ARGH

Spoke too soon. Sometime in the night, Piper managed to reopen her leg. I’m off to get bandaging supplies until we can get her to the vet tomorrow.

Minor setback

While I was living the excitement of CPR recertification today, Piper went for a walk with Spouse and somehow opened a couple of inches of incision. While I faux-shocked dummies, Spouse took her to the vet where she received additional staples and antibiotics.

Rather than the staples coming out next week, she gets to be FrankenDog for an additional 7 days.

In unrelated news, there is a trip to DC afoot! I am very excited as this is our first real travel since the NOLA conference *and* it’s to another awesome city where I *also* know awesome internet peoples. I love the web, y’all. It is no lie.

There’s also this weird thing where, when explaining internet friends to people who do not have internet friends, it feels like it devolves into a history of how I am an internet nerd. Probably these days I should just say I met people on Facebook?

SOPA boycott – I’m not the only one

Originally posted by at Seems I Am Not The Only One….

Double Feature

The other night we watched Ides of March and Shark Night. Yes, I know, it’s a PERFECTLY LOGICAL combination.

Ides of March was solid, but I kind of feel like Clooney gets nominated for taking a shit these days. I mean, it was good but I don’t think it was better than State of Play (which got NO love when it came out). Evan Rachel Wood is pretty fantastic in a small part and everyone else is basically exactly as good as you think they’d be.

Shark Night. Oh, Shark Night. Where do I even BEGIN. This is the kind of movie that is best enjoyed with a pitcher of alcoholic beverages close at hand and a group of friends intent on shouting at the screen because it can be a drinking game on FIRST VIEWING. Drink when what you think will happen, happens!  It is positively chock full of every terrible movie cliche and stereotype and the two of us alternated predicting the next scene/action and shouting at the tv. It is hilariously awful and I can only assume the actors were playing it that way knowingly, otherwise I am VERY concerned for this Katherine McPhee tv show coming up. Also, when you rent the DVD (and you really should) you MUST watch through the credits for the cast-made RAP VIDEO. NO I AM NOT JOKING. Yes, my soul died just a little bit because Spouse insisted we watch it all the way through. It is a cherry on top of the godawful.

We watched The Debt the other day and I don’t think I wrote about it. I heard a review of it at some point that said “It feels like it should be better than it is” which is absolutely and utterly accurate. That is not to say there weren’t some great performances, because there were, or that the story wasn’t interesting (it was) but it was missing a little je ne sais quoi that would have made all the difference.

FrankenPiper recovers

In the first week of the new year, we found out Piper had cancer. Mast cell cancer, which is vastly to be preferred over the osteocarcoma that our dog Lola developed. This week Piper had surgery to remove three lumps and the vet couldn’t locate her lymph node which seems to make a good case for it not being involved. All the lumps were subcutaneous, so there was no cutting of muscle tissue.

Piper has drugs and has had humans home with her all day for the last couple of days, so it’s safe to say she’s not that unhappy in her current circumstances. In two weeks the staples come out and in the meantime she’s taken JUST FINE, thankyouverymuch, to using a step stool to get on our bed. Also, peanut butter and bacon treats.

Oh my fucking GOD you guys

My new scrubs finally arrived. I ordered them on December 29. This was not my favorite online shopping experience ever and let’s just leave it at that.

But the SCRUBS. Dude. I am marginally embarrassed that they say Grey’s Anatomy on them because SERIOUSLY but the tags are small and unobtrusive and HOLY SHIT THEY ARE SO COMFORTABLE that I almost don’t care. Almost. They are fantastic colors and they are so soft but sturdy that it was totally worth it. Not worth the WAIT, maybe but still worth it. Awesome.

This is random because I’m sitting in front of the TV but CBS just interrupted New Hampshire primary coverage for NCIS. I laughed out loud. Because bitchez, we know our old peeples like their NCIS and we are NOT giving up those advertising dollars for an election that doesn’t really COUNT yet!

Unrelated, the 2012 book list is underway! I powered through the first six Harry Dresden books (I’d previously read 1-5) and had forgotten exactly how much I enjoyed them. Now I’ll have to pick up the rest. In the meantime, I’m partway through The Last Werewolf which is – thus far- as interesting as everyone on the internet said it was. I’m reserving judgement until it’s over, though.

We saw Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol over the weekend. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Tom Cruise may be batshit nuts, but he works his ass off to try and make a good movie. I enjoyed it pretty much EXACTLY as much as I’ve enjoyed the others (which is a good thing) with a bonus of Simon Pegg. Afterwards I got snagged by a studio focus group person to answer some questions about the movie and about the movies we saw previewed. Wow, y’all. There’s about to be some SHIT coming out.

