should read this editorial. Bless Christopher Kimball.

you fool! this medicine is for a different illness from this one!

2011-07-29T11:55:00.005-06:00

I think I might start being one of those people who dries fruit. I've dabbled with it in the past, but have never committed to buying my own dehydrator. I've got an old dehydrator that belonged to my mom, and my grandma before her, but now I've got all these apricots I bought from Sumida's yesterday, and they don't fit, plus it's the 97th anniversary sale at R & R Hardware . . . what choice do I have, really?

I put the kids to work washing and pitting the apricots while I went outside to clip goat hooves, so obviously when I came back in they had thrown a good thirty or so of them away, claiming they were rotten, where "rotten" actually means "ripe."

I try to defend truck people. Trucks are very useful, and we couldn't get by without our old beater (1982 Chevy, jealous much?). But it would be so much easier for me if there weren't so many truck people driving around in monster trucks with skinhead insignia and naked mudflap girls and wolves in crosshairs and badly drawn Calvins peeing on stuff. Bleck. When we were on our way back from the Manti pageant we saw a grody perv with a mudflap girl in his back window, and one of the girls in my car exclaimed, "What a durf!" with the soul-crushing derision that is the true medium of the teenage girl. I was so proud of her.

Would you like your kids to get more magnesium in their diet, but are not sure how to do it? Just keep an open bar of dark chocolate in your cupboard on top of a stack of plates, and your children will sneak it and feel like they're getting away with something. Ha! You are a smart mom. Or dad! I don't want to be sexist.

now, tell dad what happened to your hair

2011-07-28T10:36:00.005-06:00

Would you like to know how my goat training is progressing? Okay, I'll tell you.

Long Tall Sally is calm, docile and affectionate. She walks with her head held high to the milking parlor, hops onto the stand with no fuss, and placidly eats her grain while I pet her and trim her hooves and get her used to somebody fiddling with her udder. She walks back to the pen with a little grazing stop on the way, and goes through the gate without a fight.

Lovely Rita holds her head as low to the ground as she can, and holds her front legs stiff and in the air, so I essentially have to drag her, gasping and choking, into the milking parlor. She gets onto the stand and eats with no problems, and lets me handle her without freaking out, unless I try to trim her hooves. If I lift her leg to trim the hoof she has a tantrum. Then I have to drag her gasping and choking back to the pen.

Julia is somewhere between Sally and Rita in comportment. Not as much of a basket case as Rita, but nowhere near as compliant as Sally. But she lets me trim her hooves without fighting, and that goes a long way toward redemption.

Behavior:

1. Sally

2. Julia

3. Rita

Appearance:

1. Sally

2. Rita

3. Julia

How can it be that Sally is both the prettiest and the best-behaved? I feel very lucky.

A segment of the Daily Show got me to thinking, and here's my theory: Ann Coulter has a giant Boggle cube which contains sentences instead of letters. Every time she wants to write a book she gives the cube a shake, dumps all the sentences out, and there's her book. Then when sales slow down and she needs another book she shakes the cube again, and out come the sentences in a whole new order for the next book.

like the lazy ocean hugs the shore

2011-07-25T14:48:00.000-06:00

Yesterday to church I wore my weird shoes that remind me of hooves. They're not cloven or anything, but they still seem animalesque. I asked John how I looked, because I always do (it keeps me from dressing too crazy for church), and he kind of looked sadly at the shoes and then said, "Good." He hates those shoes! He hates them even more than my boots. He says I look like a refugee from the eighties.

Our children are operating under such a severe sleep debt that they can barely function, and last night Ike came upstairs and woke us up to tell us that he had thrown up in his bed, which is a cool thing our kids do when they get really, really tired. Talk about an understatement--he had barfed on his shirt, the sheets, the down comforter, the mattress, and the carpet. I was only partially awake when he made his announcement, and through the fog of sleep I thought, "I'll just lie here for a minute or two, and then I'll get up and help John clean it up." I suppose you know what really happened. John has earned sainthood many times over for the amount of night barf and other effluent that he has cleaned up, and most of it I have only known about afterwards. He calls last night's episode Fibber McGee's Fabulous One-Acre Barf Closet.

I used to like only small-holed waffles and thought that the expensive flippy Belgian wafflers were a waste of money, but now I'm pretty sure I need one. This is how you can see that I am maturing: because my tastes are changing. I'm not so arrogant as to think I have all the answers!

well I've tried, and I've tried, but I haven't yet

2011-07-20T07:11:00.003-06:00

So, I sat in a great big chicken turd this morning.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Oh, come off it, Layne. Poop is no big deal to someone like you. You sit in poop all the time, and you probably like how it smells. Else you wouldn't have so many animals."