My favorite part: Why wouldn’t you see Ghost Rider?

Me: DID YOU SEE THE FIRST ONE? It was fucking TERRIBLE. (she actually had to type that all out. I was amused.)

Her: What could we change about the trailer to make you more likely to see the movie?
Me: PUT ANYONE BUT NICK CAGE IN IT. He’s been terrible ever since The Rock. In fact, put The Rock in it and I might go see THAT.

This was apropos of The Rock being in the equally terrible looking sequel to GI Joe. My response to that was ALSO Did you see the TERRIBLE FIRST FILM?

I won’t lie, I had a bit of fun with the fact that she was having to type my responses verbatim.

They don’t give you money or anything for doing those surveys but, as I told Spouse, if I’m going to keep bitching about the shit movies Hollywood is putting out this is the LEAST I can do to try and help. As it is, we rarely see films in theaters [response to actual question from survey lady: We like to see shit blow up.] but if you’re going to give me a chance to have input I’ll stop and answer the questions for the common good.

Surprise from the survey: Spouse saying he’d be most likely to see Snow White and the Huntsman (versus other previewed films) because of the people in it. Huh.

Happy 2012!

We had a pretty fantastic party last night – great conversation, great food and fantastic music. It’s good to have a social circle, kids. This morning we did a quick clean up (We were all up until 2:30! What kind of crazy is THAT?), breakfast and I’ve been paying bills while Spouse catches up on Wingnut Weekly, aka Sunday morning news shows.

I’m beginning the new year a more chocolately shade of brunette than I was, my hair is longer than it’s been in 3 years and I’m really happy about my new job. My reading goal is going to be 55 decent books again. I’m going to do a bit more yoga blogging than I have been doing, I’m just debating whether or not I want to make it a separate blog. Incidentally, if you’re interested in meditation, the most recent issue of Yoga Journal is pretty excellent.

Things I have loved this year- web and music

Websites:

I found Forever YA through my mad love of the Hunger Games series and this post pretty much sums up what I love about the site. Their recs of the best of the year cover a wide range of topics, narrators and genres. The conversations I’ve seen and participated in have been interesting and I frequently found myself bookmarking their recommendations.

Jezebel continues to be my go-to pop culture website. I love the snark and social consciousness and their no-holds-barred shouting about those who belittle/denigrate/reduce/disempower women. Also, the snark.

The Daily Dish has provided interesting political commentary from many sides (I rarely click through from my RSS feed, but still) and Questionable Content remains my favorite webcomic despite having flirted with a few others this year.

Paste has filled my GReader with lovely music tidbits and the BrokeAss Gourmet has given me good recipes as well as some culinary inspiration.

Possibly my single favorite recipe of the year is this one for General Tso’s Chicken, which proves that you CAN make takeout in your kitchen that tastes JUST as good as the restaurant.

Goodreads has not only been great for conversation about books but their book challenges (self-determining) and bookshelves have made a nice way to keep track of what I find interesting and what I’ve been reading. Twitter and Google Plus require no links but are my social media outlets of choice. My twitter feed is embedded on this site and it’s my first line social updating mechanism on my phone. I like Google Plus for different reasons – I’m more likely to share things there (links, comments) because it feels more like conversations and has far less asshats than does facebook (which I log into – at most – once a week).

Music:

This was an amazing year in music helped in no small part by the early 2011 release of The King is Dead by The Decemberists. It’s a fantastic and engaging album which even turned Spouse on to their tunes. In concert, they were every bit as amazing as their recordings and the house-crushing rendition of The Mariner’s Revenge is one of my favorite music moments of all time.

The Black Keys released another album (El Camino) and continue to THE band I want to see at Red Rocks. Spouse loves their work, too and it was difficult to determine who was more excited about the latest record. The bluesy-classic rock mashup style consistently makes me want to MOVE and it’s impossible to be in a bad mood with this in your ears.

One of my vendors was playing something on his phone while working and it grabbed my attention in an unexpected way. “What IS that?” “The Cat Empire.” This began my obsession with Two Shoes which led to my purchase of their entire back catalog and not finding a single beat of disappointment on any song in any album. They describe themselves as a ska/reggae/jazz band and I defy you to find anything wrong with any part of that.

Miranda Lambert has single-handedly brought me back to country music. Between her latest album (Four the Record) and side project (The Pistol Annies), she is my new female music hero. Smart and snappy lyrics without the heavy pop sound a lot of country musicians are leaning on, she defines “kick ass”.

Feist and Florence + the Machine both put out new work which I enjoyed a lot but didn’t grab me like the aforementioned records. I’m also going to admit to enjoying Taylor Swift’s Speak Now. And I know everyone’s been creaming their pants about Adele’s 21 but I’m straight up going to tell you this was an album fungus for me. On first listen I wasn’t knocked out and thought it was fairly derivative of 19 (which DID knock me out, for the record) but it definitely grew on me. It was not my default listen of the year, though.

Baby, Darling, Dollface, Honey by Band of Skulls – I can’t remember when I got it but I definitely played it a lot this year. Grab you by the balls guitar rock.

Harlem River Blues by Justin Townes Earle, The Head and the Heart (self titled),  Sigh No More by Mumford and Sons, Guster’s Easy Wonderful and Sarah Jarosz’s Follow Me Down round up my most-played indie/folk albums of the year.

In dance music news, I had Femme Fatale (Britney) and Cannibal (Ke$ha) in hard rotation along with Robyn’s Robyn and Body Talk. When I was increasingly frustrated at work, these albums helped prevent me braining coworkers by chucking pallets at them overhand. Both Britney and Ke$ha had to grow on me – while several of the songs are out of the gate badass there are a couple of fungi in there. It got to the point where I even liked THOSE songs, so that says something. Robyn, on the other hand, INHABITS dance. I’m inclined to believe she can’t make a misstep when it comes to her album picks.

James Blake’s debut album is also excellent, blending a post-dub sound with mellow jam and making it perfect for entertaining.

Next post: apps, podcasts and TV

My hope for the new year

That everyone – no matter what you believe – prints a copy of this and puts it on their desk or in their office. Because really? How can it NOT make things better?

Seriously, people. Shit is tough, but you CHOOSE to be an asshole. Take a breath. Don’t be a dick.

My holiday gift to you

I spent a large chunk of today looking about the web for a good way to corral the recipes I find online, add my own and have access to all of it on my phone. Since I’m a nice person, I shall share with you the fruit of my labors.

First and foremost, I spent a worthwhile bit of time consolidating and organizing my bookmarks in Chrome so that it syncs them all and everything is in easily identifiable folders on all the computers I use. AMAZING. There is no proper reason for me to feel as smug about this as I do.

Some time ago I purchased the Real Simple android app and it was worth the $5. You get to choose the amount of time you have to cook as well as a protein and then it gives you a list of options to choose from. Every recipe I’ve ever made from Real Simple has been fantastic and the app is a collection of those.

Today I added OurGroceries (free), so that Spouse and I can avoid duplicating purchases at the grocery store. It syncs the lists so we each know what we need and can check them off as we go.

But what about the initial premise- adding stuff I find online and my own recipes? I attempted My Cookbook first but when you attempt to add a recipe from a webpage, it’s rather a shit show as to what will actually import correctly.

Through a vast amount of googling and some trial and error, I tripped upon ChefTap (free). I tend to be skeptical of anything that claims to be “the first” to do anything but I’ve got to tell you this app is the shit. I imported recipes from no less than 5 websites, all of which look vastly different in structure, and where MyCookbook failed ChefTap kicked ass. They imported brilliantly and formatted exactly as desired. The only downside to this app: no desktop, so you’ll have to do the browsing from your phone or send yourself links to add the recipes from webpages. On the other hand, it’s vastly superior to me having to type in ANYTHING on my own.

As a second bit of awesome, ChefTap will also sync and import any recipes from epicurious.com and allrecipes.com (neither of which have mobile apps that sync across all platforms). This has persuaded me to open an account at epicurious and the sync feature is pretty brilliant.

In related free apps, I also got Sweet and Spicy Indian Food so I’m pretty stoked to try that out as well.

I’m starting to add my frequently made/favorite recipes/recipes from mom on Epicurious and then searching out other faves online so that I’ve got them with me all the time.

I also took a bit off the BrokeAss Gourmet’s Cranberry-Zinfandel Brownie Bites and adapted them for fresh cranberries and high altitude. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, thought I think I might want a mini-cupcake pan since I made mine in regular cupcake liners.

Incidentally, this was all prompted by making a fantastic General’s Chicken recipe for lunch today and wanting it on my phone for a shopping list. Spouse is working out and I’m couched in the basement with a bottle of Snow Day and Dr. Who Netflixing on my TV.

Hppy

Hey girl, I’mma leave this post

Yes, that’s a Ryan Gosling/Kanye West meme mashup. Because THAT’S the kind of nerd I am. Know what other kind of nerd I am? I got a Littman II Classic and that motherfucker is LIKE MAGIC. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s totally fine – just keep scrolling.