Well, you're wrong. It was gross. The door to the milking shed was left open by one of the children, and the filthy chickens went in there and pooped on the floor and also evidently on my milking stool, a fact that escaped my notice until I sat on it to milk Hazel this morning. If you were wondering, the smell lingers.

they knew all the right people, they took all the right pills

2011-07-19T08:25:00.011-06:00

Here's what I see going on in the debt ceiling "discussion," we'll call it, rather than "group tantrum."

The Republicans are typically the people who want fewer entitlements and social programs, they say. But then President Obama threatens to not send out the Social Security checks and the Republicans are all HOW DARE HE PEOPLE COUNT ON THAT MONEY HE WANTS TO THROW GRANDMA DOWN THE STAIRS BY THE WAY CAN WE START ANOTHER WAR YET?

President Obama is caught in the unenviable position of having made a threat that he can't follow through on without losing credibility. It's like a few weeks ago when I said we couldn't leave for Cherry Hill until everybody had eaten their oatmeal, and of course Emmett chose to die on that sword. So then I said everybody could go swimming but Emmett, and I made him change out of his suit so I wouldn't be tempted to rescind my punishment, but then everybody told me what a horrible mom I was being, and John said that it seemed pretty harsh, so we told Emmett that like Jean Valjean he deserved to go to prison, but not for nineteen years, and I bought him a swimsuit at the water park. He needed a swimsuit anyway, and he did miss out on half of the day of swimming, but the chief result of the whole shebang was that I looked like a giant idiot, because I had made a ridiculous threat. Good luck with that, Mr. President.

People are sobbing about how other countries won't trust us if we default. Well, why should they? We are being big old deadbeats.

And I am confused, not being a comprehender of fiscal matters, but if we don't have enough money to pay our bills unless we raise the debt ceiling . . . doesn't that mean that we just use more borrowed money to pay the bills if we do raise the debt ceiling? Doesn't that put us further in debt?

Basically I see a lot of bravado and political theatre going on, and very little attention to the actual problem, which is that we buy stuff we can't afford. We can't afford wars and social programs and endless government expansion without raising taxes. So all these nincompoops need to sit down and hold hands for a while until they can say "I love you," and then they need to do some actual work, instead of standing around peeing on each other. They might want to work on differentiating between wants and needs, and then they can try making necessary but unpopular changes, even when it's an election year.

But that's just me, and Orrin Hatch has already told me in a patronizing form letter that I am not smart enough to make decisions about governance.

now he's poorly from too much electric

2011-07-18T06:45:00.004-06:00

Sometimes I worry that I'm not well informed because the only news I get is from NPR. It's eclectic and intriguing, and they don't yell at me. But then I don't hear about people murdering their girlfriends or cougars attacking people in their yards. Are these things I should know? I wonder. I already think most people are dangerous scumbags, and I am already afraid of mountain lions, so maybe the local news is redundant affirmation of this. Mountain lions are very pretty, though. Their tails are the best ones among the big cats, and I'll go to my death saying it.

I would like to see the Forks Over Knives movie, but already I can see some potential disagreements I'm going to have with their premise. I wonder if they mean no meat at all in the diet. Less meat, meat sparingly, that I can get behind. But no meat? Hmm. We'll see what they say.

One of the previews at Harry Potter was for Cowboys & Aliens, which seems like it was made specifically for me. Maybe I should read the book?

in which I am a goober

2011-07-15T11:16:00.004-06:00

I am in mourning a little bit, even though I knew the end was coming, and the real end came the day I finished reading book seven, not last night.

I am feeling very navel-gazey about the whole thing, and have written a sloppy, indulgent post on the cultural and spiritual importance of the Harry Potter series, which I daren't post because it is so totally goobery.

Just know that all those years ago, when the first two books had been released and everybody was throwing babies and fainting about how awesome they were (except for those nuts who were afraid of the books spawning a generation of Satanists), and I was dismissive and suspicious, and said to my coworker that they couldn't possibly be worth the amount of hype they were generating, and she convinced me to read them . . . boy, was I wrong. They were worth every bit of the hype, and so much more.

I wish I could have my memory wiped and read them for the first time again.