Book 59 of 50 this year turned out to be The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. I remembered enjoying The Historian but not so much I wanted to purchase this particular book, so I checked it out from the library. The premise involves a mystery surrounding a painting and the disturbed artist who attempted to attack it. It’s told in varying viewpoints by the shrink, the artist’s wife, the artist’s mistress and a painter in the 1800s.

There was probably not a single twist I didn’t predict, which is not a dealbreaker for me. I was thoroughly uninterested in the mistress, so I skimmed her chapters. The language, while lovely, was a bit… forced throughout. For example, you can write the way people speak or write the way they’d write (which is frequently more lovely) but you can’t purport that speech patterns are the same as writing patterns as I’ve literally never met anyone in my life who speaks exactly as they write. That was just a bit weird.

I think my biggest complaint is that it took the best story elements and techniques from The Blind Assassin and Possession and just didn’t deliver well on it. It doesn’t help that those are two of my favorite novels but I was predisposed to enjoy the premise and the mode of storytelling and ultimately for me it just fell a bit flat. Which is not to say it was BAD because lord knows I’ve read some absolute shit this year that I wouldn’t even talk about (hence the 50 list) and this was a good read, it just fell a bit short of its potential.

Hrm. Self edit here: I looked at my review of The Historian and apparently I DIDN’T enjoy it that much (I gave it two stars), so I guess this comes out ahead at 3 stars.

Unrelated, I’ve been inspired by the BrokeAss Gourmet and I think I’m going to create a recipe for Dark Chocolate Cranberry brownies. I’ve got spare cranberries.

Also, Dear WordPress: I KNOW there’s an update but I’m not installing it until I’m completely convinced it will not utterly fuck up my site. This is because I had that whole snafu earlier this year with my site being utterly b0rked and that’s not how I’m looking to go into the new year. I’mma let you update in my own damn time.

Homeland

The reason that Homeland was the best thing on TV this year is because nothing has looked at loyalty, patriotism, terrorism and personal identity like this since the BSG reboot. They’ve handled mental illness deftly and with not only compassion but sympathy. Claire Danes has been nothing short of brilliant and Damian Lewis predictably awesome. Unlike BSG, which put you in the position of empathizing with the “terrorists”, Homeland has taken a hard look at the reasons that people believe in extreme measures – on both sides. What is perfectly clear is that there is no black and white and that there are no absolutes when it comes to defending those beliefs. Both sides are wrong, both sides have valid points, both sides make colossal mistakes. Homeland has taken come intense and complex stories and unthreaded them in a compelling, edge-of-your-seat way. The finale was just as unexpected as every other episode and just as gripping. I can’t wait to see what they do with the next season.

Hausfrau Dinnerblog

I know. Dinner is wicked exciting.

This week there was a kind of awesome post over at ForeverYA about traditional Sunday dinner, which made me want to make a pot roast. Instead of using chuck roast, I bought top round and baby carrots instead of having to cut things up and I also chucked in some sliced mushrooms.

The recipes also include one for brussel sprouts which I’ve eaten exactly TWICE and liked them (once I made them myself, with bacon). It has a prune (gack) and balsamic reduction but I think I’m going to use some thick cut bacon, balsamic vinegar and medjool dates. That sounds way more tasty. The roast is currently cooking with veg in the oven, basted with New Belgium’s 1554. I’m dorkishly excited about blanching the sprouts because I think the key is to not have them too mushy. Plus, bacon. How can I possibly go wrong? Add the sweetness of the dates and the tart of the balsamic, I’m stoked about seeing how this concoction turns out.

Link to the Forever YA article. Aside: I love their LadyNerd series.

I’ll admit it

I spent an embarrassing amount of time this weekend watching cheesy holiday made-for-tv movies on the Hallmark Channel. Ridiculous. Some of them were actually worth it, though.

I finished book 57 over the weekend – The Postmistress. It was similar in tone to The Distant Hours (though I felt The Distant Hours had a more compelling story) and is set in the same time period. While I enjoyed it, I had the sense throughout the entire book of WAITING for something to HAPPEN. And then when something happened, it felt like I went back to waiting another several chapters. Hrm. Of the two, The Distant Hours is to be preferred.

Thanksgiving prep, part deux

Thus far I have obtained:

a turkey (already thawing) 11 lbs

brine and aromatics

ingredients for one cranberry sauce recipe

ingredients for most of a second cranberry sauce recipe

ingredients for mulled wine

ingredients for mom’s stuffing

fresh green beans

things I still need to obtain:

more cranberries

an orange

ingredients for my mother-in-law’s mac and cheese

ingredients for pumpkin torte

things I should probably delegate:

rolls

another side dish

pumpkin pie?