I give fair warning to my real-life associates that for the next few weeks this is probably all I'm going to talk about.

with the bad-a boys, always shoot-a pool

2011-07-14T07:51:00.003-06:00

John and I went to our city council meeting last night. We had another farcical discussion about biodiesel, that consisted mainly of the city council putting their collective fingers in their collective ears and shouting "blah blah blah I can't hear you blah blah."

I kid. They were sort of like that, but I don't think they're actively trying to make us miserable. They really do think this is the best thing for our city. I am puzzled, but it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round, I guess, including old people who wash their driveways and people who like factories by houses.

John, under duress, registered to run for city council this fall. He would really rather that I do it, but he's a lot more likeable than I am. Plus he is fair and open-minded, and will do a good job. He's a Hufflepuff for sure.

there's always one who screams and wakes everybody up

2011-07-13T07:05:00.003-06:00

I watched Secretariat yesterday. It was a very standard movie of its sort, but it turns out that I am easily charmed by the sight of a running horse, and can be persuaded to pardon heavy use of twee and disregard for facts.

I was instantly made very uncomfortable by his groom, who got the Magical Negro treatment, but then, Eddie Sweat was a real guy who was tremendously talented in his handling of the horses. I know people like that, who just get animals, and it does seem a little magical. So maybe Disney is not being lazy and racist? It was a fine movie, and I liked it, but I do wish there had been more horse stuff.

I've been trying out cell salts. So far I can tell you that they seem to have no effect on vomiting.

Harry Potter tomorrow night. I can't talk about it.

his wings as drifted snow, his eyes as flame

2011-07-11T07:14:00.004-06:00

We're having teff for breakfast. I'll tell you straight up: as a breakfast porridge, for my timid Western palate, teff is pretty sucky. It's too savory, and tastes weird when you try to sweeten it. So I'm going to try it in a grits-type application, with an egg on top. Whining projection: moderate to extreme. Right now it smells kind of like barf.

I bought some beets from the fruit stand last week. I think I might try to be really brave and make some kvass. I tried it a month or so ago, and was sure I'd hate it, because I hate beets so much, but it was actually kind of yummy. Much more easily acclimated to than straight beets. I've gotten to where sufficient amounts of butter and salt make beets kind of tasty, but that was years in the making. Being a grown up and a good example to my children is a lot of hard work.

Our first cutting of hay is essentially garbage, totally full of June grass. The goats won't have anything to do with it, understandably. After all, Traci did get a big old goiter from a piece of June grass working its way down her throat, so she is probably a little gun-shy. This situation is irritating to me, and I'm trying to figure out what crops to overseed with, and I'm scared to talk to an extension agent, because I'm afraid he'll just think I'm being weird to not plant it all in alfalfa. I like alfalfa fine, but shouldn't they be eating something else, too? I hope the internet has the answer.

It looked for a minute like maybe the biodiesel plant was dead in the water, but it has made a small, lurching step forward. I feel quite confident in saying that even the fact that the guy was totally incommunicado for almost two months will not give our city council any qualms. They are past the point where facts are going to affect them. I'm pretty sure that we're going to get a big metal building behind our house, then the guy is going to go bankrupt because his business plan is SHEER IDIOCY, and Honeyville will be left holding the bag. However: even with the biodiesel plant, I don't want to move. I like it here. I like the people, except for the crappy ones who are putting a biodiesel plant behind my house (I hate those guys), and I would be bereft without my collective of weirdos. Where else am I going to find people with such an eclectic collection of interests and abilities? Magic Wendy saved Rita's life, you guys.

Update: the teff was great. For me. The kids hated it because they are crazy, and because they are neophobes unless it's layered restaurant food. I put a sunny side egg on top of it, and it made it very much like grits, which I love. I just love porridgey things. I think that means I'm a peasant.

I was a chubby lady hiding in the bushes

2011-07-06T15:31:00.003-06:00

You guys. I am being the best goat husband this year. I have a little trouble with that terminology--the "animal husband" stuff--because it makes me feel butch, which I already sort of am, so it makes me feel self-conscious. I would like to say goat wife instead, but I think it might not be accurate. Are the animals always the wives and the farmers are always the husbands? That brings in some farmers are to livestock as husbands are to wives overtones, which is highly unsavory to me, being a Liberated Woman (like I said, butch). What is the protocol?

But as I was saying, I am so good at my job right now. I have been taking the babies up to the the milking stand and feeding them grain while I pet them, thereby helping them to associate the milking stand with food and affection. They are giant freaks about it still, but they're coming along.

I am trying to look objectively at my overwhelming desire to buy the apple orchard. Is it merely greed, or are there other factors at play? I know that part of my yearning is to keep the orchard from being cut down and developed, but is there also in the mix a longing for food security, and a desire to be part of the solution when the year-round buffet of out-of-season food comes to an end? Are these sensible thoughts? Do I truly understand the magnitude of the responsibility I would assume if we buy this land? Just how dirty can I allow our house to become in my quest for more and more arable land?

Well, it may not be an issue. We can't get the realtor to give us a straight answer about anything, and the comparative pittance we'd pay for the 2-something acres we're looking at is not winning any friends.

The stupid bees have left. There were quite a few stragglers at first, but now they're all gone, too. I don't know why. Maybe they got too hot on the south side of the garage. What a nightmare. But unless we find a swarm we're going to have to wait until next spring to get more.

but he can't can-can like the sardine can

2011-07-04T14:49:00.004-06:00

We went to a parade today in delightfully cool weather. BUT THERE WERE NO BANDS! What is happening to our country that there is an Independence Day parade which contains no stomping high-schoolers tootling Sousa? Disgraceful.

We made sure to keep all of our candy wrappers in our pockets until we got to a garbage can, because we are decent human beings. Such was not the case with the people across the street from us, who left a miniature ocean of wrappers in the gutter where they sat. On the way back to the car their group was walking in front of us, and they were just dropping things as they walked--candy wrappers, ice cream wrappers, empty water bottles. It was really something to see. We picked up after them, because as I told you, we are decent human beings. What kind of person just brazenly drops garbage wherever they are? Being a literate person, and a consumer of periodicals, I understand that there are people like this in the world, just as there are people who torture animals or children, or think that processing oil shale is a good way to produce energy, or earn a seven-figure salary running a non-profit homeless shelter. But it's always upsetting to witness such behavior first-hand.

Now I think I'll go invent something to celebrate America's birthday. I already invented Magic Shell, so that's a no-go. Maybe a sandwich that's on fire? Seems pretty patriotic.

once you're on the tiger's back he's going to take you places you never thought you'd go

2011-06-29T10:17:00.005-06:00

Yesterday we went with our wonderful friends the McAllisters to the water park formerly known as Raging Waters. It's under new management by Seven Peaks, which means two things; 1. that it's on its way to being slightly cleaner, and 2. that they are going to kill you with the add-ons. We went to the Provo Seven Peaks last year, and by the time I had paid for parking, paid for tubes, and found out that if I wanted to use a "cabana," otherwise known as "the only shade in the park," I would need to pay another twenty--or was it thirty?--bucks, I was pretty much over the entire experience. Add to that the miasma emanating from the ancient mats around the wave pool that saturated the airspace of the entire park with the suffocating aroma of mildew and dirty feet, and you've got a place that I will gladly never visit again. I could have gotten past the extra charges, and my kids think that there might be a few more fun things to do in Provo, but I cannot abide the smell. It is inexcusable. Heads up, Seven Peaks: if you're going to charge like Disney, you'd better clean like Disney. So far the Salt Lake one does not smell. We shall see.

So it was a much better time had by all, although Jenny did get one and almost two of her towels stolen, which was a total bummer. People are weird and dishonest. In related news, I think I might start calling fake boobs "plastic boobs." I have a whole lecture re: the subliminal message and moral implications of plastic boobs that perhaps I will share with you once I get it distilled into articulate thoughts. You are eager, I am sure.

John thinks I'm crazy for wanting to live in a Quonset hut! But he says he's willing to listen to me and have me illustrate my vision. You guys, it would be so groovy. But I did read that they are wicked expensive to insulate because of their weird shape. I will brainstorm. Right now my preferred path forward is to keep this house and land, plus buy the apple orchard land down the street, and thus slowly proceed down my path toward total world domination.

I am reading "The Town that Food Saved" (link on the sidebar) right now, and it is so, so great. I had a little struggle getting into it, because his voice seemed a little bit manufactured at first, and I think I may have a fundamental disagreement with him on a couple of principles (I don't think EVERYONE should have to be a farmer, which it seems like he might be saying--I will reserve judgment until I finish), but it is engrossing and inspiring and full of the same kinds of questions I ask myself all the time, and I love it. The characters in it are so like the characters in my own life, the people I know and love and respect and from whom I have learned invaluable lessons. You must read this book.